Governing Buzzards - Part 3 - Does the WTS lie about being Exonerated?

by Amazing 51 Replies latest jw friends

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  Amazing

  Heathen,

  It obvious you are not reading what is being posted to you, or you deliberately ignore clear points made to you ... either way, my response to you below is no longer for your benefit, but for the sake of readers who might still be confused about JW illogic and lack of historical understanding ... in the mean time, read the excellent material Mustang posted above and then lets talk some more. You said:

  The whole sedition thing is clearly a trumped up charge in my book . They were not interested in undermining the government authority but only in obeying Gods law which as they interpreted it was to not kill.

  The charges were not trumped up ... the Government had solid evidence. Your "book" does not square with what really took place. No one stated anything about the Society trying to undermine Government authority. God's law was not central to the minds of the Society leaders ... though they could have thought it was important to them ... rather, book sales and the "Appearance" of fulfilling Bible Prophecy was at center stage for them ... judging from their own sworn testimony under oath ... this assuming the Wacthtower leaders were capable of telling any amount of truth.

  I think they were foolish to start with by suggesting people join the military effort because of the draft but to not kill the enemy and fire over their heads .

  You cite no references for this claim ... rather, the documented evidence in the Trail transcripts shows they interferred with the draft for their members, such as copies of sworn depositions, correspondence with people on active duty in the military, etc.

  The government today is far more demonized by the WTBTS but I still couldn't see charges of sedition should the same circumstances arise.

  This is an absurd JW-style statement ... a claim far removed from reality.

  They teach their members to obey the laws but not to be involved in politics or do things contrary to christian teachings, they are the least political group on the planet.

  While they prohibit their members to not be involved in politics ... the Society itself participates in politics ... such as joining the UN as an NGO (until they got caught) and the Society teamed up with the Mormons and Scientologists in a political lobby in Russia to deal with legislative issues and court issues. The Watchtower Society is NOT the least political group ...

  They have no representation in government because they don't vote yet they pay taxes.

  Failing to vote does not mean that you have no representation ... and as Ray Franz documented in Crisis of Conscience, the Society evades rightful taxes in some countries, such as keeping two sets of books in Columbia to fool the Government ... or how they have tried to avoid paying the taxes imposed by the French government ... and the Society gets to dip into the Italian tax distribution with the Catholic Church ... why? ... because the Society deals in Italian politics ... your claims are without merit, lack supporting evidence, and simply do not line up with the facts.

  Whether or not all of their actions led up to fulfillment of prophesy is a matter of interpretation . People can make the bible seem like it says anything because most of the scripture in revelation is symbolic.

  I agree with your point that people can make the seem like it says anything ... and the Watchtower Society is a master of deception at twisting the Bible, teisting history, twisting facts, taking material out of context, and a host of other deceptive practices.
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  garybuss

  heathen, I am going to take my run at your interesting post.
  
  You wrote:

  They were not interested in undermining the government authority but only in obeying Gods law which as they interpreted it was to not kill .

  1. By Witness logic, this is true. By my logic, didn't Rutherford and his gang see that they were obeying God's law by undermining the government? Wouldn't the government have had to see the actions of the publishing corporation as undermining?

  They teach their members to obey the laws but not to be involved in politics or do things contrary to christian teachings , they are the least political group on the planet . They have no representation in government because they don't vote yet they pay taxes .

  2. I think you are trying to distinguish between politics and government. That will be very difficult to do. Your paragraph seems to have advanced to current practice and teachings about practices. You can not seriously make the claim that headquarters members are not involved in the politics of government when they hold the record in the United States for a religion involved in the politics of trying cases in the judicial branch of government, the Supreme Court. The Watch Tower Corporation clearly participates in government. Is participation in government different from participation in politics? If so how?
  
  3. The Jehovah's Witnesses are the MOST political religion in the United States by virtue of their participation in the politics of trying cases in the Supreme court with their own attorneys. Some of those cases were tried by Rutherford himself according to the book, Proclaimers, while he was the president of the Watch Tower Publishing Corporation and while he was singularly the Governing Body. Or am I wrong?
  
  4. Is it your opinion that a person who has a billion dollar corporation willing to take her case to the United States Supreme Court and possibly change the very application of law on her behalf unrepresented? To me that would be the very highest representation possible in the United States. Am I wrong?
  
  5. As far as paying taxes, how do you reconcile that statement ("yet they pay taxes") with the unpaid tax bill in France due from the Watch Tower Publishing Conglomerate? The Watch Tower Publishing Corporation advertised their outrage over being requested to pay tax in France with a full page advertisement in the New York Times. I happen to have an original copy of that ad.
  
  Thanks for your comments they made me think. Now I want you to think when you answer my 5 questions. :-) GaryB
  
  
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  garybuss

  Guess I killed another thread huh:~)
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  heathen

  garybus-- I don't mean to snub you here so I will give some more opinions if you like .

  The WTBTS from what I've gathered is only after their right to equal justice under the law and was the defendent not the plaintiff in this case . The US government brought charges against them after having recently introduced a new sedition law . I haven't read the law as it was passed yet but will when I get a chance . They were not lobbying to change the law so the point being that their interest was not political but in preserving their right to free speech and religion . They had the same Ideal in europe where the war was being fought so to say they were any threat to national security would have been a completely absurd notion . If they could have convinced everyone in the war effort to lay down their weapons they would have solved the problem of war .

  I plan to read up on this somemore but don't see any point in arguing what I've already stated even more . Good Day gentlemen .
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  Amazing

  Heathen,

  Again, you are not reading or conprehending the above ... further, the issue is about false claims made by the Watchtower ... not about the rightness of any certain law. The issue is also about how the Society claims to have fulfilled major prophecy of Revelation 11 ... but the actaul facts show otherwise ... it is interesting how you are ignoring this and attempting to justify the Watchtower.

