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TrueTomHarley

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  1. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Arauna in The WEST's war of words against CHINA. Starting with the Uyghurs.   
    Crazy goings-on here. I am getting so many like that my system crashed. You probably don’t see it, though. I am even getting liked from 4J. He has never done anything other than laugh before.
    Is this what you mean. Ad nauseum the claim was made that all the studies showed how safe they were. One dogged fellow kept after them—he had to sue to do it—and the facts revealed was that there had been no studies at all. It is a little more detained than that, but that is the gist of it.
    https://www.icandecide.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ICAN-VS-CDC-LAWSUIT-PR.pdf
    It is also impossible to sue vaccine-makers. They are protected from lawsuit, and a separate ‘vaccine court’ (funded by taxpayers) handles claim of vaccine injury—which fights every claim tooth and nail.
    In this day when lawyers can and do sue everyone under the sun for everything, they CANNOT sue vaccine makers. Does anyone think automobiles would be as safe as they are today if they were immune from lawsuit? We would still be driving Pintos, that burst into flame when hit from the rear, or Corvairs, that flip over if you’ve gotten the tire pressure wrong.
  2. Thanks
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Thinking in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    Yes. Looking back on the thread, I see how easy the mistake was to make. Were the misunderstanding valid, you would be absolutely right to rebuke me. I would have done the same. I have at times. 
    People don’t have time to read all this in depth. They see a seeming injustice and they jump on it. I do not always speak plainly, and I do sometimes speak too much. 
    I would not say that it is only the brotherhood where such things can be sorted out—with both ready to make amends, both ready to walk things back, both ready to apologize without worry about saving face. But I can think of many settings in which such a misunderstanding would not be readily sorted out, and instead would serve as a wedge to trigger further arguments. 
    For all the greater world speaks of “coming together,” they tend not to do it very often.
  3. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from JW Insider in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    Yes. Looking back on the thread, I see how easy the mistake was to make. Were the misunderstanding valid, you would be absolutely right to rebuke me. I would have done the same. I have at times. 
    People don’t have time to read all this in depth. They see a seeming injustice and they jump on it. I do not always speak plainly, and I do sometimes speak too much. 
    I would not say that it is only the brotherhood where such things can be sorted out—with both ready to make amends, both ready to walk things back, both ready to apologize without worry about saving face. But I can think of many settings in which such a misunderstanding would not be readily sorted out, and instead would serve as a wedge to trigger further arguments. 
    For all the greater world speaks of “coming together,” they tend not to do it very often.
  4. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Thinking in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    I would not have posted the arrest report, and I would not have posted it exactly for the reason that @Thinkingsays. Thanks to @Annafor clearing that up— it was another who posted it, and that is the person I referred to as “not exactly someone who loves Jehovah.” As for JTR, I think it is pretty clear that he did, screwy though he was in many ways. 
    Is it in anyone’s vital interest to know what Ann posted? Is anyone here endangered by not knowing? I would not have posted it.
    And, the other person called a “sex beast” from another thread—the one who was convicted for touching offense, not just porn, some decades past and who had never repeated them, the one whom the judge said that his past had finally caught up with him and that he had no choice but to send him to prison, as though if he had a choice, he might choose a less harsh punishment—that one would appear to give the lie to the mantra that a person cannot change. He can. He evidently did. Long ago. So you would almost think more attention would be paid to the wholesome teachings and moral atmosphere that prevailed so as to mold him into a different person.
  5. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Thinking in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    “What we have here is a failure to communicate,” said Cool Hand Luke, before they shot him dead. 
    You don’t want to do that. What I meant is that there are many platforms that do not appear to recognize the applicability of Proverbs 11:13:
    “a slanderer goes about revealing confidential talk,But the trustworthy person keeps a confidence,”
    but instead they carry on as though confidential talk should be revealed to all. It is not something I have any control over—other than whether I should participate on this site or not, and I’ve explained many times why I do.
