James Thomas Rook Jr.

ZERO
But, like picking at scabs that itch ... it makes a lot of people feel better, and other people see the bleeding scabs, and moonwalk..

I didn’t know that. Good post, Himee.    

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (1940) that children MUST salute WHEN told to do so, with NO excuses, the phrase “freedom of the human mind” was used to defend the minority, Jehovah’s Witnesses. The words were employed in the minority opinion. Today, the phrase “freedom of mind” is used to attack them! along with other ‘cults.’ It is an amazing reversal—from defending the rights of the minority from majority assault, to defending the rights of the majority from minority assault!
How does the minority pull off such a threatening stunt? Through ‘mind control’ and “brainwashing!’ It is an incredible charge and an 180 reversal of history! Freedomofmind.com is the url of the “cultexpert,” the founder of the BITE model, the means through which the nefarious minority manipulates members of the majority—through Behavioral control, Informational control, Thought control, and Emotional control. It is always someone else’s fault with these ‘anti-cultists”—its founder has progressed to calling half the country a victim of political mind-control! He’s not drunk too much of the Kool-Aid himself?
THAT is the takeaway point to be gleaned from the following article. It is not the point I had in mind when I initially wrote it. But it is the point that best endures:
....
Dave McClure
I worked with Dave McClure the circuit overseer—I used to stick to those guys like glue—one fine morning in the 1980’s. “We’re just calling on our neighbors in order to....” he began. The householder glanced at the Michigan plates on his car—it didn’t exactly suggest to a New Yorker that the man was a neighbor. “Neighbor?” he said. But Dave was never ever at a loss for words. “Well, I’ve got to fly the flag!’ was his chipper comeback. 
It was a perfect comeback. Michigan plates that year featured the most colorful backdrop of numerals against a flag that I have ever seen. Brother McClure was newly assigned to our circuit and hadn’t yet switched over his plates—you’re allowed a certain time interval to do so, I believe. I mean, it can’t be a requirement from the moment you cross the state line.
But it was a perfect comeback for another reason. When he was a boy, Dave McClure routinely got beat up by classmates for not flying the flag, or at least not saluting it. He told his experiences at a special assembly in Niagara Falls, New York. As only Brother McClure could do, he made getting beat up almost sound like fun—I mean, this is the fellow who, when in the presence of friends and confronted with something unexpected, would repeatedly and furiously move his hand from breastbone to abdomen and back again. He was just “staking himself,” as he would explain.
In 1940, the Minerville School District v Gobitis U.S. Supreme Court ruling held that Witness children could be compelled to salute the flag. Walter Gobitus was a Jehovah’s Witness whose child did not. Witnesses view declining the flag salute in any nation as a matter of avoiding idolatry. They connect the salute with God’s words to Moses that “you must not make for yourself...a form like anything that is in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. You must not bow down to them...for I, Jehovah your God, am a God who requires exclusive devotion...” 
Walter, then 10, had told the local school authorities: ''I do not salute the flag not because I do not love my country. I love my country, but I love God more, and must obey his commandments.'' Didn’t cut it with the Supreme Court.
The Court decision signaled open hunting season on Jehovah’s Witnesses. Mobs surrounded them in their public preaching work. Many were accosted. Some were tarred and feathered, some were forced to drink castor oil. At least one was lynched. They were rounded up in their ministry and crammed into local jails, sometimes without charge—they were contemptible enough in the eyes of respectable society so as to be denied the rights afforded everyone else. One brother tells of how he would always carry a toothbrush with him in the ministry so as not to be unprepared should he spend the night in the hoosegow.
Note the majority Supreme Court opinion of Justice Felix Frankfurter: “National unity is the basis of national security. To deny the legislature the right to select appropriate means for its attainment presents a totally different order of problem from that of the propriety of subordinating the possible ugliness of littered streets to the free expression opinion through handbills.” Note his contempt for the “possible ugliness of littered streets” from handbills, such as Witnesses were known for.
Justice Harlan Stone was the lone dissenter. He wrote that “the guarantees of civil liberty are but guarantees of freedom of the human mind and spirit and of reasonable freedom and opportunity to express them .” Note how “guarantees of freedom of the human mind and spirit” were presumed defenses for those who would think outside of the mainstream; note today how ‘anti-cultists’ have turned that logic on its head so that a ‘cult’ taking ones outside of the mainstream constitutes a violation of “the freedom of the human mind and spirit.”
Shortly thereafter, probably aghast at the violence they had unleashed, the Court had a change of heart. Three members signaled their changed views. Two others retired and were replaced by those thought more attuned to individual liberties. The matter came up for review again, wending its way though lesser courts until it ascended to the top Court. The plaintiffs in the case were named Barnett, Stull, and Lucy McClure. Dave was the young son of Lucy.
The decision reversed. The new majority opinion (released on June 3rd, Flag Day, 1943):
''If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein,'' Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote. 
The new minority opinion , written by the former winner, now the loser, Felix Frankfurter, included the grumbling:
“As has been true in the past, the Court will from time to time reverse its position. But I believe that never before these Jehovah’s Witnesses cases (there were many more besides those concerning flag salute) …..has this Court overruled decisions so as to restrict the powers of democratic government.”
Yes, that’s how it is with governments, democratic or not. They want more power. They don’t want to give it up. A certain amount is necessary, of course, so as to maintain public order and safety. Witnesses cede it to them willingly and render obedience. But when they grab for yet more - the consciences and souls of their citizens, someone has to call them on it. And that someone has often been Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The topic came up 45 years later. The first George Bush thought it a fine idea for teachers to lead their classes in mandatory flag salute. His electioneering opponent, Michael Dukakis, did not. The New York Times reviewed the JW items of decades past and even tracked down some of the original participants. “Mr. Gobitis,” it wrote, “now a 62-year-old piano tuner in Belgium, Wis., has followed the 1988 salute debate closely, and a bit disgustedly. ‘It's hard to comprehend why they're raising this issue again,’ he said. ‘They're ignoring our constitutional development and history.’ It reminded him, he said, of a passage in Chapter 16 of the Book of Revelations. ‘To Jehovah's Witnesses,’ he said, ‘all this political fanfare boils down to is 'the croaking of frogs and expressions inspired by demons.’”
And you know, I just can’t get over the reversed use of that phrase, “guarantees of freedom of the human mind and spirit and of reasonable freedom.” Then it was used to protect the minority from the majority. Today anti-cultists use it to protect the majority from the minority, lest ones of that minority ‘deceive’ them by ‘manipulation’ and ‘mind control.’ 
As for Dave McClure, my old Circuit Overseer, he would have been serving our circuit somewhere around that time. But if he ever had thoughts about the 1988 brouhaha, he never shared them with me. He passed away in Florida several years ago.

