In which I sing a song for JonMon

[harrock.livejournal.com]

My creative energy has been just about zero lately, thanks to a very busy schedule at work. But I'll say this for JonMon: His Lawsuit of Mass Destruction has inspired me. My wife, firstfrost, has received a threat letter, but she is not yet named in the LMD. I'm proud of everything she has said about JonMon. I didn't need JonMon's validation to be proud of her, but data is data.

I haven't been named or threatened in the LMD (yet), and I don't mean to make light of the anxiety that it has caused in our community. In particular, if you have taken something down or remained silent thanks to JonMon's toolbox of intimidation, I want you to know that I think no less of you for it. Every situation is unique, and we all have our limits of what we can deal with right this minute. My limit is high right now, so I'm standing up.

Likewise, I respect the opinions of those who have counseled caution or outright silence. I disagree with some of your key points, and I feel that some of your arguments apply better to people who are more concerned with anonymity than I am, or who cannot afford to risk an extended legal fight. The bottom line for me is this: One of the basic functions of any community is to sound a warning when a predator is around. If we're not sure the law can handle that, then it's time to get out and push.

This song is about JonMon's Lawsuit of Mass Destruction, and it is sung to the tune of "Charlie on the M.T.A." Permission is hereby granted to $verb this song, for all values of $verb, for every human being on planet Earth with the exception of Jonathan Graves Monsarrat. No permission of any kind is willingly granted to Mr. Monsarrat. In case he hadn't noticed, that's what happens when you are in the habit of excreting on your community.

---

Let me tell you the story
Of a man named JonMon
Who would really like to have his way...
He's the internet icon
Who you can't use your Psych on
He's the man who never will learn!

  Oh, his bridges are burned
  Please don't let him return...
  'cause his lesson's still unlearn'd!
  He may scam forever
  In the Square of Davis
  He's the man who never will learn!

He used to go by JonMon
But his rep has gone creepy
What's a smooth operator to do?
When you need to sound wholesome
Though your act is still loathesome
Then I guess that "Johnny" will do.

  Oh, his bridges are burned
  Please don't let him return...
  'cause his lesson's still unlearn'd!
  He may lurk forever
  On the blogs of Davis
  He's the man who never will learn!

Johnny says he's a victim
Because people keep on talking
Of some things no court has ruled
He says "come on and prove it
Or I'll make you remove it"
He's amazed when nobody's fooled

  Oh, his bridges are burned
  Please don't let him return...
  'cause his lesson's still unlearn'd!
  First he's looking your pants off
  Then he's suing your ass off
  He's the man who never will learn!

In Johnny's world the only law
Is what he gets away with
'less it's something he can use
To club his detractors
And intimidate their backers
And escape from paying his dues

  Oh, his bridges are burned
  Please don't let him return...
  'cause his lesson's still unlearn'd!
  He will leave you disgusted
  His ways won't be adjusted
  He's the man who never will learn!

Now the citizens of Davis Square
Are standing up to Johnny
And we all know what to do
When he says that you've been served...
And whines "I'm not a perv"
Just smile, and answer "fuck you!"

  Oh, his bridges are burned
  Please don't let him return...
  'cause his lesson's still unlearn'd!
  He'll play his games forever
  In the Square of Davis
  He's the man who never will learn!
  He's the man...who never will learn!

Comments

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful, and really makes me wish that Honk weren't still several months away.

[ifotismeni]

[sairaali.livejournal.com]

This is great! I love that the filk keeps rolling in. We're up to five now? (one was taken down, sadly) Someone needs to make a songbook.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

*applauds*

[tikva.livejournal.com]

There should totally be a benefit album to cover court costs.

(Uh, not JonMon's court costs. He can sell Girl Scout cookies or whatever to cover his costs).

[marius23.livejournal.com]

He can sell Girl Scout cookies....

That's actually a somewhat disturbing image....

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

Bravo!

