TrueTomHarley

Just convince some idiot that what remains IS the original work and she is golden.
 

TTH wants nothing of the sort.

Given my newfound resolution, I am exploring whether I feel that there any value whatsoever in starting threads on this open JW forum. I am not sure that there is. The ones who object are not doing any more than they have done from Day one, but just rubber-stamping what they have said many times in the past—they get me worked up to no purpose. I do like to keep my finger on the pulse of what the opponents are up to, and I have benefited in some cases by seeing where they are coming from—still there are many many ways of keeping up to date.
I mean, when you repeatedly see such remarks as “dear old Elder Tom because he is deliberately using thousands of words to say what could be said in two sentences,” I have to bite my tongue every time so as not to scream, “the problem is that you are too stupid to read more than two sentences!” Or as when he commends Witness, though saying some of her thoughts were “over his head,” not to hit back with “anything is over your head!” Who needs the aggravation?

By the way, that first came to my attention from Anna. She supplied the exerpt

I almost wish Bro Jackson would have interjected at this point, “I wish you wouldn’t leave it aside, for it would solve the problem.” It would have looked good in the record. Our best lines invariably occur to us too late. (but maybe it would have got their backs up even more than what did happen)
I kind of like the writing, and the book overall, but it certainly could use a good editing which it will probably never receive, for reasons of time and self-discipline. Even if the book was terrible, I would still think it good because there is nothing else like it. Baran (a non-JW) wrote the book on JW persecution from WWII to her date of publication—2007, I think. Dear Mr. Putin takes it from that point up to the present. There is nothing else exclusive to JWs. 
Much of Part 2 (a defense against the unspoken reasons for persecution in Russia) is in the form of posts first made here and stitched together. Alas, the stitching often shows. I should hoe out about 30-50% from all those chapters. The book is too undisciplined. CSA never once arose as an accusation there, which I pointed out, but I was on a roll and so I stated that it was part of the overall picture, if not there specifically.
The CSA stuff is even more a part of TrueTom vs the Apostates—it may form a good quarter of Part 1 (Part 2 consisted of post from my archives, written years ago, but relevant to opposers in one way or another)—too much, really, but I was just driven by accusations of the day, and that one was (as is) huge. If there is a TrueTom vs the Apostate-Part 2, I won’t make the mistake again.
Is there too much pedo stuff in Dear Mr Putin? Well—maybe. Even I have to concede that I threw in everything but the kitchen sink. But with the opposers pushing for all they are worth their version of things and achieving some success in that regard—say what you will about opposers, they are not lazy—I thought I’d take all their charges and then some and spin them my way—my way is the actual way, I think. 
The speaker last Sunday—a very respected and experienced older man who has long filled in for the CO when needed, made that point about how we want to watch what we put into our minds because it affects us physically—it’s good to take in what calms us,  It’s the same as another recently quoted the verse ‘whatever things are true, of serious concern, righteous, chaste, lovable, well-spoken-of, virtuous, praiseworthy, continue considering these things.’ Doubtless, that is a large unpinning to present counsel not to go there—grumblers always want to drag you in to the morass—don’t let them. 
In any topic of consequence, there will be disagreeable aspects that can be focused on. Focusing on them for reasons of countering argument does help you to kick back at the scoundrels, but it’s not particularly soothing to your own psyche as you do so. Maybe I’ve done it too much. It’s hard to know the balance. There is always something sordid somewhere, and people love to dive into it, supposing that they will supply the true analysis. I have a strong instinct to come to the defense of what is under attack, and I like to spin it as a virtuous strength, but it may be just a habit I picked up because, as a teen, I constantly had to defend my Dad’s choice of automobiles—AMC products—a sure source of ridicule from fellow teens.

I remember a James Michener book stating that the Spanish, although they had a head start, never made much success with their colonizing and the reason was their banking system (or lack of). A thoroughly Catholic nation, they held that usury (the illegal act or practice of lending money at unusually high rates of interest) was wrong, which all but made serious investment impossible—the rich king or queen had to sponsor everything and she did so only to plunder lands and add to his or her wealth)
Protestantism changed everything. Lending on interest, even high interest, became a virtue and the underpinning for colonization from England, France, Netherlands, others.
This is not the same as your topic, of course, but it’s the best I can come up with at the moment, and in a vague sense of how banking systems work, it fits. Your clip is more on the lines of the book, ‘The Creature From Jekyll Island.’ Have you read it?
A good topic of discussion. The imposing Greek & Roman architecture of the large banks, meant to convey stability and strength, is illusory. It can all come crashing down, and used to routinely when there would be a ‘run on the bank’—people all wanted their money for some reason of crisis, only to find that the bank did not have it because they had leant it out.
Central banks were devised to supervise and prevent such disasters, but it comes at the societal cost of inflation for all. That’s why a cartoon I love has some old-timer grumbling how “for the price of a postage stamp today, I used to be able to buy a whole damn Cadillac!”

