Merc - Wtf?
 

Seriously, Merc, wtf?

Come back man.

Or don't. #chiponmyshoulder #idontcare #stillholdingagrudge #hesstillanasshole

No, do. Come back, merc.

I would be very happy to see mercy return to the cellar. I don't know why he's not here, he may well have good reasons. I'm sure the other places he's spending his time are made better by his participation there, but his absence here is a net loss for us.

I do miss Mercy.
He could be a git, but there was a lot about him I liked.
And he participated across the forum (for good or bad) rather than being a one trick pony.

I'd like to see him back.

I've been in touch with him via FB. I even talked about this very issue.
Odds of his return are extremely small.

:celebrat:
sorry i'm not sorry but the guy's a gaping asshole.

No he's not.

I note that you are emphatic in associating some words, some actions with a raging negative assessment of him as an individual, a person. An open forum like this is a glass house. Do you expect the same treatment based on some of your words or some of your actions?

Well, that's a damn shame.

Nobody who isn't fundamentally a shitty person does stuff like this. He's a bigoted shitbag.

I've always liked Mercenary. I don't participate in the politics section, so he has never said anything to offend me. Frankly, I've seen many people jump on him pretty hard whenever he says anything not very PC (ok, that's a bit of an understatement.) Anyways, I miss him too. :D

That's a terrible thing for him to say to you.

I've seen that before, and I've seen a number of other statements that are shitty too. But there's a fundamental difference between what a person is, and what a person says. Of course that goes both ways. I've heard sweet nothings that came from the lips of people who acted very differently. Furthermore, we've all had the experience of speaking in anger, overreacting. I won't speak for mercy, nor for you. But I know that the words we see here are the barest sliver of what makes us whole, makes us human.

I'm not trying to change your mind, only you can do that. But I can assure you that there's a great difference between a person's words and a person's humanity.

Aw, did he hurt your feelings? I suggest you toughen up before you hit the real world, 'cause they're going to get hurt a lot more, with your readiness to "correct" people you don't do/say things your way.

I wasn't surprised Merc pulled out, he was getting a lot of abuse. Not just in the threads where people disagreed with him like politics, but nasty remarks in other threads. Christ, he even took shit for posting in the links you'd like to share thread. :rolleyes:

Ibby you are a biased child with few life experiences. We support you with your constant drug usage and transexual lifestyle. Why can't you be more tolerant with those of different opinions?

I miss Merc. I felt he was a kindred soul

I refuse to tolerate intolerance. Tolerating intolerance is perpetuating intolerance. Merc's a bigot. Playing nice with bigots isn't a game I'm fond of.

You're certainly clever enough to see the contradiction, no, paradox in your first sentence. ha ha. It's like demanding respect or seizing the right of way. You can't take either one, you can only receive it from someone else. Not tolerating intolerance is the very definition of perpetuating intolerance.

What's your position on judgmental attitudes?

I deny that there is a paradox. "Tolerance" has multiple meanings/uses.
"I refuse to [abide or ignore] [racial, sexual, gender, or any other form of oppression/discrimination/hate]." is what I said. I just appreciate the wordplay.

if you want to defeat your enemy sing his song

I thought Merc was the sanest and most literate hard right-winger we had. With his departure it's left to UG and Adak. Granted, this means that I'm guaranteed a %100 winning streak, but it's like the opposing team went into the locker room and decided to play their second string for the second half.

But you do tolerate your own intolerance toward people who see our species as having only two genders.

Merc is a grown man. Hes just not that into us.

I always liked having Merc around and I didn't always agree with him, but he backed up his words with reasons and beliefs rather than soundbites he learned to mimic form someone else.

I think Merc's leaving is a loss to the Cellar.

He could be crude to you at times, Ibby, but he didn't have the corner on that market. You've thrown offensive epithets like 'cunt' as a blanket insult at anyone who disagrees with your views. Your sig says you're a misandrist heterophobe and you believe your intolerance of those who don't agree with your views of sex and gender to be completely justified, yet you throw the word 'bigot' around without any sense of irony.

You have no life experience yet, which is not necessarily your fault, but a little of the modesty you claim for yourself would go a long way. You'll grow faster if you stop labeling people and realize that everyone has not just 2, but 22 sides. No one is worthless.

:rolleyes:

Face it, Merc meant far more to this board than Ibby. We've shown you tolerance and support even though you have a different set of norms/values. It seems to me that you are the bigot

[IMHO]Merc and I share a background which at any given time only a few thousand people in the world hold and among whom there are similarities in key aspects of their psychological profiles. While our paths haven't crossed outside the Cellar, I believe that Merc's interaction in the politics thread, current affairs thread, and with Ibby are non-factors in his non-participation. Same goes for the ribbing he's taken from dwellars (including me) on some of these subjects. Merc is thick skinned. I believe that Merc simply lost respect for members he had previously held in esteem when they allowed a thin skinned adult member of this community to hide behind their skirts by labeling Merc a bully. There are others who feel similarly, who expressed a similar opinion and reduced their participation. The Merc is conspicuous among them only because he ceased participation.