    No, but you can read her collective comments, and certain things become pretty clear. By doing that, it is as though you have super powers.
    Look, I was chastened by your remark. “Point well made,” I said. What more do you want? No one else backed down any. Nor was I the one to fan the flames in the first place. 
     
  6. Downvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Patiently waiting for Truth in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    If that’s was Tom was saying or wanted to say, he would have said it. 
  7. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Anna in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    Yes it probably was that way. Ah. Now, things make more sense. Thanks for that bit of light.
  8. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Patiently waiting for Truth in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    Yes it probably was that way. Ah. Now, things make more sense. Thanks for that bit of light.
  9. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Patiently waiting for Truth in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    “What we have here is a failure to communicate,” said Cool Hand Luke, before they shot him dead. 
    You don’t want to do that. What I meant is that there are many platforms that do not appear to recognize the applicability of Proverbs 11:13:
    “a slanderer goes about revealing confidential talk,But the trustworthy person keeps a confidence,”
    but instead they carry on as though confidential talk should be revealed to all. It is not something I have any control over—other than whether I should participate on this site or not, and I’ve explained many times why I do.
    No, but you can read her collective comments, and certain things become pretty clear. By doing that, it is as though you have super powers.
    Look, I was chastened by your remark. “Point well made,” I said. What more do you want? No one else backed down any. Nor was I the one to fan the flames in the first place. 
     
  10. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley reacted to Anna in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    I think Thinking thought you were talking about JTR, whearas in fact you were talking about Ann O' Maly 😂. Another classic example of how misunderstandings can happen. It stems from trying to be too diplomatic and not mentioning names. Sometimes it's good to be straightforward. One thing is sure, this thread is teaching quite a few lessons 😁
     
  11. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Thinking in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    Nobody ever thinks about such things on social media. The actual news media has long since set the example of relaying accusation as though it were conviction.
    Nobody ever thinks of such things. Until it happens to them. Then they think of it.
  12. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from JW Insider in The WEST's war of words against CHINA. Starting with the Uyghurs.   
    I haven’t tried to rank them. If I did, I don’t think you would be in first place.
    I do take it seriously. I just dial it back a notch or two.
    If it is any consolation, I dial JWI’s stuff 2 notches or 3. You don’t think I buy all his stuff, do you? It is but food for thought—sort of like that verse that says you think you know it all after hearing the first witness, and then the other fellow comes along. I don’t know why he goes on and on the way he does—to me, all one need do is see how governments are treating our brothers and extrapolate from there—still, this site is a lab for me. I think it is a lab for you. I think it is a lab for him. As Voltaire said, the most sure way to be dull is to reveal everything—I don’t have to know where everyone is coming from.
    I am on a Voltaire kick now. My Great Courses regimen has gone from Bart E to Henry VIII, and now it is on Voltaire. I listen to the CDs while walking the dog, who doesn’t listen himself, and they permit me to be a seed-picker, like they said of Paul at Acts 17:18, who picks up a seed here and poops it out there. I give the appearance of being smart, having something to say on everything, yet if one pressed you or JWI on China, both of you could expand indefinitely. If one presses me, a seed-picker, I change the subject to Gilligan’s Island. Seed-pickers frequently operate on the very edge of their knowledge, but nobody knows that but they. All that is lacking—as I note from watching Zoom commentators on TV—and which I will soon remedy—is to truck in a ton of books from the Goodwill, and make a podcast in which I can barely be seen for their sheer number. “Whoa! Look at all those books!” people will say, “he must be smart!” Mission accomplished. 
    Voltaire is a name that I’ve long known of but relatively little about. Now I know a little more, and I find, so my surprise, that some of the things I do, he also did. My head, which was already dangerously large, as Cesar pointed out, 
    now gets so big as to take up all the space in the Librarian’s library.
