Opinion of Mechaman

[free my dawg]

Figured it was time for this.

One of the best (normal)

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Obviously a FF.

[Antonio the Sixth]

One of the best (normal)

[Mechaman]

Obviously a super HP and I really don't know how this is close.

I mean let us consider what the Mechaman has actually said on this forum:

• Racist paddies who lynched black people deserve our sympathy from a historical perspective largely because they were poor and starving and "victims" of capitalism while the brave industrialists who helped fund the persecution of the Confederacy all the way to the end do not.  In fact, they deserved to be hated largely because they were a hypocritical class who made many people work and starve to death.
• Organized crime and political machinery are the natural results of clauses found in the previous point, as well as a reaction against a moralistic Puritanical regime in the highest echelons of power and influence that went out of their way to persecute the poor and the unprivileged.  See, it is not really the fault of the criminals themselves, it is society's fault!  Seriously, what a shameless libertine bastard this man is.
• Jokes pretty openly about how he likes pre-ops and tried to claim he is not a closet case because they have "breasts" or some sh*t.  I mean this is the 21st century and we are all enlightened people, but come on obvious closet case is obvious.
• His timelines are full of people who seem to be overwhelmingly racist, homophobic, sexist, and just all around sh*theads.  I mean yes, he is depicting people in the privacy of their own homes and conference rooms, but please a little PC Mechaman?  Not to mention that his character driven timelines seem to include a ludicrous gibbs amount of sexual innuendoes, references to sexual activity, and a lot of the women in them seem proud of their bodies and okay with sleeping with dudes.  This alone should be an easy HP vote.
• Gets on here regularly, sh*tfaced, and makes love songs to people.  Namely Teddy and Inks, both of which are no longer with us.  I would like to think that Mechaman's traumatizing attacks on them had something to do with it.
• Going back to point one, regularly touts his supposed "Irishness" (come on Mecha, really?  How Irish are you?  What's that last name of yours again?  Ha yeah right!) as a reason why he would not be a huge fan of the Federalist, the Whigs, and even the Republican party.  Really seems like a cop out to vote for a bunch of black hating racists if he lived in the 19th century, just my personal two cents.  Not a surprise given that a lot of historical rants seem to be more about how the "enlightened" (word almost always put into quotation marks to indicate that he is mocking the word) northern industrialists totally ignored the conditions many white ethnic faced while being truthfully concerned about the exploitation of blacks in the South.  Truth is, anyone who is a true anti-racist and a fan of equality should not ever vote Democratic, regardless of the cynical falsehoods that Mechaman and others try to sell on people.
• Going further off of that last note, he seems to go out of his way to defend the previously mentioned states rights and small government activists were somehow to the left of the parties of tariffs and industry.  Now granted, this is a contrived troll act and by now I am contradicting some earlier key aspects of this character, but what people thought was "liberal" or "conservative" back then really should not matter.  What matters is who was right and who was wrong.  And frankly, government intervention is a fundamentally liberal concept with the idea of improving society and results are also left wing, so he is just being an idiot loser.
• Regardless of how many political shifts he has experienced on here, he seems to laugh in the face of polite language and manners.  He says the f word and the s word almost without abandon (despite promising Dave Leip he would stop) and he says ethnic and homophobic slurs like it's not a big deal.  Of course he could defend himself on this latter note, noting that he is writing these words in educational threads and in alternate history timelines, but really it seems to be an inner white middle upper class need to call something a racial slur and get away with it.  To make matters worse he often gangs up on people for calling out others for using mean words, which suggests that he realizes what he is doing is wrong and is so adamant in defending himself and others of the obvious aggression they are causing others that he ends up mocking those he wishes to "correct" (sorry couldn't resist).
• And despite his left wing political shift, he seems to beat up more upon rich and affluent liberals more so than he does conservatives!  Of course he could claim that he is only doing this because everyone else on the forum beats up rich conservatives so it is unnecessary for him to do so and something yada yada class consciousness, but at the end of the day he seems hell bent on attacking New Democrats and other establishment Democratic types than he does addressing the far right Tea Party and other elements of the Republican Party.  Seems a lot closer to a mypalfish than it does to a genuine socialist, don't you think?  A real socialist would at least support Hillary Clinton, realizing that in this political system to do otherwise is a waste effort that only emboldens the money men.
• His mocking of any and all decent moral standards is also condemnable.  Regardless of your political position crime should be seen as crime.  Mechaman doesn't think so.  IN fact, in his world crime seems to be almost an act of self defense from the working class against the rich "elitists" (whoever the hell that may be) and that sex is something that the government should stay out of entirely unless it involves someone getting it who does not want it.  He goes even further to state that if a man receives anal sex he is not gay (again going back to the part about trans porn, he seems to be coming up with excuses to get away with his very obvious closet gayness) if it is being done by a woman or even a dude.  Supposedly sexual orientation is not about what you like being done to you, but about your personal and emotional connection to the person who is doing it!  I mean really, OUTRAGE!  NEXT THING YOU KNOW HE WILL SAY THAT CATS SHOULD HAVE SEX WITH DOGS OR SOMETHING!

With that stated, super solid Horrible Person right here.  By virtually most standards on this forum.

People who voted FF need to really access their priorities.  I mean really.

[TNF]

My favorite poster, hands down. FF.

[Mr. Smith]

A real character for sure, this is not a bad thing mind you.

[Murica!]

