James Thomas Rook Jr.

I will take that as a refusal to acknowledge reality as it REALLY exists.

Some countries outside of the United States are blocked by YouTube It works for me ... I even used that link to download the entire episode to my hard drive.

It seems that you are trying VERY hard to divert the conversation from the real issue. Your question has NOTHING to do with facts. My opinion on what you asked about is completely immaterial. How about this ..... I get an opinion from you about what I posted first?

Since the time that the supposed Hunchback of Notre Dame swung from the bells in the bell tower, CLERGY has been afforded special dispensations by the civil authorities. Even the civil authorities are in many governments referred to as "ministers". In Richmond Virginia, circa 1965 Pioneers, those who spent 100 hours a month in the ministry .... and BEFORE the idea was promoted that we were "ordained" ministers .... and LONG before the GB started promoting the idea that those involved in lawsuits were "Clergy", these Brothers WERE granted exemption to military service with a "4-D" classification as "Ministers of Religion" I WAS THERE AND SAW IT. I was threatened with five years in the Federal Penitentiary, and when I told them I was ready to go ... I got the "I-O" classification, and exemption as a conscientious objector.

The link you provided did not work. This one on YouTube does. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zfMRqpzuOE

TTH: The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws which regulate an establishment of religion, prohibit the free exercise of religion, among other things. What this means is that if inside any particular religion they want to believe that God is a flying spaghetti monster, and call their people Giraffes, and slaughter goats and bathe in the blood, or play with snakes ... the government is FORBIDDEN to interfere with that ... unless ... unless it is against public policy, and is a clear and present danger. The Governing Body has declared that all Jehovah's Witnesses are ORDAINED Ministers of the Gospel ... a practice I believe was started during the Vietnam War to try and get Draft deferments. At least it was in place when I reported to the draft board in 1965 at the Armed Forces Entrance and Examining Station (AFEES), in Richmond Virginia, and a legal theory that I presented to those from my community who interrogated me in the Draft Board conference room with, if memory serves, 12 people whose job it was to classify me as to my Draft status. I understand what you are saying, TTH and MOST of it is true, but that is COMPLETELY beside the point. If you claim to be a hippopotamus, and you are RECOGNIZED as an ordained hippopotamus, don't be surprised that you are not allowed to book a room at the local Hotel. Further, if you claim to be a hippopotamus, the by extension, your children are hippos, you cannot without being a hypocrite deride anyone for looking at you, and looking at your son or daughter, and observing correctly that you are not. Particularly ... and most importantly, if the culture of your religion has declared that "hippopotamusity" is a "snare and a racket", and that organized herds of hippos are "Babylon the Great", and that their "ordained" leaders are agents of Satan. As a teenager, and in my early 20's, my best friend growing up used to Pioneer, and he bragged to me that he could go into prisons almost any time he wanted to "minister" to the inmates there by representing himself as "clergy", which I thought was "juking" the system. Later, he and my first wife ran off together ... but I digress. The Governing Body has repeatedly represented themselves to Courts as ministers, and to get special legal privileges, by representing themselves as clergy. BUT ... you and I have read NOTHING about this in any of the Society's publications .. and heard NOTHING about this at the Kingdom Hall or at any Assemblies or Convention .... while at the SAME TIME telling us that the GB and Elders, and Branch people and we ourselves here at the bottom of the food chain ... ARE ALL EQUAL. (Let's all hold hands in a circle, and sing the Pepsi song). Either we ARE all equal .... or we are NOT. If we are in reality (gimmee a break!) then the newly baptized 8 year old girl is not only an ordained minister ... but is entitled to the legal privileges of "clergy", because she is in fact a "clergy person" Either we ARE all equal .... or we are NOT. THAT is what we have represented as fact ....under sworn oath before God in courts of law ... when JWs demand the rights of "Clergy". So ... on one hand we declare inwardly that we are NOT clergy, despicable agents of Satan as they are, perverting the Word of God, but are all equal ordained ministers at the Kingdom Hall ... from the Governing Body, all the way down to the little 8 year old baptized Sister ... and to the courts we declare that we ARE clergy. Either we ARE all equal .... or we are NOT. I guarantee that any rank-and-file Jehovah's Witnesses of my generation that heard that would be ashamed, and nauseous at the very idea that we shared legal privileges with the "serpents and vipers". According to that ... the little 8 year old Sister has the legal right to be privy to people's secrets of every sort, confessed to her, and is legally protected from divulging those secrets to ANYBODY, if she so decides to do so. You can't have it BOTH ways. SOMEBODY is being conned ... either the courts ... or us. There is no third choice. Either we ARE all equal .... or we are NOT. You can't have it BOTH ways.

Everyone is equal ........ but some are more equal than others.

Because I never take offense at someone's honest opinion, it does not disturb me if someone attacks in full force. Like Winston Churchill, who once apologized to his wife, who was about to leave him, the only thing I know how to do ...is fight.

In many court cases world wide, the WTB&T Society has represented, under oath, that all Jehovah's Witnesses are ordained ministers, and are therefore clergy. ... even the newly baptized 8 year old girl, who thinks "clergy" is some kind of nasal congestion.