Come come. Are you really a ‘newbie?’ You read very much like an ‘oldbie’ to me.
He doesn’t ‘vote.’ He laughs—like a hyena.

Do you have the same problem when 4jah2me makes a conscience vote? Or is just a dislike toward newbies voting their conscience. How is my voting causing a feud? That makes no sense.

That is because I believe Ezekiel 38 will play out there. The situation only confirms that Australia is the right place.  Gog will together with probably China invade first Australia and then they will come to plunder Jehovah's peoples material wealth, in for of gold, silver, cattle and goods according to Ezekiel 38. But as Ezekiel for tells Gog will not succeed. Instead he and his armies will be wiped out by Jehovah God.

Yes I have thought about that. Revelation 12:6 said:   And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God and where they would feed her for 1,260 days.
So the water supply would be already in place. As I mentioned earlier, the water supply is already in place there. There are waterpoints for the cattle spread through out the country. We can drink the same water. I don't think the toilet thing will be a problem. The israelites who left Egypt with Moses had no problem with that. If they could live and survive in the wilderness, so should we be able. I believe the exodus from Egypt and their dwelling in the desert is a prophetic pattern for us.
And Jehovah's witnesses are used to organize conventions, so this should not be a problem. We could organize it just in a bigger scale. Food would not be a problem. Just buy container loads of essential food, such as wheat, rise and legumes and vegetable oil. I would buy a large stockpile, maybe for 5 years. During that time we could already manage to begin to grow our own food. 

The WT organization I believe has so much money and assets so that everyone could get a ticket to Australia. And all who would go could sell everything before going there.

I dislike incurring the displeasure of Dooyaateehda Ajigaleidii, and I hope never to do so.