A difference between the Merc and I is that I was introduced to the Cellar by a former dwellar (Tonchi) who provided insight and I had time to do personality assessments as a lurker before registering. My expectations coming in were titrated to the community. That's why I've always said that I'm just here for the entertainment. Merc didn't have that advantage and Merc is disappoint. I don't blame him: I would be too. I can take it or leave it just as easily as Merc except that I knew coming into the community better than to reveal any of my current IRL information for others to judge me on; so, it's not detrimental for me to stay.[/IMHO]

:lol: i'm a bigot for being against bigots. Kay.

:lol2:

This is like an Onion article, right?

Youse guys are funny.

I assume some of that is aimed at me?

If so that's a shame. I always liked Merc. I always clashed with him, and I thought he was being a bully at some points. But I still liked him.

@ Ibs: this thread was started because I miss Merc. I know, as do we all, that you don't. It doesn't need repeating every time anybody says something nice about him.

For all that I will stick up for you in the face of bigotry (as I hope you owuld do the same), there comes a point where your own hatred of intolerance can take you into an intolerant place. You say you hold a grudge? How is that not intolerance? You reduce other members to a single facet of their personality or history and can't see how dehumanising that is. People are not black and white they are every shade of grey.

All of us are prejudiced in some way. Most of us harbour some bigotry, whether we recognise it or not. It doesn't remove our essential humanity and, except in extreme cases, it doesn't define us. Grudges do you no favours in life. All they do is set or add to a deep core of negativity and anger. You can hate bigotry without hating the person behind it. Because that person is really not so different from you. May not seem like it sometimes, but they're really not.

All you are doing in your 'fight against bigotry' is perpetuating the hatred. Entrenching those whose views you despise, in those views. And frustrating those whose support is naturally yours. Someone comes for you, specifically, on the grounds of your gender and I'm there at your side. Someone posts outrageously bigotted comments and I'm in the argument. But this is just nastiness. It is no different to Merc coming into a thread about you and randomly posting how much he dislikes you. If the rest of the people in this thread were swayed by your words, then you would be engaging in a form of bullying, deliberately making the Cellar an unwelcoming place for another individual. You have not been attacked in this thread. Any attacks by Merc are in the past and are no part of this thread. You are the aggressor.

Well said, DanaC. I wish I had the gift of your words. I often am unable to express my opinion without seeming "hateful".

Ibby - I hope I have not offended you with my comments. I have always seen Merc as a friend and I felt like you were attacking him. Let's allow this thread to go back to the original intent.

Five YEARS in the past.

Around here, rapists get five years.

If you want to defeat your enemy sing his song. What would be Merc's response to finding that you and he had much in common? A reevaluation of everything.

When you hate, who do you hurt the most? Hate hurts you.

I was guilty of tangling with merc constantly. His posts were often like fingernails on a chalkboard for me. He is more Heinlein whereas I'm more MacLeod, but we share some ideas. We could have used him during the election cycle, when the cellar totally lost its moorings. I was rooting for the President and I could see that as a group we'd left rationality at the door.

As a bulwark for tolerance, I'd suggest that Ibby follow up on his gun talk, join a club and really listen to what people are talking about. Don't listen for buzzwords or to be offended, listen for commonality. This advice goes for me as well.

For the most part, I'm with Ibby in this thread.

Telling Ibby for forget the harangues put upon him by Merc,
and to be more "tolerant" is disingenuous.
I don't remember Merc ever following that path.

Merc's remarks on many occasions were insensitive, and unacceptable to me.
He was smart enough, when sober, to know better,
but once he detected what he considered a flaw,
he seemed to delighted in offending, or trying to.

Politically, his latest signature said a lot about him.
And part of my signature line is directly in response to him.
Sometimes, insults can not and need not be forgotten or tolerated.

Merc was a mixed bag. When he posted in the non-political forums, he could be cool and interesting. I got a kick out of seeing the snakes he would find in his yard as just one example.

But in the politics forum, his posts were poison. And not just because I disagree with him politically. He would just be thoughtless and abrasive. Sometimes downright nasty.

My one regret is that as a moderator, I sent him a pm a couple days before he left, asking him to tone it down and be nicer. And then I went to bed. While I was sleeping, several dwellars absolutely tore into him in response to his latest negative comment, and made his comments seem almost benign in comparison. My attempt at being peacemaker was just a joke at that point. Merc told me he didn't enjoy the Cellar any more and wouldn't be back. I think I'm one of the people he lost respect for.