    As to at least make a pretense of staying on topic, the daughter of one of my friends served as a missionary in China, along with her husband. Several years ago he told me that the Chinese secret police had infiltrated our congregations there in no time at all, but they also reported to their superiors that there was nothing to worry about, since our people had no interest whatsoever in changing politics. It is a story a little bit at odds with reports coming out of that land now. Maybe it was naïveté to begin with—some starry-eyed brother misreading reality—we do things like that. At any rate, based upon that input, I expressed similar naïveté in Tom Irregardless that I am almost embarrassed to own now. Still, no harm done, I think. It never hurts to give the other guy the benefit of the doubt, even if sometimes it is hurled back in your face.
    I fall in between you and JWI as regards looking at signs, probably a bit closer to your way. Angels are desiring to peer into these things. It is not for me to tell them to straighten up and get back to work. But the friends can get pretty worked up over things that may turn out here-today, gone-tomorrow. Someone was all excited the other day about Trump brokering a new deal in the mid-east. Does that herald the cry of peace and security? they wondered what I thought. I don’t get worked up over such things. The media has so firmly suppressed the story, for fear of making Trump look good, that few here know much about it, anyway. I try to seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, follow counsel I have found trustworthy, and figure that matters of timing will unfold as they will.
     
     
  13. Downvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Patiently waiting for Truth in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    Nobody ever thinks about such things on social media. The actual news media has long since set the example of relaying accusation as though it were conviction.
    Nobody ever thinks of such things. Until it happens to them. Then they think of it.
  14. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Anna in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    No sooner had I posted this:
    than Witness posted this:
    It is a very helpful link explaining the program.
    Now, Witness never ever posts things just to be helpful. In every case, she posts to denigrate her rivals the GB and to assure all that she can do things better. So why does she post this helpful link here?
    Everyone knows her m.o. She is in a panic that God’s organization might get credit for this generosity and she wants to make sure that they don’t. She wants to make clear that this is a GOVERNMENT program, NOT a JehovahsWitness program, and that people SHOULD NOT credit her rivals with generosity. 
    Chill, you old battle axe, don’t worry about it. I plainly said that it was a USDA program for which I was grateful. USDA is government. Relax. I wasn’t giving your rivals the credit. I even said it represented a “Go to Donald” and I lament that JTR was no longer around, for I suspected that might get him going. The only credit I gave to the elders was for distributing the items.
    But does this prompt distribution not show the value of organization, organization that she says ‘Who needs it?’ Why does the USDA do it this way—distribute to non-profits? Because they have a ton of aid to distribute and if they do it all at government facilities the lines will be two miles long. They also face the challenge of letting potential recipients know. So they distribute to non-profits, taking advantage of the communication and distribution channels that they know will exist there.
    Will everyone agree here that NOBODY will do this more effectively than Jehovah’s Witnesses? There may be some to do it AS effectively, but nobody will beat them at it. Organizations where all members are known and readily found and where there exist messengers to deliver foodstuffs to each and every one of them cannot be an everyday thing.
    My wife and I received a package Saturday around 2PM, after hearing reports of such a program that morning. I can well imagine that there were churches whose members learned of it Sunday morning at services, assuming that they happened to be there, and if they weren’t—too bad. It is not my aim to put them down—frankly I think we do far too much of putting church people down—It is only to point out that the attention of the JW organization to each member is not replicated everywhere. Even where the will exists, the means may not—you have to have volunteers to quickly distribute. There will be some outfits, I have no doubt, that are attentive to those in need and will connect promptly to bring aid. But it will not be universal, and in some cases It will break down completely since it was never built up.
    It’s produce. It can’t sit around for days. It has to be handed out to each individual promptly. Members of the Witness community are broken down into service meeting groups, each under the oversight of one or more shepherds, who will know of any among them who is especially needy, and can therefore be prioritized. Apparently, there was plenty for all this time, but that may not always be so, and the elders will know how to best apportion. They are prepared to organize internal relief as was done in the 2nd chapter of Acts—coordinate members sharing with members—so that nobody is overlooked. In this case, the aid came from outside—a provision of Caesar (probably not replicated in too many countries)—and all there was to do was to distribute it promptly. I am very grateful to the government that is attentive to physical needs. Nonetheless, much of it would fall flat without proper expedition.