One of the best posters on Atlas and a fellow Anarchist. FF.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

A real character for sure, this is not a bad thing mind you.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Extremely necessary poster. Shoots down a lot of trite and hackish simplifications of history.

[TDAS04]

One of the best (normal)

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

One of the best (normal)

[SWE]

Objectively an FF

[Cassius]

One of the best (normal)

[politicus]

Extremely necessary poster. Shoots down a lot of trite and hackish simplifications of history.

[solarstorm]

A friendly poster

[Goldwater]

Extremely necessary poster. Shoots down a lot of trite and hackish simplifications of history.

[H. Ross Peron]

Very good poster certainly, although I don't completely agree with some of his interpretations of history and sometimes his "New England Irishphobic Puritan Republican Federalists" type posts get a bit repetitive.

[IceSpear]

Well, he got a temp ban solely for the sake of trolling lil ol' me, so I'm kind of obligated to vote FF for the flattery. His posts tend to be pretty good and informative too.

[Mechaman]

Very good poster certainly, although I don't completely agree with some of his interpretations of history and sometimes his "New England Irishphobic Puritan Republican Federalists" type posts get a bit repetitive.

Granted.

I do admit on the subject I do have a bit of a chip my shoulder.  This might not seem the way to others but all too often I feel like a lot of people act like the only reason our ancestors were strongly Democratic was because they hated blacks (see blatant example here: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=204846.msg4444968#msg4444968 which as far as I am concerned is barely masked bigotry under the guise and excuse of historical facts ) and not because they lived in areas populated by people who literally viewed them as vermin (and further, as has been noted by me several times earlier, the Irish were voting heavily Democratic (and extra emphasis on the word "heavily") since the times of Jefferson, it was not some thing that happened because of the Civil War draft).  It is almost as if the several hundred years of anti-Celtic prejudice, both in the Great Britain and in the largely Anglo and protestant parts of the colonies, suddenly vanished overnight when America became a country.  Given how often the former is stressed by ill educated people I find it necessary to bring this up whenever it is applicable.

The point is largely that the point of history is to learn from it, not to defend it.  The guys who "freed the slaves" were no saints just like many of the anti-Chinese Irish railroad workers in the west were no saints.  I guess I just feel that when actually examining the past and considering the issues many perceive New England Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans to somehow be faultless and good moral people just because they opposed slavery (so did the British Empire. . . . . ).  They tend to leave out things like the repeatedly mentioned anti-Irish bigotry, the anti-Jewish bigotry (of which even I don't cover as much as I should), the anti-Italian bigotry, the anti-Polish bigotry, hell most anti-ethnic white bigotry, the classism, support for what basically amounted to protestant supremacy in the form of moralistic legislation, the support for regressive tax and tariff policies with the main intent to fatten the pocketbooks of robber barons, as well as the indifference and cruelty of the Protestant Work Ethic ^TM to actually address issues like wage slavery and living conditions in the poor neighborhoods of urban areas.

The goal of modern liberalism should be to learn from those past mistakes and use those lessons to advance a more egalitarian and equal society.  We should no longer have to choose between racists and elitists.  We should no longer have to choose between moralists and corrupt urban bosses.  We should no longer have to choose between slavers and bankers.  The people of the past need no defense, they were extremely flawed people.  Which is why you often hear such clichés as "judge them in the context of their times!" even by far left people like myself (though I generally believe that the more accurate saying would be "judge them in the context of where you would be in the times").  People often act like when talking about the past one side has to be completely right.  Well, especially in the case of American History, this is wrong.  Winning the Civil War didn't prevent the GOP from being blamed for the Great Depression.  Being on the side of the "common man" didn't prevent the Democrats from being on the wrong side of the Civil War.  And etcetera etcetera.

And further, the lesson from the bigotry of the New England elites, which is largely whitewashed to protect the agenda of financial elitists and others, is that racism goes far beyond skin color and is more about the dominance and privilege of elite groups (this is also very true of the Southern planters and their slaves).  In other words, knowledge of such history is knowledge of exactly why elitism (which is openly embraced by many Democrats nowadays without any knowledge or care of the roots of cultural elitism in the country) is horrible and the party needs to embrace more economic populism (note, I mean that as in being advocates of the poor, not "muh fiscally liberal and socially conservative") to advance a liberal agenda.

I make no apologies, just like a Jew makes no apologies for bashing Hitler.

[Mechaman]

Well, he got a temp ban solely for the sake of trolling lil ol' me, so I'm kind of obligated to vote FF for the flattery. His posts tend to be pretty good and informative too.

Don't mention it.

I thought the act was pretty obvious, but I do admit it was fun.  Over time I have come to appreciate your Ready5Hillary act a lot even if I disagree with you haha.

[Sopranos Republican]

The goddamn man. Tied with a few others as my favorite poster.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

One of our finest, of course.

[Mechaman]

Very good poster certainly, although I don't completely agree with some of his interpretations of history and sometimes his "New England Irishphobic Puritan Republican Federalists" type posts get a bit repetitive.

And yeah you really should not agree with my interpretation of history.  It is pretty insane.

[Rockefeller GOP]

Easily the most knowledgeable person on this board, and he's always been extremely cordial with me even though his fiscal views probably label me a monstrous villain.

Maybe we just bond over hating the simplified myth that the GOP was born out of a great, morally just far left liberal crusade or that Lincoln and his Republicans would be these loyal Democrats today...

[Lief 🗽]

Very good, but a lot of his posts are way, way too long.