I think the Cellar is not in a particularly healthy place right now politically. There is no balance. The Cellar presidential exit poll showed that virtually everyone here is on team Obama, when the nation as a whole is split about 50/50. We could use some more conservatives here. But I'd like them to come without the nastiness of Merc. (It would be nice if Lookout would come back. He was a conservative who could back his positions up with rational and respectful arguments.)

I was of that opinion, but not allowing people to grow or show their decent side isn't the side of the angels either. I've tried to keep in mind that he was force fed indoctrination his entire adult life. He chose to be indoctrinated, but within the belief system he chose, he was one of the good guys. That the society he thought he was protecting might disagree with him was probably hard to process. <shrug> Ibby can be the bigger man by trying to understand others without sanctioning their attitudes or beliefs. <breaks up soapbox for kindling>

What a douche

You know, if we're all going to give Merc a break, we should give Ibby a break, as well. What? If someone leaves the board, we can see their sterling qualities beneath all the tarnish, but if someone sticks around, everyone jumps on them? I can understand Ibby's point.

That said, Merc had a very kind side (despite his posts in the Politics Forum) that most folks were probably not aware of. Several years back I posted that I couldn't post pix because I didn't have a digital camera. Merc PM'ed me and offered to send me one of his own almost new cameras that he wasn't using. I accepted with great gratitude. I use that camera to this day and I often think of Merc when I use it, especially when I post pictures here.

And Merc and I continued to clash on Politics. Big deal.

Just an educated guess at a rationale, not an accusation.
There is an age old, time tested, military technique for teaching cocky (self righteous) individuals humility so they can realize their full potential through the synergism of being a team player. I used to get paid to tear people down who outranked me, were more accomplished than I and who would someday be my boss knowing that I helped make them effective leaders rather than self centered ladder climbers who fall halfway up; because, they didn't have support from the base. A person employing this technique must use it judiciously and be diplomatic elsewhere to maintain its credibility. One can't be taking out the frustrations of their job, family, politics; or, unleashing under the influence elsewhere and expect everyone else to know that they're employing the technique in an isolated case and not just bullying. That takes a trained eye.
Good people can have bad ideas. One must learn to separate the person from the idea and address each as such. Until Ibby figures out how to do this and put it into practice, Ibby is destined to be considered white trash.
Merc knows the limited role of moderators here. He wouldn't have bothered telling you he was leaving if he didn't respect that you tried.
No, Ibby can't. This is why I didn't attempt what Merc did.

Maybe I was a tad harsh with Ibs. And no, I certainly wouldn't suggest she forget the things Merc said. Nor allow attacks to go unchallenged.

But holding grudges and wheeling them out when someone says something nice about the object of your grudge isn't helpful to anyone imo.

I don't think you were too harsh, at all. I thought you expressed extremely well what some of us were trying to say. If all we get is a rolleyes response, that just tells us about Ibby.

That would not be in keeping with the Hypocritic Oath. ;)

The way to peace and justice is not through kumbayas and trying to see the humanity of oppressors. The way to peace and justice is through a continuous fight - yes, fight - against all oppressors, and all instances of oppression, starting with one's self. By denying humanity and respect to others, you give up your own right to have respect.

Think about all the non-violent, peaceful social movements from your history textbooks. the leaders of those movements are assassinated anyway almost every time, and it is only through the contrast between them and the radical resistance that the oppressors were forced to acquiesce to as little as they could let go of. in fact, the leaders of moderate social movements are almost always oppressors themselves, willing to sell out other groups to help their own. Ghandi said that the jews should all LET the nazis kill them, because if they kill enough of you maybe they'll feel bad and stop (they won't).

I will never make peace with oppressors and other proponents of evil, and I will never agree with most of you about whether or not being a bigot tarnishes someone's entire personality permanently.

Trying to empathize with, understand, humanize your oppressors gets people killed. real actual people getting really actually killed as a result of these systems of oppression, every single day. people like me. So you can go on about trying to understand and humanize some of the worst perpetrators of oppression, but you will never convince me.

I wonder who came up with that old phrase, 'Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity'. I always liked it, I mean, I can see some failings in the argument and all but the humour was diverting at least.

Sorry, I have nothing I can add sensibly to the thread, please carry on.

That was a perfectly cromulent addition to the thread. No apologies needed.

What's "cromulent" mean? :confused:

I am going to play Ibby's advocate here for a moment. Here is everyone bemoaning the loss of Merc's point of view because if I understand ya'll correctly, radical as he was, the Cellar benefits from having Dwellers who have a variety of outlooks and life experiences. I agree with this. I've learned any number of things here - some from people who violently opposed me. So, yes I miss Merc for that reason (and others), and I too would also love to see Lookout start posting here again as well.