[anomie666.livejournal.com]

If you don't mind, can you put it back up? We should link link them all together in one post (a post with links to all the songs). We have so much talent in the DS area, it actually isn't a bad idea AT ALL to record them. It could happen!

[moechus.livejournal.com]

Very clever and very nice but it also strikes me as needlessly and gratuously cruel (plus kicking him when he's down will doubtless make it even less likely that he ever learns). No doubt he deserves it (and a lot more) but still, I would hope that we could still treat him with some decency. As I lawyer, I have advocated a vigorous and uncompromising response to his shenanigans. But that's as a legal strategy designed to end this mess as quickly and forcefully as possible. As a human being, I urge compassion, maybe even forgiveness, regardless of his past misdeeds and whether or not he deserves it.

Lord Polonius
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

Hamlet
God's bodykins, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

[fredrickegerman.livejournal.com]

I salute you, sir.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

We have that technology, actually!

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

This is the best thing ever! I think we should all get together and have a sing-along!

[skexy.livejournal.com]

there's a certain irony to your posting that statement in the middle of porchfest.......

[harrock.livejournal.com]

As a human being, I am also in favor of compassion, decency, and forgiveness. Unfortunately, these are virtues that JonMon is adept at exploiting, and he has overspent his account. I commend you for serving as a community backstop in those virtues, and we're a better community for it.

I'm afraid I can't agree with your characterization of needless and gratuitous cruelty, however. Satire has to sting, or else it's useless. An unpleasant dose of satire is an obvious possible consequence of trying to silence a community with a bogus lawsuit, but JonMon's track record suggests that he doesn't actually learn anything unless the consequences pass from hypothetical to real. I'm doing my part to make them real.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Compassion is good, but not when it could cause harm to others: http://pervocracy.blogspot.com/2012/06/missing-stair.html

[ron_newman]

firstfrost is not Real Name'd in the lawsuit, but her LJ name is included there (on page 11).

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on this, Moechus, especially on the gratuitously cruel part. I admit writing ditties like this does satisfy a very primal urge, but encouraging compassion seems like a good idea. I'm not sure I'm at the "forgiveness" point yet, mostly because he hasn't done anything to deserve it. My opinion is that until another interaction with him appears, the "kicking him when he's down" just seems kinda excessive.

[moechus.livejournal.com]

Perhaps but satirizing institutions and those in power is one thing; this strikes me as something else. Kicking someone when they're down.

Let me suggest an alternative interpretation to the narrative of this sorry affair. I begin with the observation that no human being, no matter how creepy or evil they may be, sees themselves as creepy or evil. Not Adolf Hitler. Not Jeffrey Dahmer. No one. Everyone constructs a self-image that, however, illusory, rationalizes and justifies themselves (or they create a universe in which creepiness and evil are virtues). Everyone is virtuous in their own mind. Furthermore, everyone will go to the utmost extremes to maintain their self-justification and rationalization. The more illusory it is, the greater the effort to maintain it. It is a survival mechanism for the failure to maintain the illusion is often fatal.

Apply this paradigm to JonMon. First, he finds himself isolated, ostracized and despised. Surely, no one can doubt that he is in genuine pain (who wouldn't be?). But if he can't accept the fact that he himself is the source of his own pain (and who can?), he must be baffled and construct a narrative where he is the victim and everyone is conspiring against him. From a legal, rational or practical point of view, his recent actions are self-destructive and self-defeating (he has probably sabotaged his legal case beyond repair) but they make a sense as a desperate attempt to maintain his illusion.

I suggested on several occasions (before he sabotaged his case) that the best litigation strategy is to make it quite clear quite early that continuing the suit will be very painful for him (more painful than for any of the defendants) and that his best course of action is therefore to drop it now. I suggested an aggressive discovery strategy targeting all of his past misdeeds (and I have several times noted that his past is a target-rich environment). This presupposes that ending the suit will end the pain. But clearly it will not. What then is his incentive to drop it? If it is thrown out, he will come up with some new and obnoxious way to convince himself that everyone is against him. Perhaps it will be sufficiently obnoxious (or the effort will render him sufficiently dysfunctional) that society will intervene and see to it that he gets the help he needs. Or perhaps his illusions will finally be shattered and he will see himself as everyone else does, i.e., as a creepy stalker. At that point, he will have two options: getting help or killing himself. Since the former requires both courage from within and support from without (both of which, I suspect, will be lacking), I see the latter as more likely.

