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Spark crossed a line

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dizos

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Just wanted to add my .02 concerning the Mick Strider exposé that Spark enacted. Since Spark was quick to point out that his thread was about Mick and any criticism towards Spark was not appropriate, I figured I would go ahead and start a Bad and Ugly thread for what Spark did. I'm just another knife enthusiast that hangs out at several forums. I've been out of town for a month and missed all of this when it went down, thus the late post. I don't know Spark and have never had any interactions with him beyond reading the occasional post over the last several years, paying for gold memberships and purchasing products from 1sks.com. My criticism is completely for his thread against Mick Strider. One would hope that an owner of a forum can remain neutral and not leverage the community his members have built for an attack against a man because of a personal grudge. Shame on you.

I have only had one personal interaction with Mick directly, in which he did some custom work on a SNG for me free of charge. He did not know me from Adam, just decided to be a cool guy and hook me up. I only know Mick Strider from his posts and others posts about him, from these I have learned.

1. He really likes to design and make knives and stands behind his product 100%.
2. He has had a passion for making knives since he was a kid. His dad is proud of his knife making. He is not just in it for the money.
3. He likes to give advice and help other knife makers with technical questions and is thus a positive contributing member of the knife community.
4. His work has greatly influenced the tactical knife making world for which the community should be honoring him, not demonizing him.
5. I really like his robust utilitarian design style.

Beyond this, what matters? He makes knives not public policy.

Spark, you may say that your intent is based on honor but am afraid that the path you took with this simply reeks of a personal vendetta. So continue shake your list of facts about another mans life and try to dupe your community into believing you have a right to do so, I just don't buy it.

-- Jeff
 
im a believer in buying into the company through the product. i dont buy from companies whom i believe have poor business practices or treat their customers badly.

that said, i read much of sparks thread, and would rather not comment on either man. but like you, my dealings with the strider company have been all positive, and i will continue to buy mick's products.
 
dizos said:
1. He really likes to design and make knives and stands behind his product 100%.
2. He has had a passion for making knives since he was a kid. His dad is proud of his knife making. He is not just in it for the money.
3. He likes to give advice and help other knife makers with technical questions and is thus a positive contributing member of the knife community.
4. His work has greatly influenced the tactical knife making world for which the community should be honoring him, not demonizing him.
5. I really like his robust utilitarian design style.
Click to expand...

None of these are mutually exclusive with statements about his character Spark made so what's the big deal ? Guy lies about his past, likes to make knives and give advice, he's a convicted felon and you like his designs. End of story.
 
It is a principle of good discussions that before you can refute your opponent's beliefs, you have to be able to express them to his satisfaction.

You missed a major point Spark made in presenting the material on Mick, which is that there had been a lot of acrimony and cross-forum bashing back and forth about his history. So he went over the facts in the public domain, organized them, and posted them, to establish a factual basis, rather than an emotional basis, for further discussion.

You don't have to like him doing that, or even believe the story as they show it, or care what they say about Mick's history as long as you like him now and his knives forever.

But to interpret Spark's motive as vengeful violates the Principle of Parsimony: not to make further assumptions than are needed.
 
Dizos, I didn't interpret Spark's post as an "attack". He chose his words carefully and simply let Mick's record speak for itself. I had no idea about all the "Mick bagage" and am glad someone took the time to inform the masses.

You feel that Mick's past should stay under the radar and I don't agree. The man lied to help his company sell knives and he slandered a military veteran, again trying to build business for the Strider Knife Company.

I don't much care if Mick have you a key to the city and the best service on earth. That doesn't erase his past.

whitie
 
faramir said:
... you like his designs. End of story.
Click to expand...

Exactly. You can speak up for Mick without putting people down for disagreeing with you. He has always been controversial, even without the history. Some people (am I allowed to mention this?) don't even like his knives. So what?
 
No need to respond to the message, just attack the messenger and make as many irrelevant points as you can think of (only 5?).
 
Jeff, why in the world would you want to rehash this? Do you want things to get started all over again?
 
Spark has already dealt with the attacks against the messenger that came from the dark before. I'd suggest reading those responses and applying them to yourself.

You like Mick's knives. I like them too. He makes a fine product, serves the knife community well and has developed a repor with many. I don't recall anyone having any problems with his products or designs.

I think Spark believes like many of us that quite simply put, Mick Strider should have come clean on his record after the last outcry on tactical forums. Maybe this isn't the case everywhere but you would think at least on his own forum he could have set the record straight but as it looks now, he didn't lie, (maybe) he just didn't bring out any of the missing facts that he had to know sooner or later would have been called into question. He did however, keep things alive by adding new information about this very subject as recently as 6 Feb 07 so it isn't like he was trying to let things die.