    And Witness says ‘Who needs organization?’ Is she nuts? This is why you need it. This is where, not only it is needed, but you draw yourself as close to it as possible so there will be no question that you are a part of it. You become one of the embers that knows enough to pull toward the main fire so as to remain embers. You don’t pull away from the fire so that, in time, nobody, including yourself, really knows it you are an ember or not.
    “Be sure to tune in to the WomanfromtheHills broadcast at 2 PM on Facebook for a discussion which will be the same as last week’s discussion—how my rivals are doing it all wrong and I can do better. Oh—and are you physically hungry? I think there is a government center somewhere in your area where they are handing out food. Get in queue. The line is only two hours in the sun. It may be that you will get some produce before it wilts and you can still be back in time to hear my address on how the Great Eight are good for nothing.”
  15. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley reacted to Anna in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    Very true. And although I am not news media (😀) I made that classic mistake of NOT reading properly, and assuming! Shame on me.
  16. Downvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Patiently waiting for Truth in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    It wasn’t exactly a lover of Jehovah who did this, and for better or for worse, the mission statement of this website is (apologies to the Washington Post) “Theocracy Dies in Darkness.”
    Point well made. 
  17. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from JW Insider in The WEST's war of words against CHINA. Starting with the Uyghurs.   
    A fine new ally of @The Librarian. Who would have guessed? Like two peas in a pod, they are.
  18. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from JW Insider in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    No offense, but isn’t this a first for you? I think Anna raises a good point—if it is someone you know, and thus can see as more than one-dimensional, it makes a difference. Someone else, you posted headlines of being a “sex beast,” despite the touching offense (more serious than this case) being decades in the past and never repeated. “One would think that Epstein and Maxwell would have taught that source what a “sex beast” was,” I mentioned, and you disagreed. 
    People are many-faceted. They are not just one thing. If it is judged that JTR has done wrong, there will be a price to pay. Hopefully thereafter he will get his life back on track. I wish him well in that regard. 
    This is a ridiculous statement. All it means is that there is sometimes not enough evidence upon which to take action. Why don’t you suspend evidence altogether? If anyone is accused of anything, off to jail they go.
    It is all irrelevant anyway. There is no reproach in reporting an abuser to police that he has not already brought upon himself—this was made absolutely clear in that WT of last year, studied by the whole congregation. Thus, regardless of what the congregation does, secular authorities can investigate and possibly punish with their own enhanced methods—examining hard drives, for instance.
    https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/02/the-reproach-of-child-sexual-abuse-falls-on-the-abu.html
    The problem of a “culture of insularity” has been solved. If anyone thinks an abuser has pulled the wool over the eyes of elders, there is no stigma in going to outside authorities, as that study article makes clear.
  19. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Thinking in The WEST's war of words against CHINA. Starting with the Uyghurs.   
    I haven’t tried to rank them. If I did, I don’t think you would be in first place.
    I do take it seriously. I just dial it back a notch or two.
    If it is any consolation, I dial JWI’s stuff 2 notches or 3. You don’t think I buy all his stuff, do you? It is but food for thought—sort of like that verse that says you think you know it all after hearing the first witness, and then the other fellow comes along. I don’t know why he goes on and on the way he does—to me, all one need do is see how governments are treating our brothers and extrapolate from there—still, this site is a lab for me. I think it is a lab for you. I think it is a lab for him. As Voltaire said, the most sure way to be dull is to reveal everything—I don’t have to know where everyone is coming from.
