Dies to Removal

Ladies and gentlemen,
I come before you today to ask something of you. You may consider it a minor thing, nothing more than a few minutes of your time, but to me, it is a great thing. I consider your time important, and I consider you important; it is with the utmost humility that I come before you today.

I want you to understand, this is just me talking here. I am no longer a man who enjoys making lofty speeches; they aren't as effective as some believe. Nor do I presume to think I know better than you; if life has taught me one thing it's that about the only thing I'm good at is making bad decisions. Besides, it doesn't matter if I make the greatest stump speech in the world, I'm not here to throw the system into chaos or make great socio-political changes or even for the lulz. I'm just one man trying to get his friend back.

Ben Gomes and I used to be good friends,
great friends... or at least I thought so, I do not know his true feelings on what we had. We would talk on any subject, from sailing ships and ceiling wax, to the darkest dramas. I still remember fondly how happy he was with his new apartment; even after all that has come after it makes me smile. Despite what others may have said of him and his speech, he was not an unapproachable person. Back then, his position was a stopping block but I had faith we could overcome it... as I said, I am pretty good at making bad decisions.
With time, you see, I started to notice a trend: questions I had weren't being answered as well as before, and some of his actions started to come staggeringly at odds with what we would talk about; he would give one answer then act on another. He used excuses, rather than answers, and I felt looked-down upon for not having a title; which was bizarre, because if it hadn't been for me handing in my title, I would have been of no use to him. A seed of an idea had been
planted in his head, that he was better than me for his position, and that caused me no end of grief... I'd seen that kind of addiction take hold before. I tried to warn him, oh God did I, I used anything from his Zodiacal sign to the good ol' drunkchat, but I just got accused of attacking him. He kept asking for time, time, time, always more and more time, and when I gave it to him our conversations petered out, stopped completely. My words that he used to claim to cherish became nothing but grease to feed his... well, I guess I have to call it his obsession. In the end, when I finally gave up, all I heard from him were the same old requests for time and more time, admonitions that he hadn't changed. Addict logic. Coming from a background of helping to treat addicts, it broke my heart.

Now, I know there are other reasons for wanting to pull him down: if you are looking to sow discord for the lulz, by all means sign the petition. If you are looking for internet justice to those who Ben
has wronged, sign the petition. Hell, If you want to help MTGSalvation, you should also sign the petition... the userbase desperately needs a strong voice right now, someone down there in the trenches to fight the staggering level of asshats on their own level, and Ben could easily be one of those voices.

But if you want to help me out, because you like me and want to see blatheration from a place of joy I miss like the dickens; or because you hate me and you want me to blather at Ben instead of you every once in a while; or just because you're awesome like that, I'd really appreciate it if you'd sign the petition. I desperately want to forgive the guy but can't while he holds that addiction. And even if we can't get over his past sins, that gives him a shot at meeting new people, better people than me.

Give Ben the time he deserves so much. Give him a chance to enjoy his apartment and use some of the cheesy-as-hell one-liners I fed him on girls. Give him a chance at freedom,
give him his life back.

Sign the petition.

You have my permission to repost this wherever the heck you want.