  Jim Whitney
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  garybuss

  Heathen, Thanks for the reply. I have spend a lot of time researching the non-political teaching and it is just that . . . . a teaching. You and I differ in one rather significant respect. That is, if I make a statement or statements like you have, I can back them up.
  
  In my dictionary, "political", meaning #1; Of or concerning government.
  
  The Watch Tower Corporation's lobbying and court cases were only concerning government, nothing else.
  
  You wrote;

  The WTBTS from what I've gathered is only after their right to equal justice under the law and was the defendent not the plaintiff in this case . The US government brought charges against them after having recently introduced a new sedition law . I haven't read the law as it was passed yet but will when I get a chance . They were not lobbying to change the law so the point being that their interest was not political but in preserving their right to free speech and religion . They had the same Ideal in europe where the war was being fought so to say they were any threat to national security would have been a completely absurd notion . If they could have convinced everyone in the war effort to lay down their weapons they would have solved the problem of war .

  Most of the Watch Tower court cases had to do with the distribution of their mass produced religious literature and related to their need to access the consumers who had been purchasing the literature. Their cases had nothing to do with rights. The rights were a product of the cases. The Unites States court agreed that in order for a Jehovah's Witness to have free speech, they needed not only the ability to speak freely (that they already had), but they needed access to an unwilling audience.
  
  The Watch Tower Political Corporation did not win every case. One case that the Watch Tower Corporation took to the Supreme Court argued a Jehovah's Witness had a right to call a cop a "goddamn racketeer". The courts did not agree.
  
  Recently the Watch Tower Corporation reported that they had given a copy of their Proclaimers book to every Greek government official in order that they may change the government's perception of their business. That is bold and direct lobbying.
  
  The city of Patterson New York, would not let the Watch Tower Corporation build their development because the municipality did not have enough fire protection. The Watch Tower Corporation bought the city of Patterson a new fire truck. That is lobbying and politics.
  
  The French Government sent the Watch Tower Corporation a tax bill. The Watch Tower Corporation replied by taking out a full page advertisement in the New York Times claiming religious persecution by France. That is political lobbying bold and plain.
  
  In the case Jim has written about here, the Watch Tower Corporation was lobbying against all secular governments by predicting their overthrow and lobbying against the country's defence practices. That's a very stupid strategy in war time.
  
  In Nazi Germany, the Watch Tower Corporation was aligned with the Nazi ideals according to their 1934 yearbook and the Hitler letter, and if they had convinced just a few to lay down their arms, all the Jehovah's Witnesses and all the Jews in the camps would have been killed and Europe and Africa today would be a Nazi state. In my opinion, the idea that there can be freedom from aggressors and defenders on this planet is a delusion. It's a mystic's dream, not reality.
  
  Heathen, you are doing the thing Witnesses do. You are confusing teachings with fact. You are redefining words like "political" and trying to separate the definition from the word. You are confusing Watch Tower reports about what happened in their history with what really happened. You seem to see the Jehovah's Witnesses managing the Watch Tower Publishing Corporation as distinct and exempt from the guidelines and claims applied to individual Jehovah's Witnesses and together they do not form an aggregate. You are ignoring three pertinent points, 1. The Jehovah's Witnesses are very political, 2. The facts like their United Nations involvement convict them, 3. They are dishonest and unethical.
  
  I appreciate your reply and I appreciate your unwillingness to pursue this thread. Unlike you, I have done my homework and I would not want to continue either if I were you. GaryB
  
  
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  johnny cip

  i've ben following this thread for a few days. so i decidied to increase my knowledge on the sedition and espionage acts as per 1916-1919. it's seems that the bible students. got off quite easy , compared to others that were arrested and imprisioned by the 1000's just from research on the topic of sedition act i find dozens tortured aND killed by the gov't on this issue. IT IS SO SAD THAT THE WTS tries to make jw's think they were the only one's that suffered over the no war stance in 1916-`1919. i even found reference that there were many still in prison till 1933 when f.d. roosevelt let the rest of the opposiers to ww1 out of prison in 1933 . just punch in sedition act or espionage act 1917 into any search engine. and you will see the wts talks out of it's HAT... JOHN
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  johnny cip

  JUST AS A SIDE NOTE; it's fact that the gov't totally shut down a large number of newspapers . labor, and religious publications as per the sedition act. but the wts was not shut totally down. so who was really persecuted? john
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  uriah

  This is a really great post and has supplied me with info I have needed but not had time to research. Thank you all for your enlightening posts.

  To my mind, it boils down to one thing. Truth.

  Has the WTBTS been telling the truth. As, I believe, John Lennon said, 'All I want is the truth, won't someone just give me some goddamn truth'

  That is what I want. I can handle the truth, whatever it is.

  Lies. Well lies are a whole new ball game.

  Let's keep the truth coming for as my Grandmother pounded into my brain 'The truth will out'.

  She wasn't wrong.
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  heathen

  I'm with Uriah on that one . I would like to get to the facts . So far my knowlege on this subject is limited to the WTBTS stance on the issue but I think it's an interesting topic worthy of discussion . I mean if they US government shuts down an organization and hands out sentences for sedition of up to 20 yrs and then winds up dropping the whole thing 18 months later it would seem there is more to this story than meets the eye . Now we have a religion that claims it was fulfillment of prophesy and that it was all a railroad job devised and carried out by the media and religious opponents but to my knowlege has not proven it via the court system that convicted them . They also state that they became untouchable and the printing presses have never been shut down even tho the US has been thru several wars since . We have already argued over semantics but the bible says the 2 witnesses are revived I don't see exonerate there so where does that leave but to agree to disagree on the issue . If people want to play martyr in the religious scene there doesn't seem to be any laws against that .