Jonmon showing up at people's houses?

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

So I got my letter in the mail today and just a few minutes ago JonMon showed up on our doorstop, ringing the bell. When my housemate opened the door, he ran off, jumped in his car and drove off at a high rate of speed with his lights off.

He also made a really critical error in his letter to me which I won't divulge here so as to give him any more help than necessary.

BTW: Monsarrat, I know you're reading this and just let me say I ain't intimidated, since I know that's what you're trying to do. I'll be reporting this to the cops, and if you do it again, expect a restraining order to be filed. I know just how to get one and have had perfect success getting them in the past.
ETA: also, if you deny that you're a creepy stalker (which, in my opinion, you are), showing up at people's houses in the middle of the night and harassing them is not a very good way to prove that you aren't.

Comments

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

Creating pie-in-the-sky justifications / intentions for his actions is absolutely contraindicated here. The intent could be explained in many ways, from evil to utterly innocent. You've described something evil, let me posit something innocent which has just as much validity: He had the wrong address and was embarrassed at his poorly timed mistake, so he drove off. Barring evidence to the contrary, you did what you could - you contacted the police for an unusual occurrence. I'm glad you told us.

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

What part of "I believe" did you not understand?

What you posit is bizarre, and if you think it has just as much validity as what I've said, then I don't know what else I could possibly say to you.

I'll thank you very much for not telling me what I can say about someone visiting my house in the middle of the night.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

(gah. I go offline to play a boardgame, and here I return to find I'm being lynched)

Chill out folks! All I was saying was attributing nasty motives behind strange behavior is what got his whole lawsuit started in the first place.

Fact: pywaket is NOT YET being sued by Jonmon. The only people being sued are those directly served, which is Ron and (likely) Deb.

Fact: Ringing someone's doorbell in the middle of the night ONCE is NOT illegal. Sure, it's strange, and you were right to call the police.

Fact: You did say "I believe". However, saying it publicly implies it is your truth. Which (IANAL), may be interpreted as defamation of character. I don't think many of us here want to make his case stronger for him.

Ron is right: I don't care why he did it. I'm glad you told us about it. Let's hope it doesn't happen to anyone else.

[ds-crier.livejournal.com]

You appear to be suggesting that this lawsuit is legitimate and that, in response to the threats of lawsuits against protected speech, the community should capitulate and censor itself to only post opinions that are Jonmon approved. To me that is quite disturbing.

You are essentially telling pywaket to shut up by accusing him/her of making the case stronger for Jonmon. This actually makes me angry.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

I did not mean to imply any of that! I apologize for any offense, none was ever meant. I promise not to respond any more on this topic in this thread.

[ds-crier.livejournal.com]

Are you seriously suggesting that Jonmon was looking for a party or something at midnight and out of the millions of houses in Massachusetts he accidentally just happened to ring the doorbell of someone he just happens to be suing by complete chance? And that when the door was answered not even by the person he was suing his reaction to having found a wrong address was to run away and speed off in his car with his lights off?

And you are saying this is equally likely to the chances that he was trying to intimidate someone, which mountains of other evidence suggests he is?

Seriously... WAT?

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your support.

[cos]

I also do not know why he'd have done this, and while intimidation is one possibility, I'm sure there are many others. I'm not going to list theories (I could come up with several), and any theory can be shot down (including "intimidation" - it detracts from his lawsuit), because I think it's pointless to invent motives for this and argue about them when the actual motive is just as likely to turn out to be something none of us thought of.

[ds-crier.livejournal.com]

pywaket was asked what they felt jonmon's motive was and pywaket simply responded. Perhaps the sanctimonious comments should be directed at the questioner?

[cos]

I'm sorry that you feel like using words like "sanctimonious", but mostly I hope people just stop arguing about "was it this motive or that motive" and did not intend to direct that at one such arguer or another. I meant it for anyone doing such arguing.

To put it another way: If someone had just said "we don't know his motive, it might be something we didn't think of" that could've been constructive. But beyond that, both painting a specific alternative motive, *and* attacking that painting full of sarcasm and appearing to argue in favor of the original suggestion, are both IMO not constructive.

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

If you did not intend to direct your comments at me, why did you respond to me and not the person questioning my interpretation?

[cos]

Actually, I didn't respond to you (until later, when you asked me a direct question). Take a look.

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

Indeed, you are correct and I apologize. Since I'm the original poster, I've been getting lots of LJ notifications about this thread, and the way gmail displays them, it looked like you were responding to me. Again, sorry about that.

[cos]

No problem.

For the record I don't see anything wrong with you answering someone's question about why you think he did it, by giving your guess. I just wish we didn't get into heated arguments about competing theories about why he did it.

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

As far as the arguments, that's something you'll have to talk to Koshmom about. She's the one attempting to shut down discussion by telling people that expressing their beliefs is " absolutely contraindicated".

I stand by everything I've said.

[ds-crier.livejournal.com]

The argument that "we shouldn't try to guess the motives of others" is self refuting. For all I know, your intention in the post you just made was to encourage us to keep guessing at the motives of Jonmon. I would have to guess at your motive to arrive at the conclusion that you actually want us to stop. But then to do so I would have to ignore the argument that I am guessing you meant to make.

Now, I am again guessing that most people would assume that with high probability, based on your text and the context, you meant that we should stop. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. And with the case of Jonmon, many people would also assume with a reasonably high probability that he is seeking to intimidate people. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. The probability that one is guessing his intention wrongly might be higher than the probability that one is guessing your intention wrongly, but it is unfair to call it useless or non-constructive.

If understanding Jonmon's activities in terms of intimidation helps people abstract the actions of Jonmon into a consistent mental framework and it helps them accurately predict his future actions, then it is not useless. The statement "we don't know his motive, it might be something we didn't think of," on the other hand, says nothing whatsoever. How can one ever know anything by such standards?

While koshmom's opinion is, of course, desired, she expressed it in a way that was intended on shutting down the discussion by falsely implying some kind of moral high ground, that's where the word "sanctimonious" comes in (it was not directed at you). My reply was my actual understanding of her argument spelled out in greater detail, it was not sarcasm, although I was definitely incredulous.

IMO - let people say what they want to say without shitting all over them with equivocal platitudes. Especially when they are understandably upset over being stalked in the middle of the night.

[cos]

I honestly can't figure out what you're trying to communicate here, but my point is simply this:

- We can't know why he did this

- It's inappropriate regardless of why he did it

- It's useless to argue about competing theories of his motivation for this visit - "it's this!" "no it's that!"

Say whatever you want. If you find it useful to argue about whether he made this visit for this reason vs. that reason... have fun, just please don't try to shame me for saying I think that's not constructive.

[ds-crier.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that this offshoot started because koshmom inappropriately shamed pywaket. This discussion has probably outlived its usefulness at this point, but my point is just that the claim that trying to understand Jonmon's motivation is "not constructive" is clearly not a manifest truth, that people should not be pressured into silencing themselves, and I wanted someone to defend pywaket, so that someone was me.

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

And I appreciate it. Thank you.

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

Koshmom seems to have a big problem with people expressing opinions she does not agree with. This isn't the first time I've seen her attempt to shut down a discussion when she doesn't like the direction it's going.

[bluesauce.livejournal.com]

Yup, she definitely does it, and I'm getting kind of tired of it, honestly.

[spatch]

The motive does not matter. Playing Ding Dong Ditch at midnight is completely inappropriate regardless.

[cos]

Yup.

[ron_newman]

Exactly. I don't care why he did this. He needs to never do it again.