I might be reading you wrong but I think the answer is that once God allows human governments to exist, he pretty gives them free reign. It is not for nothing that the Bible likens them to wild beasts. 
He allows them to exist for just the reason you stated—virtually any human government is better than anarchy. But they are not his idea. To referee them would suggest that they are. Sometimes I read Matthew 24:14 and explain that the end that will come is not that of the earth, for it did nothing wrong. It is the end of a system of 200 eternally squabbling nations pushing at each other—surely that was not his idea. But he lets it remain. It beats the alternative. It is a stopgap until “thy kingdom comes.”
Can it do things that are murderous? Well, sure—but the entire arrangement is murderous, a rebellion against God. Even though it is a best-case scenario of that rebellion, it is still murderous. God doesn’t get in there and mediate every little thing—it’s not his arrangement and he interferes hardly at all.
One place where he did interfere is covered in this week’s Bible reading—in God’s promise to Abram. I don’t know about you, but for me an early question that had to be addressed when I began studying the Bible was, “Why would God slaughter the Canaanites—man, woman, and child? This passage helped:
Know for certain that your offspring will be foreigners in a land not theirs and that the people there will enslave them and afflict them for 400 years....But they will return here in the fourth generation, because the error of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure. (Gen 15:13,16)
He gave them 400 years advanced warning! Granted, it’s not everything. It doesn’t quite cover the little children. But I used to explain that when children die today due to parental neglect, people don’t blame God—they blame the parents. Same here—it was for parents to train their children and they neglected to do it. Of course, today people blame God for everything, so the above line doesn’t wash as it once did. 
I wrote a post long ago about why God permits suffering, and an atheist I would swap comments with couldn’t stand it. It hadn’t been written with him in mind. It had been full of appeals to the scriptures, none of which he accepted. So I began to wonder if it couldn’t be repackaged in a way that would appeal to an atheist. I rearranged everything, squashed some ideas, elevated others, and  came up with the following. It is more or less relevant here. See what you think:
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2019/01/why-do-bad-things-happen-updated-for-atheists-sort-of.html
 

In any organization of any sort, there is always information not meant for general distribution. That does not mean that it is thereby the ‘smoking gun.’

Too cynical. I take it back. Sometimes you do learn from history. At least, it takes longer to repeat it.

I love pizza!
Isn’t that what the old hen used to say when she wanted us to stay on topic? Glad she’s on my side.

I personally love Red Robin's "Mad Love" gourmet burger.  It must be on my top 3 list of cheeseburgers.

Ask for the "Campfire" sauce for your steak fries. Yummy. It is basically a mix of BBQ and Ranch I'm told.

Why 1980?

I don’t have the book. I could get it, but I haven’t. I once served as an elder, but that was 20 years ago. I know precious few in Bethel and I keep up with nobody there.
An advantage to all this is that I can come across as a regular person. Another reason that I have been slow to leave the open forum for the closed one—and would not if there was more of a range of personalities here—is that I don’t like to be just singing to the choir. I like the challenge of discussing mature Witness topics, such as submission to authority, before people who find the notion very strange because it does not reflect the way the world is today.
Many Witnesses are not much good at speaking with non-Witnesses without going into ‘preaching mode.’ I even had someone shush me upon spotting the RING internet doorbell. “What! Do you think I’m telling dirty jokes here?” I said. “I hope he does hear me talking about regular things because then he will know that I am a regular person.”
I will say, however—and this is only for 4Jah’s consumption—that after I served as a congregation elder I was whisked away to Bethel where I am now such a high-up secretive honcho that even the Bethelites you see on TV do not know me. They sense my presence, of course, at times the force is quite strong, but they can’t quite identify me in my deep state top assignment.
You’ve got it all wrong, CC. I am his father and if he ever successfully completes the assignments I’ve given him—I never saw a pupil drag his feet the way he does!—we will rule together
 