There comes a time in every zealous person's life when they realize they STILL have to work for a living, or suffer the deprivations of poverty. This becomes very evident when you need $250,000 in medical care to stay alive, and you have no money. Minor reminders come when you run out of money, and need two crowns, and two root canals. and the rats are eating your face.

How old are you Kosonen? Your naivete bespeaks that you are in your mid 20's, having no idea whatsoever how things have ALWAYS worked. Politics is war ... without the bloodshed. It always has been. HINT: stop watching NBC (Nothing but Clinton Network), CBS (Clinton B S Network), and ABC (Allabout Clinton Network), and the insane progressive Snowflakes, and get ANY AM talk radio station ( available on the Internet), and LISTEN to what they have to say about current events. You will learn more. And more to the point, what you learn will be less likely to be wrong, so your ideas will be less like that of a brainwashed teenager with a mind full of mush.

This is an observation leading to several questions I do not know the answer to: I would ask this questions in my congregation, but even asking the questions would put me on the "suspicious persons " list, and I would be subject to an open ended "fishing expedition" interrogation that I am weary of. In Norway there are approximately 112,000 Jehovah's Witnesses, and presumably none of them vote in political elections, under penalty of disfellowshipping by the Congregation Elders. In Norway, the Government subsidizes all registered and approved churches, as is done in many European countries, with a "per head" payment based on membership numbers.. I think the WTB&TS gets, in NK (Norwegian Kroner) about $83 equivalent for each JW reported to the government. ( I do not really know the number, and am reporting a partial memory).. If so, that is about 9.2 million dollars equivalent. Discussions are now SERIOUSLY going on among Norwegian politicians to cancel that subsidy for Jehovah's Witnesses, BECAUSE they are in severe violation of basic human rights , in that the WTB&TS imposes on their JW Norwegian citizens, namely, severe punishment and sanctions for exercising their Norwegian right to vote. If this "push" reaches fruition, Norwegian citizens will still have to pay taxes as before for this, but the Society will not get their 9.2 million dollars a year, or whatever the real number is, AND JWs will be branded as "extremists", and other nasty things, with solid proof that they are in fact actually guilty, guilty, guilty, of basic human rights violations. I cannot imagine the Society wanting to give up the estimated 9.2 million dollars each year, or be branded as enemies of civilization .... so my questions are as follows: Will the Society relax the standards for voting in Norway, and more to the point SHOULD they relax the voting standards now in force for Norwegian JWs, and make it a matter of personal conscience, (as it is with it's OK to accept whole blood, if it is fractionated, and is administered in 13 separate IV tubes) ? SHOULD voting in elections and referendums, etc, be a matter of personal conscience, and not punishable by expulsion, and shunning ?

DUH

The thought just occurred to me that those who have a full blown case of TDS, AND a full blown case of WDS, have something in common. They have absolutely NO sense of humor ! Waking up to Trump .mp4 ....and of course there is .... Trump's House of Wings .wmv

When I first looked at the animation, I thought it was stupid .... but after "staring at the goat" for awhile, it fell over and I understand the relationships he was demonstrating.. It has to do with area. All my working life I worked with trig, and never thought of that! Cool!

By what legal theory should I give you the keys to my house? You are always welcome to try and TAKE it from me ... THAT would be interesting! CC, you are the only person I have met (so to speak ...) that has a severe case of WDS AND TDS. The difference is that WDS is a sword that cuts BOTH ways, whether inside looking out ... or outside looking in, and people with fine motives on either side can become infected. TDS evolves from a deranged mind that where Narcissistic Personality Disorder has run amok.

I think this is a fine, noble and acceptable practice ..... ONLY if there is a full, detailed accounting to the rank-and-file Brothers and Sisters who are paying the bills. I am talking something like a CPA audited EXCEL spreadsheet, certified by an independent auditing agency. This is the only way we can be assured that monies are not just disappearing down some personal rat-hole.

Who takes the money, and to whom is the money returned?

There is a reason why NBC is known as the "Nothing But Clinton" network. The stupidity of this commentator is embarrassing to even watch.

I don't defend anybody or any thing that does not, in my opinion, deserve defending. You do not understand ALL that I was saying. Some get it. Some don't.

...And now something a little different,, like the yodeling in the movie "Mars Attacks", something to blow Snowflake' heads all over the ceiling .... GOSPEL TROOP SINGIN' ''THANK THE LORD RUSH LIMBAUGH'S ON''.mp4

I have a wooden plaque screwed to my bookcase to the left of where I am typing now, with the quote you referenced ... beside the other wooden plaque, with Henry David Thoreau's quote: " .... If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it it because he hears a different drummer: Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." --------------------------------------- I do have to endure the things I cannot change ... but I do NOT have to accept them. OR LIKE THEM! ...and Tom .... I DO know the difference.

Have you lost your mind? If they have nothing to hide, why are they appealing to the United States Supreme Court to be able to keep those same records hidden? ( I have not followed the case, so I don't know how it turned out, if at all, yet).

After a person has been beat up 15 times, (actual count) you might suspect them of being a sore head about such things, and somewhat reticent about being beat up some more.

You are going to write a book about my FATHER?