    I am on a Voltaire kick now. My Great Courses regimen has gone from Bart E to Henry VIII, and now it is on Voltaire. I listen to the CDs while walking the dog, who doesn’t listen himself, and they permit me to be a seed-picker, like they said of Paul at Acts 17:18, who picks up a seed here and poops it out there. I give the appearance of being smart, having something to say on everything, yet if one pressed you or JWI on China, both of you could expand indefinitely. If one presses me, a seed-picker, I change the subject to Gilligan’s Island. Seed-pickers frequently operate on the very edge of their knowledge, but nobody knows that but they. All that is lacking—as I note from watching Zoom commentators on TV—and which I will soon remedy—is to truck in a ton of books from the Goodwill, and make a podcast in which I can barely be seen for their sheer number. “Whoa! Look at all those books!” people will say, “he must be smart!” Mission accomplished. 
    Voltaire is a name that I’ve long known of but relatively little about. Now I know a little more, and I find, so my surprise, that some of the things I do, he also did. My head, which was already dangerously large, as Cesar pointed out, 
    now gets so big as to take up all the space in the Librarian’s library.
    As to at least make a pretense of staying on topic, the daughter of one of my friends served as a missionary in China, along with her husband. Several years ago he told me that the Chinese secret police had infiltrated our congregations there in no time at all, but they also reported to their superiors that there was nothing to worry about, since our people had no interest whatsoever in changing politics. It is a story a little bit at odds with reports coming out of that land now. Maybe it was naïveté to begin with—some starry-eyed brother misreading reality—we do things like that. At any rate, based upon that input, I expressed similar naïveté in Tom Irregardless that I am almost embarrassed to own now. Still, no harm done, I think. It never hurts to give the other guy the benefit of the doubt, even if sometimes it is hurled back in your face.
    I fall in between you and JWI as regards looking at signs, probably a bit closer to your way. Angels are desiring to peer into these things. It is not for me to tell them to straighten up and get back to work. But the friends can get pretty worked up over things that may turn out here-today, gone-tomorrow. Someone was all excited the other day about Trump brokering a new deal in the mid-east. Does that herald the cry of peace and security? they wondered what I thought. I don’t get worked up over such things. The media has so firmly suppressed the story, for fear of making Trump look good, that few here know much about it, anyway. I try to seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, follow counsel I have found trustworthy, and figure that matters of timing will unfold as they will.
     
     
  20. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Anna in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    No offense, but isn’t this a first for you? I think Anna raises a good point—if it is someone you know, and thus can see as more than one-dimensional, it makes a difference. Someone else, you posted headlines of being a “sex beast,” despite the touching offense (more serious than this case) being decades in the past and never repeated. “One would think that Epstein and Maxwell would have taught that source what a “sex beast” was,” I mentioned, and you disagreed. 
    People are many-faceted. They are not just one thing. If it is judged that JTR has done wrong, there will be a price to pay. Hopefully thereafter he will get his life back on track. I wish him well in that regard. 
    This is a ridiculous statement. All it means is that there is sometimes not enough evidence upon which to take action. Why don’t you suspend evidence altogether? If anyone is accused of anything, off to jail they go.
    It is all irrelevant anyway. There is no reproach in reporting an abuser to police that he has not already brought upon himself—this was made absolutely clear in that WT of last year, studied by the whole congregation. Thus, regardless of what the congregation does, secular authorities can investigate and possibly punish with their own enhanced methods—examining hard drives, for instance.
    https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/02/the-reproach-of-child-sexual-abuse-falls-on-the-abu.html
    The problem of a “culture of insularity” has been solved. If anyone thinks an abuser has pulled the wool over the eyes of elders, there is no stigma in going to outside authorities, as that study article makes clear.
  21. Haha
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Patiently waiting for Truth in The WEST's war of words against CHINA. Starting with the Uyghurs.   
    A fine new ally of @The Librarian. Who would have guessed? Like two peas in a pod, they are.
  22. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Patiently waiting for Truth in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    No offense, but isn’t this a first for you? I think Anna raises a good point—if it is someone you know, and thus can see as more than one-dimensional, it makes a difference. Someone else, you posted headlines of being a “sex beast,” despite the touching offense (more serious than this case) being decades in the past and never repeated. “One would think that Epstein and Maxwell would have taught that source what a “sex beast” was,” I mentioned, and you disagreed. 