I don’t have the book. I could get it, but I haven’t. I once served as an elder, but that was 20 years ago. I know precious few in Bethel and I keep up with nobody there.
An advantage to all this is that I can come across as a regular person. Another reason that I have been slow to leave the open forum for the closed one—and would not if there was more of a range of personalities here—is that I don’t like to be just singing to the choir. I like the challenge of discussing mature Witness topics, such as submission to authority, before people who find the notion very strange because it does not reflect the way the world is today.
Many Witnesses are not much good at speaking with non-Witnesses without going into ‘preaching mode.’ I even had someone shush me upon spotting the RING internet doorbell. “What! Do you think I’m telling dirty jokes here?” I said. “I hope he does hear me talking about regular things because then he will know that I am a regular person.”
I will say, however—and this is only for 4Jah’s consumption—that after I served as a congregation elder I was whisked away to Bethel where I am now such a high-up secretive honcho that even the Bethelites you see on TV do not know me. They sense my presence, of course, at times the force is quite strong, but they can’t quite identify me in my deep state top assignment.
You’ve got it all wrong, CC. I am his father and if he ever successfully completes the assignments I’ve given him—I never saw a pupil drag his feet the way he does!—we will rule together
 

Given my newfound resolution, I am exploring whether I feel that there any value whatsoever in starting threads on this open JW forum. I am not sure that there is. The ones who object are not doing any more than they have done from Day one, but just rubber-stamping what they have said many times in the past—they get me worked up to no purpose. I do like to keep my finger on the pulse of what the opponents are up to, and I have benefited in some cases by seeing where they are coming from—still there are many many ways of keeping up to date.
I mean, when you repeatedly see such remarks as “dear old Elder Tom because he is deliberately using thousands of words to say what could be said in two sentences,” I have to bite my tongue every time so as not to scream, “the problem is that you are too stupid to read more than two sentences!” Or as when he commends Witness, though saying some of her thoughts were “over his head,” not to hit back with “anything is over your head!” Who needs the aggravation?

It’s a valid point. Thank you for making it. In fact, it is less than two sentences. It is just one. Maybe 4jah is on to something, after all, when he calls me a windbag.
In my ‘defense,’ if that statement is in the Shepherd the Flock book not meant for general distribution, then I would not quote from it even if I had read it. It is a little silly, I know, to avoid what others have already put out there, and I don’t criticize anyone doing it with good motive. But I am still old fashioned that way and inclined to respect ‘confidential talk.’
I’m not a stickler in that regard. There is an example or two of the contrary in ‘Dear Mr. Putin’ But in general I stay away from what has not been made public. For all I carry on about wishing there was more access to what is critical, I am sparing in how much I go there myself. I don’t chow down on the stuff. For the most part, I agree with the expression, “You are what you eat.”

The one area where detractors have some validity is in saying that the children of JWs do not make the same choice as did their parents. The parents searched, sometimes for decades. They weighed both paths carefully before choosing the pathway of serving God over the pathway of pursuing the common goals of the world. Their children have never made this search—they were ‘born into the truth’—something we portray as a great asset, and yet something that contains the same drawbacks as being born into wealth. We probably are naive to think that ‘born into the truth’ does not make one vulnerable in some respects. 
The first generation makes the wealth and is thereafter grounded in life. The second generation inherits it, and deprived of that values-forming experience, becomes insufferable, unappreciative, profligate, isolated from the common people—some combination of the foregoing. It doesn’t have to work that way, but it does enough times for the pattern to become a stereotype. 
What’s a wealthy person to do? Cast his son out to live in the refrigerator box until he earns his own wealth? Obviously not. Better to be born into wealth than into poverty. Better to be born into a spiritual paradise than into a spiritual dessert. But the wealthy parent that has any sense makes his son experience what he did himself to the degree possible—makes the kid start on the factory floor as a regular worker, for example—makes the kid earn privileges, doesn’t just hand him things—makes him work his way into his inheritance. 
The Witness parent who simply expects the offspring to ‘make the truth your own’ without allowing him a glimpse into the other side—well, couldn’t that be likened to the wealthy parent who expects his offspring to ‘make the family wealth your own’ without allowing the character-building and adversity-overcoming experiences that formed he himself?
It is a matter of degree as to how that is done—I would not suggest that nobody is doing it—and each family must find its own. Since the beginning of time, parents have endeavored to bring their children up in principles they have convinced themselves are true. Since the Industrial Age at least, general society has tried to pull those children away into its own paths. There certainly is no educational reason that children should be schooled away from their parents at ages as young as 4. It is for societal reasons that compulsory public schooling began. Children ought be separated from the pernicious influence and prejudices of their parents, the thinking went, to make them more compliant to the greater aims of whatever times they live in.
So Witnesses are going to train their children in godly principles—that is only to be expected. It is not the case that if you leave children untrained, they will grow up free, unencumbered, and when of age, with choose their own values from the rich cornucopia of life’s offerings. No. All it means is that someone else will train them. The anti-JW activists are only bellyaching because they want to be the trainers—they do not raise the same protest with regard to the children of anyone else.
 

