This was was a poorly attempt of trying to earn merit. This is exactly the reason why you are still on 0 merit is because it just does not make any sense or you have brought up opinions which have already been discussed a million times this week.
Yes it was and from what I've seen, people who support the merit system by praising it, get merit.
Had his English been better, and maybe if in his language was a little less cult-like, someone probably would have given him merit for it.
I'm curious about this statement "or you have brought up opinions which have already been discussed a million times this week." Is your expectation that posters research previous posts to make sure they are not duplicating thoughts? If that's the case, this forum would need a better system of cataloging records because some of this topics get hundreds of pages of posts.