Sure enough the discrepencies did get called into question didn't they? New things came up out of that thread Spark started that should not have been surprises to fans but the fact is they were surprising to many of them. It appears that Mick was only in the service 11 months total according to the new paperwork brought up thanks to that thread, and not the two year period as was suggested before by Mick's posted DD214. It now is evident that Mick was actually AWOL for six days and no mention of a back injury was found. That was a surprise to me considering the extent of this injury by Mick's own account. Either the forms posted by the POW.org web site showing Mick's actual time in service and training times are incorrect or the DD214 posted by Mick is fake, which begs the question of why Mick would post it knowing the date was incorrect if that is true. I mean if he knew it was an actual error by a military representative that punched keys wrong then it should have been noted at the time and corrected as per the Military protocol for such an error. Take your pick but one of the two published documents has to be wrong if not an outright fraud because they say different things regarding active duty time in service and training dates. The real kicker for Spark is that there is no way Mick was going to be punished by having pay confiscated, suspended or otherwise held back to pay fines, and then send him to serve in Somalia as part of or for punishment of his car jacking. This couldn't happen. We know that now by law and the way it is written in the law. In other words that story doesn't add up and Mick made that information public on his forum. To suggest that someone is inappropriate to respond to that is rather absurd.

From my stand point all Spark did was respond to stuff Mick brought up himself. We do that everyday here and in that respect its not any different than what I am doing to your post right now. What more justification does he need? The truth of the matter is if it had not been Spark that questioned it sooner or later it would have been someone else. Actually it has been said in other conversations that there were others that already questioned the very same things without starting a new thread. It was mentioned on at least one other forum before this thread was started where someone questioned how it would be possible for Mick to be sentenced to Somalia after a serious back injury. Thats a good question. Frankly I don't see a problem with wanting to know about anything that is posted on a public forum. If I said something in a post and it didn't jive and someone questioned it I don't see how I can then find reason to say, you shouldn't do that to me. Shame on you.

STR
 
Sounds like someone has their own personal vendetta going on.

Everything I posted was either a direct quote from Mick Strider himself, or facts borne out through documentation. Are you refuting any of this?

As for any vendetta of my own, I'm going to laugh this off, because the double standard is amazing. Apparrently, not only is Mick Strider not accountable for his own words and actions, but there's a huge double standard in place. Mick Strider can rail against people based on lies, and get sued over it, and that's somehow excellent behavior on his part. I document his lies, and I'm a bad person. Mick Strider lied about being in combat, and misrepresented his military service, and that's a good thing for him to do. I served 3 times as long, and never even bring it up, and I'm a bad person. Mick Strider makes an outrageous lie about suppossedly being sentenced to Somalia as if he's some sort of special case (since federal sentencing guidelines show this is not even remotely true) and he's a hero. I call his lie out for what it is, and I'm a bad guy.

Get your story straight. It's in all of our best interests to expose fakes, and people who prey on our notions of honor, integrity, and service in order to line their pockets.

Mick Strider was given every opportunity to answer these questions. Instead he's now claiming that he has PTSD (from what, I have no idea since he was never in combat). If you notice a common theme in these threads, it's that nothing Mick Strider does is ever his fault. It's always that he's being persecuted by bad people who have it out for him. :rolleyes: Give me a break. And if you notice, I'm not the only person who thinks he's been faking and posing. But hey, all of this can be easily, extremely easily, refuted. All he has to do is produce any sort of verifiable documentation that he's telling the truth.

You want to attack me, be my guest. Be specific. If you are saying I should remain neutral when someone actively lies to me, my forum members, and the industry as a whole, that's moral cowardice. And I'll ask you, straight up: When is it ok to lie about yourself? When is it ok to lie about your military career? At what point do you say "this is wrong" and say so?

Or are you just going to shake your list at me?
 
Spark i want to thank you for that thread. In essense your thread demonstrates that some people cannot (or will not) intellectually distinguish or understand the points you made and continue to make.
 
Cougar Allen said:
No need to respond to the message, just attack the messenger and make as many irrelevant points as you can think of (only 5?).
Click to expand...

I wonder what his motives are... :rolleyes:

reppointsjr0.jpg


:D
 
By refusing to confront the actual evidence that has been presented at Blade Forums and at P.O.W. Network, Strider and his supporters tacitly admit that the allegations are true.

http://www.pownetwork.org/phonies/phonies1085.htm

How any person chooses to interpret the evidence and react to it is their own business, but blaming someone for telling the truth about it is silly.

Oh yeah, and O.J. Simpson spends all his time searching for the "Real Killers".
 
Bravura to those who steped up and exposed the fraud.

If you think it's OK to lie, profit from the lies, or support those who do I do not want to know or associate w/ you.

Just let me know ahead of time or be upfront so I don't have to waste my time to find out the type of person you are down the road.

If you didn't learn from your parents, school, military, trades et al it's NOT OK to lie then we don't have anything in common from the get go.....

It's really quite sad that so many grown men don't get it and actually support the concept of lieing.

Just wait till their duped, then they are the first one to cry foul usually....
 
I'm fairly new to the forums, so the news was news to me. Thanks for putting forth the effort in compiling the info. Good to know.
 
I think for the most part, folks (including myself) were jumping in and out of Spark's original thread, and the way it all evolved was kind of nebulous.

Personally, It was just a little to much to take in to consider if the allogations were true - For those of us who have enjoyed (and still enjoy) Strider's products - it just hurt. Honestly, I just hate the whole thing.

Not necessarily that Spark brought it up, but just how it makes me feel.

Everyone has a right to ask questions, for me, I have to admit, my personal feelings are involved, and it is hard to be objective.

I bought my Striders partially because of the Mystique of them being made by someone who was in the special forces etc.

I don't regret buying them, I like the products, but I wonder if I would have been as quick to buy them, if all the cards were on the table.

I don't know..

sp
 
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