I don’t follow him as a matter of routine—once in a while I peek—because if I do so I am tempted to respond and if I do that he is nothing but taunting and contemptuous. It is not as though I cannot hold my own & make even inroads but there is hardly any point to it. It is a been there/done that. Besides, I told the elders that I will not do that anymore (not regarding him specifically) and if they ask me again I don’t want to be tempted to lie. Should I cave a time or two, I will readily forgive myself—not to worry on that score—but I would rather not cave by putting the temptation before myself constantly. “Some people just needs ‘Killeen ’” says JTR, but that doesn’t mean you ought be the one to do it. It has a way of sucking out large chunks of time that can better be used elsewhere. There are a few here that I have come to put in the same category as Evans and at most hastily skim their remarks because if I do more than that I am tempted to respond—with the same drawbacks as with he.
Today detractors charge what they do before a worldwide audience—the very people whom we are trying to reach, and they at least can be expected to mull it over because there is nothing to counter it. Granted, there are so many other horrific things to monitor in the world that it is hard for anti-JW activists to put their ‘good news’ on the front burner, but it would be silly to say that it has no effect. It wouldn’t take much to counter it. Even a talk parallel to what Bro Losch just gave at the annual meeting regarding dates that failed to come true might do the trick. Once a matter is spoken or written about once, you can keep referring back to it. 