[moechus.livejournal.com]

"Man must not disclaim his brotherhood, even with the guiltiest, since, though his hand be clean, his heart has surely been polluted by the flitting phantoms of iniquity. He must feel, that, when he shall knock at the gate of heaven, no semblance of an unspotted life can entitle him to entrance there. Penitence must kneel, and Mercy come from the footstool of the throne, or that golden gate will never open!" -- Nathaniel Hawthorne

Schopenhauer asserted that compassion is the basis of all morality. Christian/Buddhist ethics stripped of their religious origins and supported by rational argument (or rationalization--see my post above). Theologically, I am an agnostic pagan; ethically, I try to be a Christian (or is Buddhist?--at their core, they're so similar). We're all stuck in the same boat of existence, each one of us struggling against the rest. Compassion is the only way out. Judge not lest ye be judged.

[moechus.livejournal.com]

I think it's necessary to make it clear that unacceptable behavior will not be tolerated but that redemption is possible if he wants it. Of course, this requires that he realize that he needs it and, as I said above, I suspect that he may not be capable of making that realization and surviving it. In any case, only he can choose to walk that path but we should not be blocking it.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Like harrock, I admire those of you who are over on the more forgiving side. I do think that society must have both forgivers and non-forgivers to function; if you have a society of people who always cooperate in Prisoner's Dilemma, then a defector will eat them alive, but a society of all defectors is miserable for everyone. Tit for tat works pretty well, but a Prisoner's Dilemma society is also better off when everyone is a little more forgiving than straight tit for tat. Of course, we aren't all running the same algorithms, and everyone must draw their own lines on what is forgivable and what isn't (and everyone has had their own different sets of interactions.)

Anyway, speaking only for myself, I am pretty sure that if he drops the suit, he will be a lot less the topic of my conversation than he is right now. This isn't kicking someone when he's down - it's kicking someone who is suing Ron and threatening to sue the rest of our community for five million dollars and hasn't stopped trying to do so yet.

[moechus.livejournal.com]

I don't see them as mutually exclusive. Forgiving does not mean forgetting and treating him with decency doesn't mean letting down ones guard. Everyone is on notice as to what he is capable of and everyone is communicating with everyone else so I don't see it as resembling Prisoner's Dilemma.

I think the suit is likely to die fairly quickly given his recent actions. I have tried to put myself in the shoes of his lawyers and of ways they might keep it going and I haven't thought of one that I would be confident trying. The best try is probably to shut down his extrajudicial activities, apologize profusely to the court and then try to get the court's leave to amend the complaint again. That's a hard sell to any judge so I do think that he is down.

[kelkyag]

Redemption requires rather more than wanting. Among other things, it requires sincere and diligent work, and rather a lot of it.

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

This may seem unspeakably cruel to you, but given the way he's behaved his whole adult life (so far as I can tell), I would not shed one single tear were he to choose the latter option.

I've heard too many horror stories about how he treats people -mostly women, but not exclusively. The current harassment he's engaging in just proves he's a rotten human being.

ETA: the fact that he's down to be kicked is entirely his own fault. He could have been a decent human being, but chose of his own free will to act otherwise. I (and I'll bet a significant percentage of the women he's interacted with in his life) have absolutely no sympathy for him.

[moechus.livejournal.com]

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." -- John Donne

I guess the difference between us is that I believe in the possibility of redemption and you don't. But my belief may not have any basis other than as a survival instinct to keep me from choosing that latter option. And I suppose I have more skepticism about free will than you do. But that's a philosophical debate that has raged for centuries without real resolution.