But look at how passionate Ibby is in the defense of his beliefs. From the very start, I enjoyed his posts. Damn good for a 16 year old kid. And since he has returned, I continue to like reading what he has to say. I don't much get to discuss things with someone IRL - especially not where I now live - who is anything like Ibby.

You can't have it both ways, folks. Bemoan the loss of a member with extreme points of view while clobbering another who's still here because everyone doesn't like HIS point of view?

Nope. Doesn't work for me. Posts saying "We love you Merc, but we hate you Ibby" leave me feeling baffled and frankly wondering if Merc's reception would be one iota better if he ever did come back. It's dishonest. Sorry, everyone, but that's how I feel.

The kid's got spunk. If you respected Merc for his spirit, you have to respect Ibby as well. Even when you don't agree.

*goes to hide behind couch now* :hide:

*her point of view
just sayin'
;)

I appreciated Merc's POV, not so much the spirit in which it was presented.

I appreciate Ibby's POV, not so much the spirit in which it's presented.

Two peas of a pod, just from opposite ends.

You'd better hide; or, I'll tickle you!

What the hell are you two doing behind that couch?:mg:



Can I watch.:blush:

It comes down to this: do you believe people can change, or do you believe it's impossible? It seems you're saying it's impossible. And if it's impossible for anyone to change, then there's no point in fighting oppressors. They are what they are, and your only hope is that the babies being born today will happen to turn out differently than the bigot-babies did a generation ago.

The only reason to fight at all, is because you believe you might have a chance at changing people's minds. Which means bigotry can't be permanent.

There's a third position - that some individuals are unchangeable, and others not. From which it follows that confronting one unredeemable bad guy (of whatever variety) might influence others into not becoming bad guys.

I missed the original interaction, so I'm just talking theoretical possibilities here.

I don't think anyone is saying that they hate Ibby. They're just saying his attitude is not right.

If it's the confrontation that matters, with or without a victory; then, the unredeemable bad guy who presents that opportunity is actually doing the other a favor by enabling that person to influence multiple others into not becoming bad guys. So there WAS a method to his madness in that Merc was just trying to help Ibby indirectly all along. That Merc was genius enough to do this without having to undergo change himself was just icing on the cake. Thanks for explaining it.

her attitude.

@Clodfobble: Another, and maybe a better, reason is to not let bigoted remarks stand without challenge or renunciation.

Sure, just like the KKK was doing Blacks a favor by lynching a few
to keep the others from becoming bad guys. They were just trying to help all along.
And, they were genius enough to do this without having to under change, themselves... just icing on the cake.

There must be other examples.

Facetious, or :bs: ?
...It depends on your POV.

poor attitude.

Letting them stand without acknowlegement, as with trolls, may be best.
Lamp, I was toying with Zen because he's a good guy with a sense of humor who recognizes sarcasm.

Yeah, Like no one here EVER feeds the trolls. And stop tickling me or you might make me laugh. :p:

If someone feels strongly enough about an issue, of course they should speak out. Even if their opinion is not popular. Even if everyone else disagrees.

- Wikiquote

For the record, I was not suggesting that Ibs allow bigoted comments to go unchallenged. If Merc were here now and made a bigoted comment, I imagine I'd be in the queue to slam that comment down.

But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about maintaining hostilities with another member on the boards. And we're talking about one member going out of their way to deliberately make the board unwelcoming to another member on any terms. However understandable the enmity I don't like that. I didn't like it when Merc was seemingly following Ibs round the board and posting nasty stuff, and I don't like it the other way around.

There's a time and a place for tackling bigotry, and it's when the bigotry is expressed.

I miss Merc. For all his flaws (as we all have) he added something to the board. Sometimes what he added was unpleasant, and sometimes what he added was enlightening or fun. But he was part of the Cellar and not just in a two dimensional political debate way. he was part of it enough for some of us to see past the abrasive and occasionally nasty stuff to the decent bloke underneath.

Nobody is all good, and nobody is all bad. Merc has his flaws, but he also has admirable qualities. One of which was a tendency, when the shit hit the fan, to go off and consider the situation and just occasionally, hold up his hand and admit something was his fault and that what he had said was unacceptable.

But realy this thread wasn;t started as an assessment of Merc's flaws and qualities. It was just a call out, if he's reading, that he is missed. Not by everybody. But by some. Like any of us really.

I think you mean poor pitiful me attitude.

Only his/her/neosexual/noncisgender/trans/tranny/whatever's own bigoted comments.

I agree!