The idea is not to silence opposers, for that cannot be done. The idea is to give some who may be swayed by them, even some of our own, something to offset their charges. The organization may choose to do that someday. Or maybe not—time will tell. It certainly is not the ‘whatever is righteous, whatever is chaste, true, lovable,’ etc where we like to remain, so that is good reason to avoid it. But there may be some who feel some sort of defense would come in handy.
Opposers will always have limits to their efforts because they have nothing to replace what they would take away, and most people became Witnesses in the first place because they felt exploring the world that is yourself only goes so far as a philosophy of life.  Still, I have seen people gleefully saw off the branch on which they are sitting and laugh with victory as they crashed to the ground, like the Dr. Strangelove cowboy who rides the nuke down to destruction, whooping and waving his hat as he drops, so some generalized pushback might be in order to prevent that whenever possible. Is Lloyd doing what you say, trying to paint Kingdom Halls as dangerous places and JWs as dangerous pedophiles? Good. Nasty people usually overplay their hand and in so doing torpedo their own case—never before their followers, of course, but before anyone of sense, it happens.
I’m not suggesting anyone get into a play-by-play scenario with the ‘good news‘ of those who oppose. I was struck by how, after the first Montana verdict, there were persons who wanted to rub my nose line by line into that first verdict so as to point out how the courts ruled JWs violated law! and then after reversal of that verdict, they said, ‘well, what do you expect? Witnesses follow the law—it’s the law that is not written right.’ People like to follow play-by-play in ongoing court trials these days to the extent that I almost say, ‘Well, send the jury home, then—they don’t want to be there anyway. Put it all on social media and decide the matter by ‘likes’. I never weigh in on developing matters—it is nothing more that common sense modesty to realize that since you can see but 1% of what the judge or jury sees, it is a fool’s mission to go there.
I’m not speaking of anything detailed as a defense, because details will not be constant from one situation to another. They represent non-repeatable human idiosyncrasies, and I have no problem accepting that people can do and say wrong and dumb things. No. Just something like the generalized facts I outlined in the post, so that if anyone wants to research our stand on matters, they will have more to research than a statement that we “abhor child sexual abuse.”
I am usually shouted down when I bring up Anna’s example—the kumbaya site practically chased me out with pitchforks (though not everyone)—but her example strikes me as a very sensible one—to familiarize herself with “apostate” ideas, so that, in the event her teenage son stumbles across them one fine day and is stumbled, she is able to help him. It is only icing on the cake that the kid is now an adult, has apparently never wobbled, and wonders why is mom is blowing so much time with those crazies on the internet. If there were a few resident experts at each Kingdom Hall, people who knew how to keep tabs on what is bad and knew that doIng so you does not require you to watch every Jerry Springer episode on the topic, and you don’t want to because if you immerse yourself in what is sordid in any subject it affects your well-being—you know, balanced people—that it would be a good thing, not a bad thing, because then you might be able to help ones stumbled.. 
You don’t want to encourage people to go there, just like you don’t want to encourage people to go anywhere that toxic people hang out. These days, pop psychologists win approval by telling you do dump friends and even family members who are “toxic” in favor or those who are not. But to all but forbid people to go produces a strange effect of fleeing from the apostate as one would flee from the bogeyman. You have scenarios like that played out in the drama where the Russian brother inquires of his old friend only to hear that the old friend succumbed to reading literature critical of the organization and is no longer serving Jehovah—as though that’s all it takes to derail decades of service to God—read a few brochures and you are toast. It’s ridiculous. Better to say, in my view, ‘go there if you must and be on the lookout for the unforgiving slave, for Demas, for the ones who went out because they are not of our sort, for the one fixated on the straws in others’ eyes, for the slave that buried the talent because his master was harsh, effectively saying ‘You want disciples? Go out and make them yourself! I’ve got things to do!”  Any drama is better, easier to follow, and easier to appreciate, when there are bad guys in the plot.
But won’t some go there and decide the ‘bad guys’ are actually the good guys? Probably. But I suspect no more than when we counsel so strongly not to even glance in a certain direction, and by so doing we appear exactly like a cult to people brought up in its modern definition. Drop down a notch to ‘investigate with caution if you must’ and the perception disappears. Amber Scorah has “her eyes opened” only when she goes into missionary work in China and begins correspondence with an “apostate” for whom it appears that she later dumped her husband In order to run off with? She should have had “her eyes opened” a long time ago, and if she had, that ridiculous phrase would have disappeared from the vocabulary by now. She herself would not be saying that she had her eyes opened—she would be saying that she went off because, like Demas, she prefers the world that JWs have fled—that JWs allowed her to see both plainly, and she chose the pathway that they did not.
The reason that this change of tactics will happen only by small degrees, if it happens at all, is due to what the scriptures say about those taking the lead. They are like the loyal shepherd who sees the wolf climbing the fence and holds the sheep out of harm’s way. They are like the farmer who knows that when you look behind, your plowing goes awry and the rows get all funny. They are like the strategist who says that they will slam you no matter what you do, so ignore them and press the pedal to the metal. They are like the doctor who says to keep away from what will raise your blood pressure and knot your stomach in favor of what is soothing to the soul. They are like the pop psychologist who says you should dump those toxic relationships. They are like the nursing mother who treats the flock tenderly and with protectiveness. They are not like the mom who says, “Alright, lean on that hot stove—see if I care! HA! Burned yourself, ya little snot? That’ll teach ya!” And they certainly are not like the brainwasher who says don’t go there, —‘all the better for me to manipulate you, my dear, hehehe:))))))’ even though that is the only way opposers, and to an increasing respect, the overall world sees it. Why play into their hands? Why go out of our way to prove Jesus’ words that the sons of this system know which way the secular wind blows but the sons of the light wouldn’t even know how to tie the laces of a secular shoe if you gave them one?
 
 