    People are many-faceted. They are not just one thing. If it is judged that JTR has done wrong, there will be a price to pay. Hopefully thereafter he will get his life back on track. I wish him well in that regard. 
    This is a ridiculous statement. All it means is that there is sometimes not enough evidence upon which to take action. Why don’t you suspend evidence altogether? If anyone is accused of anything, off to jail they go.
    It is all irrelevant anyway. There is no reproach in reporting an abuser to police that he has not already brought upon himself—this was made absolutely clear in that WT of last year, studied by the whole congregation. Thus, regardless of what the congregation does, secular authorities can investigate and possibly punish with their own enhanced methods—examining hard drives, for instance.
    https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/02/the-reproach-of-child-sexual-abuse-falls-on-the-abu.html
    The problem of a “culture of insularity” has been solved. If anyone thinks an abuser has pulled the wool over the eyes of elders, there is no stigma in going to outside authorities, as that study article makes clear.
  23. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Patiently waiting for Truth in The WEST's war of words against CHINA. Starting with the Uyghurs.   
    I haven’t tried to rank them. If I did, I don’t think you would be in first place.
    I do take it seriously. I just dial it back a notch or two.
    If it is any consolation, I dial JWI’s stuff 2 notches or 3. You don’t think I buy all his stuff, do you? It is but food for thought—sort of like that verse that says you think you know it all after hearing the first witness, and then the other fellow comes along. I don’t know why he goes on and on the way he does—to me, all one need do is see how governments are treating our brothers and extrapolate from there—still, this site is a lab for me. I think it is a lab for you. I think it is a lab for him. As Voltaire said, the most sure way to be dull is to reveal everything—I don’t have to know where everyone is coming from.
    I am on a Voltaire kick now. My Great Courses regimen has gone from Bart E to Henry VIII, and now it is on Voltaire. I listen to the CDs while walking the dog, who doesn’t listen himself, and they permit me to be a seed-picker, like they said of Paul at Acts 17:18, who picks up a seed here and poops it out there. I give the appearance of being smart, having something to say on everything, yet if one pressed you or JWI on China, both of you could expand indefinitely. If one presses me, a seed-picker, I change the subject to Gilligan’s Island. Seed-pickers frequently operate on the very edge of their knowledge, but nobody knows that but they. All that is lacking—as I note from watching Zoom commentators on TV—and which I will soon remedy—is to truck in a ton of books from the Goodwill, and make a podcast in which I can barely be seen for their sheer number. “Whoa! Look at all those books!” people will say, “he must be smart!” Mission accomplished. 
    Voltaire is a name that I’ve long known of but relatively little about. Now I know a little more, and I find, so my surprise, that some of the things I do, he also did. My head, which was already dangerously large, as Cesar pointed out, 
    now gets so big as to take up all the space in the Librarian’s library.
    As to at least make a pretense of staying on topic, the daughter of one of my friends served as a missionary in China, along with her husband. Several years ago he told me that the Chinese secret police had infiltrated our congregations there in no time at all, but they also reported to their superiors that there was nothing to worry about, since our people had no interest whatsoever in changing politics. It is a story a little bit at odds with reports coming out of that land now. Maybe it was naïveté to begin with—some starry-eyed brother misreading reality—we do things like that. At any rate, based upon that input, I expressed similar naïveté in Tom Irregardless that I am almost embarrassed to own now. Still, no harm done, I think. It never hurts to give the other guy the benefit of the doubt, even if sometimes it is hurled back in your face.