Whatever it was I was doing, I was NOT guessing .... my intent was to tell a joke, which for those with a well integrated knowledge base would be funny.. Almost all humor has to have some element of truth, and I was counting on the assumption that it would be recognized that years ago it was repeatedly touted from the Watchtower that Baptism was the most important decision you will ever make ... even more important that who you choose to marry, or even getting married or not, in itself ... and required a great deal of maturity to enter into such an adoptive covenant arrangement.
Now ... 8 year old girls are being baptized, which when extrapolated according to previous statements, means they are mature enough to get married, which is absurd.
If it is absurd that they are not mature enough to get married, it follows that it is absurd that they are mature enough to get baptized.  Since 1985, when they changed the terms of baptism as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, the terms of the dedication oath require fealty and allegiance to the WTB&TS, as well as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
So, what a girl does when she is eight years old makes her liable to be ostracized, shunned, and disfellowshipped at a later date, and banned from associating with everyone she ever knew.
Even Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, waited until he was in his early 30's to be baptized.
If we are to follow Jesus' example, what's with letting 8 year old children getting baptized?
...and what is the new younger limit?
Three years old?
That was not a guess .... that was a lament.
 

Whatever it was I was doing, I was NOT guessing .... my intent was to tell a joke, which for those with a well integrated knowledge base would be funny.. Almost all humor has to have some element of truth, and I was counting on the assumption that it would be recognized that years ago it was repeatedly touted from the Watchtower that Baptism was the most important decision you will ever make ... even more important that who you choose to marry, or even getting married or not, in itself ... and required a great deal of maturity to enter into such an adoptive covenant arrangement.
Now ... 8 year old girls are being baptized, which when extrapolated according to previous statements, means they are mature enough to get married, which is absurd.
If it is absurd that they are not mature enough to get married, it follows that it is absurd that they are mature enough to get baptized.  Since 1985, when they changed the terms of baptism as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, the terms of the dedication oath require fealty and allegiance to the WTB&TS, as well as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
So, what a girl does when she is eight years old makes her liable to be ostracized, shunned, and disfellowshipped at a later date, and banned from associating with everyone she ever knew.
Even Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, waited until he was in his early 30's to be baptized.
If we are to follow Jesus' example, what's with letting 8 year old children getting baptized?
...and what is the new younger limit?
Three years old?
That was not a guess .... that was a lament.
 

After WW I, there was only one populated place on Earth that had no cases of the "Spanish Flu"
American Samoa, in the Pacific Ocean ... because they locked down their borders 100%

You're GUESSING!
You yourself said that the GB has no idea how to account for donated funds (paraphrased).
Let me know when you have hard data for either topic..

My wife and celebrated the Memorial last night about 9PM ... I bought a bottle of Chianti wine, and she prepared the unleavened bread.
THEN ... I realized that the wine bottle had a cork, and not a screw off cap.
Who knew?
I did NOT have a corkscrew, but did have a portable, battery operated Ryobi tire inflator, which had a fitting to insert into basketballs and such, to inflate the balls ... a hollow needle to insert into the ball.
So I pushed the needle into the cork as far as it would go, and turned on the inflator.... pressurizing the wine bottle ... and the cork slowly pushed itself up out of the bottle, while my wife kept yelling "It;s gonna explode! It's gonna explode!", and retired to another room.
We read the entire Matthew and Luke account of the Passover and first Memorial, and followed that example, and after the closing prayer, we tasted both the bread and wine.
I ate  the bread and shared it with my seven dogs, which several loved, and several ignored..
It is my understanding that all dogs naturally go to Heaven.
... cats, perhaps 5%.

 
 

I don't  think it was meant that way Arauna. @Anna asked a genuine question about the very young children being included in the count and @James Thomas Rook Jr. being his normal self made a joke about two or three year olds being included. 
It wasn't to suggest that adult JWs are children or babies. It was actually talking about real babies. 

And the thought just occurred to me .... I have never, EVER seen a LOAF of bread at the Memorial ... its always as flat as a road kill squirrel.

...sometimes .... when they open the reports slip box, they will find a well chewed pacifier .....

...sometimes .... when they open the reports slip box, they will find a well chewed pacifier .....

They will count baptized children, down to the age of three, or if they have been potty trained, down to the age of two.

...sometimes .... when they open the reports slip box, they will find a well chewed pacifier .....

They will count baptized children, down to the age of three, or if they have been potty trained, down to the age of two.

They will count baptized children, down to the age of three, or if they have been potty trained, down to the age of two.

Exactly my impression when this first aired weeks ago.

Exactly my impression when this first aired weeks ago.

Yikes. Just saw the Inside Edition clip. I don't know what a demon's eyes look like, but somehow that Kenneth Copeland seems to be able to portray the general idea in a convincing manner.