I don’t follow him as a matter of routine—once in a while I peek—because if I do so I am tempted to respond and if I do that he is nothing but taunting and contemptuous. It is not as though I cannot hold my own & make even inroads but there is hardly any point to it. It is a been there/done that. Besides, I told the elders that I will not do that anymore (not regarding him specifically) and if they ask me again I don’t want to be tempted to lie. Should I cave a time or two, I will readily forgive myself—not to worry on that score—but I would rather not cave by putting the temptation before myself constantly. “Some people just needs ‘Killeen ’” says JTR, but that doesn’t mean you ought be the one to do it. It has a way of sucking out large chunks of time that can better be used elsewhere. There are a few here that I have come to put in the same category as Evans and at most hastily skim their remarks because if I do more than that I am tempted to respond—with the same drawbacks as with he.
Today detractors charge what they do before a worldwide audience—the very people whom we are trying to reach, and they at least can be expected to mull it over because there is nothing to counter it. Granted, there are so many other horrific things to monitor in the world that it is hard for anti-JW activists to put their ‘good news’ on the front burner, but it would be silly to say that it has no effect. It wouldn’t take much to counter it. Even a talk parallel to what Bro Losch just gave at the annual meeting regarding dates that failed to come true might do the trick. Once a matter is spoken or written about once, you can keep referring back to it. 

The idea is not to silence opposers, for that cannot be done. The idea is to give some who may be swayed by them, even some of our own, something to offset their charges. The organization may choose to do that someday. Or maybe not—time will tell. It certainly is not the ‘whatever is righteous, whatever is chaste, true, lovable,’ etc where we like to remain, so that is good reason to avoid it. But there may be some who feel some sort of defense would come in handy.
Opposers will always have limits to their efforts because they have nothing to replace what they would take away, and most people became Witnesses in the first place because they felt exploring the world that is yourself only goes so far as a philosophy of life.  Still, I have seen people gleefully saw off the branch on which they are sitting and laugh with victory as they crashed to the ground, like the Dr. Strangelove cowboy who rides the nuke down to destruction, whooping and waving his hat as he drops, so some generalized pushback might be in order to prevent that whenever possible. Is Lloyd doing what you say, trying to paint Kingdom Halls as dangerous places and JWs as dangerous pedophiles? Good. Nasty people usually overplay their hand and in so doing torpedo their own case—never before their followers, of course, but before anyone of sense, it happens.
I’m not suggesting anyone get into a play-by-play scenario with the ‘good news‘ of those who oppose. I was struck by how, after the first Montana verdict, there were persons who wanted to rub my nose line by line into that first verdict so as to point out how the courts ruled JWs violated law! and then after reversal of that verdict, they said, ‘well, what do you expect? Witnesses follow the law—it’s the law that is not written right.’ People like to follow play-by-play in ongoing court trials these days to the extent that I almost say, ‘Well, send the jury home, then—they don’t want to be there anyway. Put it all on social media and decide the matter by ‘likes’. I never weigh in on developing matters—it is nothing more that common sense modesty to realize that since you can see but 1% of what the judge or jury sees, it is a fool’s mission to go there.
I’m not speaking of anything detailed as a defense, because details will not be constant from one situation to another. They represent non-repeatable human idiosyncrasies, and I have no problem accepting that people can do and say wrong and dumb things. No. Just something like the generalized facts I outlined in the post, so that if anyone wants to research our stand on matters, they will have more to research than a statement that we “abhor child sexual abuse.”
I am usually shouted down when I bring up Anna’s example—the kumbaya site practically chased me out with pitchforks (though not everyone)—but her example strikes me as a very sensible one—to familiarize herself with “apostate” ideas, so that, in the event her teenage son stumbles across them one fine day and is stumbled, she is able to help him. It is only icing on the cake that the kid is now an adult, has apparently never wobbled, and wonders why is mom is blowing so much time with those crazies on the internet. If there were a few resident experts at each Kingdom Hall, people who knew how to keep tabs on what is bad and knew that doIng so you does not require you to watch every Jerry Springer episode on the topic, and you don’t want to because if you immerse yourself in what is sordid in any subject it affects your well-being—you know, balanced people—that it would be a good thing, not a bad thing, because then you might be able to help ones stumbled.. 
You don’t want to encourage people to go there, just like you don’t want to encourage people to go anywhere that toxic people hang out. These days, pop psychologists win approval by telling you do dump friends and even family members who are “toxic” in favor or those who are not. But to all but forbid people to go produces a strange effect of fleeing from the apostate as one would flee from the bogeyman. You have scenarios like that played out in the drama where the Russian brother inquires of his old friend only to hear that the old friend succumbed to reading literature critical of the organization and is no longer serving Jehovah—as though that’s all it takes to derail decades of service to God—read a few brochures and you are toast. It’s ridiculous. Better to say, in my view, ‘go there if you must and be on the lookout for the unforgiving slave, for Demas, for the ones who went out because they are not of our sort, for the one fixated on the straws in others’ eyes, for the slave that buried the talent because his master was harsh, effectively saying ‘You want disciples? Go out and make them yourself! I’ve got things to do!”  Any drama is better, easier to follow, and easier to appreciate, when there are bad guys in the plot.
But won’t some go there and decide the ‘bad guys’ are actually the good guys? Probably. But I suspect no more than when we counsel so strongly not to even glance in a certain direction, and by so doing we appear exactly like a cult to people brought up in its modern definition. Drop down a notch to ‘investigate with caution if you must’ and the perception disappears. Amber Scorah has “her eyes opened” only when she goes into missionary work in China and begins correspondence with an “apostate” for whom it appears that she later dumped her husband In order to run off with? She should have had “her eyes opened” a long time ago, and if she had, that ridiculous phrase would have disappeared from the vocabulary by now. She herself would not be saying that she had her eyes opened—she would be saying that she went off because, like Demas, she prefers the world that JWs have fled—that JWs allowed her to see both plainly, and she chose the pathway that they did not.
The reason that this change of tactics will happen only by small degrees, if it happens at all, is due to what the scriptures say about those taking the lead. They are like the loyal shepherd who sees the wolf climbing the fence and holds the sheep out of harm’s way. They are like the farmer who knows that when you look behind, your plowing goes awry and the rows get all funny. They are like the strategist who says that they will slam you no matter what you do, so ignore them and press the pedal to the metal. They are like the doctor who says to keep away from what will raise your blood pressure and knot your stomach in favor of what is soothing to the soul. They are like the pop psychologist who says you should dump those toxic relationships. They are like the nursing mother who treats the flock tenderly and with protectiveness. They are not like the mom who says, “Alright, lean on that hot stove—see if I care! HA! Burned yourself, ya little snot? That’ll teach ya!” And they certainly are not like the brainwasher who says don’t go there, —‘all the better for me to manipulate you, my dear, hehehe:))))))’ even though that is the only way opposers, and to an increasing respect, the overall world sees it. Why play into their hands? Why go out of our way to prove Jesus’ words that the sons of this system know which way the secular wind blows but the sons of the light wouldn’t even know how to tie the laces of a secular shoe if you gave them one?
 