    I fall in between you and JWI as regards looking at signs, probably a bit closer to your way. Angels are desiring to peer into these things. It is not for me to tell them to straighten up and get back to work. But the friends can get pretty worked up over things that may turn out here-today, gone-tomorrow. Someone was all excited the other day about Trump brokering a new deal in the mid-east. Does that herald the cry of peace and security? they wondered what I thought. I don’t get worked up over such things. The media has so firmly suppressed the story, for fear of making Trump look good, that few here know much about it, anyway. I try to seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, follow counsel I have found trustworthy, and figure that matters of timing will unfold as they will.
     
     
  24. Upvote
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from Anna in ....and like Forest Gump said "... and that's all I am going to say about that."   
    Did I read the report wrong? Bond has been posted. Lock-up was “pre-trial.” I don’t believe he has been.
  25. Thanks
    TrueTomHarley got a reaction from JW Insider in The WEST's war of words against CHINA. Starting with the Uyghurs.   
    Did he really say that? One time I called him out on how it is not much of a “last days” if it began in 33 and he said that as far as he was concerned, Armageddon might come in the next 5 minutes. I may be naive and inclined to cut people too much slack—those interminably long threads on chronology I either skim for the most part or even pass over entirely—but for me it is enough to say the present leadership is doing an overall good job and that leadership is essential in any project—and this he does repeatedly. People don’t have to come together on every particular, nice though that might be. As long he is not doing a Witness or a Rolf (the GB is nuts!—I am better) I can live with it.
    If if eases Caser’s mind any (and even 4Jah), I have never seen such an in-depth discussion of international history, economics, and political maneuvering as here between JWI and yourself. Very very few brothers would have an interest or be capable of launching a similar thread. So it is not necessary for 4Jah or Cesar to say: “Well well well—it looks like JWs are taking an interest in “worldly politics.” Two of them are, and two are not very many, easily accommodated in the body of limbs that all work together.
    Moreover, Cesar consistently upvotes one and downvotes the other—yet they both are equally political, so that if you moved these past few comments to a separate thread, he might not follow, since for some reason I cannot quite get my head around, there is much bad blood between he and a certain “ex-Bethelite.” As to comments making either a bad impression or, on the other hand, beIng innocuous, I think that could be said of both participants or neither. When I wrote ‘Dear Mr P—JWs Write Russia’ I determined NOT to present the northern king through the eyes of the southern, for if I did that, maybe some day the northern king would read it and get mad. For all I know, JWI’s trying to appreciate the viewpoint of the northern guy will make a better impression on him, and thus ease the suffering of our brothers in his domain, more so than does reaffirming the Western viewpoint of the “evil empire.” There is barely a drama anywhere in which the bad guys say, “We are the bad guys.” All of them are good guys. All of them have lofty goals. All of them have villainous implementations. All of them are subject to finger-pointing from the other side. Neutral though JWs strive to be, there was an occurrence or two of the phrase “iron curtain” in the 50s, and Emily Baran notes that it caused some grumbling among the Soviets, who didn’t view it as an iron curtain at all, but a “protective wall.”
    Far more likely, I think, nobody reads this thread—I note that my invitation to respond in any way, with either an upvote or downvote, has attracted only two hits. Neither Putin nor Trump nor Xi is furiously hitting the upvote or downvote button like rats in a Skinner box, nor are any of the brothers. Not to worry should someone appear to be going off-script. I don’t think anyone is. JTR, for all his orneriness, had some good lines. One of them was: “that which is not expressly permitted is forbidden.” I rebuked him for it each time, because it is not so. But then along comes someone to suggest by what they would deny others that it is all so.
    In my heart of hearts, I sometimes wish that brothers were as “well-rounded” with their heads as they are with their hands. It is not a big deal—“it is what it is” Trump recently said about something else, and how are you going to respond to that? “It isn’t what it is?” Get your head around how things “is”—I accept that. The greater world is the source of rebellion against God, misleading and being misled by you-know-who, so it is not the GB’s place to encourage ones to go out there for “balance.” They are concerned will preserving life. It is as it should be. They don’t encourage ones to take in-depth looks at how the kings speak for themselves. But that is not to say that they do not recognize that Witnesses have diverse interests.
     
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