Jan wrote.... > > Can we all just agree to his proposal and end this thing?
Erik replied.... > No. For the last time, Jan, his proposal amounts to > blackmail. I and others have explained this. YOU, Jan, are > making this worse by encouraging his behavior. Since you are > so fond of extrapolation: one does not solve the problem of a > terrorist taking hostages by doing whatever the terrorist > tells you to do. That is a recipe for disaster. Erik, you also accused me of making the situation worse by encouraging his (Jeroen's) behavior. I may not be the most intelligent person on this list, but I fail to see how giving someone the benefit of the doubt is encouraging bad behavior. What exactly do you want from Jeroen? Do you want him to grovel and plead? I can almost certainly guarantee that is not going to happen. He made a peace offering. Regardless of how he worded it, it is a peace offering none the less. He specifically said that he was not making threats, but merely having insight into what will happen if this thing continues. I agree with Jeroen, if this thing continues, it will escalate and get blown farther out of proportion than it already has. Erik, to take a momentary pause, to allow Jeroen time to carry out his end of the deal hurts no one. It does not mean that you (or we) agree with him, it does not mean we think he was, or is, right or wrong. I agree his behavior was unacceptable, I agree that he can be very anti-social when his buttons are pushed and I agree that he can be manipulative, but let's not pass up this chance to minimize damage before someone has real life consequences. Your analogy of giving into a misbehaving child in another post could not be more wrong. Do you have children? Sometimes you must be an authoritarian parent, but also sometimes you have to be the mature parent and compromise and allow the child to walk away with a little dignity intact. That does NOT mean that you are encouraging bad behavior, it means that you were intelligent enough and mature enough to induce the desired behavior by a compromise. It seems that the only bad behavior that is being encouraged here is by you. Do you (and others) really think that inflammatory and abrasive remarks aimed at Jeroen are constructive in this case? Do you think that making counter demands and counter blackmail will resolve this issue? Let's be the mature parent here and compromise and let the child walk away with a little dignity - but yet get what we want. It is possible. Gary _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