 

I think you talents are better spent in discussing end-time prophesy with Kos.

The problem stems because the world has no concept of how to do spirituality as Jesus did it. Religion for them is a commodity. It is a product to be hawked, just like one might hawk soap, or used cars, or real estate, or anything. Religion is a career path for them. Your school guidance counselor might advise you, in view of your religious aptitude, to follow the career path to become a church minister or priest. No way would he ever advise you follow the career path to become  an elder or a Bethelite, because it isn’t a career to them—they don’t make any money. 
Go to seminary, take some courses from Professor Ehrman, so that you do not actually believe the stuff, and then go look for a church that will hire you as minister—it is a booming job market out there.
Victor Blackwell called them “mercenary ministers”—they do it for pay. It is the only model that the world recognizes. He would represent pioneers and special pioneers and congregation servants (back when it was 100+ hours) during WWII when they applied for draft exemption due to minister status. Church ministers never had the slightest difficulty in landing such exemptions, he reports. Pioneers, special pioneers, congregation servants, anyone associated with Jehovah’s Witnesses, were invariably denied. Judges recognized only ministers who 1) “had a church” and 2) got paid.
So what do you do when it is necessary to interact with the legal system of the world? In a world where there is some respect for God, the organization role of elders is what will be recognized as the equivalent of clergy, notwithstanding that elders do it for free. But as the world loses respect for God, then it is the salary that becomes the determining factor—do they make a living with it or not.
You’d almost think that one claiming to be a Witness could get his head around the distinction.

It reminds me of Anthony Morris telling how he was starting to sweat it because he urgently needed the sale of his house to go through and it wasn’t—it came right down to the wire. As he recalled at the 2016 Regional Convention (with a glance upward): “Of course, he’s God—he can do what he wants.)

You should hear him carry on about Mexico whenever they cross him.

Ok... I added a "Back to top" button on the lower right hand side....

This is because whenever he appears on media, he is responding to one of their accusations. What! Would you hold up the media as revealer of Truth? You do not see that they plainly have an agenda of their own? 
This is downright childish, Kos. Watch him at one of his rallies and he will not appear “fierce” at all. He will be appear almost as jolly as Santa Claus.