If you want to control people and your control may possibly injure them in some way but you wish to escape legal liability, what do you do?
The Watchtower Society has a history of controlling people and getting into trouble for it.
During WWI the attempt to influence fighting soldiers in the trenches by advising them to refrain from following orders led to the top board members being imprisoned.
After America had come into the War, Rutherford, in
1918, together with six of his associates, ail members of the
Watchtower Society, was sentenced to 20 years' penal
. servitude for " unlawfully and wilfully conspiring to cause
insubordination, disloyalty and refusal of duty in the
military and naval forces of the United States." They all
served nine months of their sentence in the Federal Prison
at Atlanta, Georgia, but were released in May, 1919.
(This was replaced by a one on one "discussion" by the Congregation Overseer and the brothers who were inducted advising them privately to not accept alternate service and to seek imprisonment--but--to publicly disavow the agency of Watchtower direction in the matter.)
During WWII influencing members to refuse to salute the flag or recite the pledge of allegience resulted in legal disputes and court trials.
This time the Society went on the offensive and fought the arrests up to the Supreme Court. Becoming more litigious (and successful in doing so)
for awhile the anti-social aspects of Society influence garnered press attention and considerable publicity as "martyrs" for faith.
As the years went on, Blood Transfusion policies resulting in deaths, complaints, pleas for clarification and ultimately lawsuits resulted in a shifting of Liability strategy.
Then, disastrous blowback from Child Molestation issues began appearing in the media coupled with vast Internet access of the population at large struck a blow.
Current tactics by the Society consists of the following:
1. Create a super-Loyalty to the Governing Body as the only source of authority in christian life
2. Pretend the Bible is the source of all truth and interpose the Governing Body as the accurate interpreter of said Truth.
3. Misdirect the membership to rely on their conscience informed by reading what the Governing Body says and, consequently, create plausible deniability for "agency" by making the member the responsible party.
4.Avoid documentary proof of agency in directing members toward harm by creating buffers and building clandestine networks for transmitting orders in place
The New Elder's Manual, for all practical purposes, will consist of a "grapevine" and not a hard-evidence document.
If anything, it is evidence that the Governing Body is consciously aware of culpability and possesses a guilty mindset.
Long live the Internet!