Posts by Chaserious

54

Part 2 of the 2013 Conti and Simons interview now on YouTube (questions posed by JWN members)

by cedars in

part 2 of the interview series has now been uploaded to youtube.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmewxug3kck.

for those who are unfamiliar, this is the second part of a series of videos covering an interview with candace conti and rick simons where the questions were posed by members of this forum.. questions answered in this video are.... .

(to rick, asked by hoffnung) why was watch tower bible & tract society of pennsylvania, together with more watchtower corporations, not sued as well?.

Chaserious

I have no need to state my credentials, because calling them into question is a cop out.

What do you mean, my concern about apologists speaks volumes? It says in big red letters in the video that those accusations are from apologists. Why would the video give apologists a voice, if the answer was not meant as a rebuttal to them? I merely questioned how effective of a rebuttal it was.

Besides, what lie is it that you keep saying I am perpetuating? Is receiving stolen goods a lie? Is selling drugs a lie? I wish I knew, and I suspect at least the stolen goods accusation is, but the intro made me want to know the answers to these questions that I didn't think much about before. Why raise questions and pique people's interest? You cannot with any degree of objectivity watch the video and find a direct answer to these questions, unless I have missed something. In which case I welcome someone to point it out.

54

Part 2 of the 2013 Conti and Simons interview now on YouTube (questions posed by JWN members)

by cedars in

part 2 of the interview series has now been uploaded to youtube.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmewxug3kck.

for those who are unfamiliar, this is the second part of a series of videos covering an interview with candace conti and rick simons where the questions were posed by members of this forum.. questions answered in this video are.... .

(to rick, asked by hoffnung) why was watch tower bible & tract society of pennsylvania, together with more watchtower corporations, not sued as well?.

Chaserious

OK, Rip, you are right. Rick Simons can do no wrong and everything he does is beyond questioning.

How do you know what my qualifications are to make these observations? Usually when someone attacks the person and not the argument, it is a crutch. If you read and comprehended what I said, you would not need to put words in my mouth and make nonsense straw man comparisons between me and the WT. I clearly said in my first post on this topic that these accusations are "blame the victim" tactics.

I have no agenda other than objectivity.

54

Part 2 of the 2013 Conti and Simons interview now on YouTube (questions posed by JWN members)

by cedars in

part 2 of the interview series has now been uploaded to youtube.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmewxug3kck.

for those who are unfamiliar, this is the second part of a series of videos covering an interview with candace conti and rick simons where the questions were posed by members of this forum.. questions answered in this video are.... .

(to rick, asked by hoffnung) why was watch tower bible & tract society of pennsylvania, together with more watchtower corporations, not sued as well?.

Chaserious

Cedars, maybe I'm off since everyone else seems to disagree. But what was the answer to the questions about selling drugs and receiving stolen property? I honestly want to know. I watched the video a couple of times and I couldn't figure it out. Perhaps I am missing something that you all who note that everything was answered clearly picked up upon.

54

Part 2 of the 2013 Conti and Simons interview now on YouTube (questions posed by JWN members)

by cedars in

part 2 of the interview series has now been uploaded to youtube.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmewxug3kck.

for those who are unfamiliar, this is the second part of a series of videos covering an interview with candace conti and rick simons where the questions were posed by members of this forum.. questions answered in this video are.... .

(to rick, asked by hoffnung) why was watch tower bible & tract society of pennsylvania, together with more watchtower corporations, not sued as well?.

Chaserious

Show me where I chastized or blamed the victim, Rip. I'm sorry that I'm not allowed to look at this objectively and state an opinion that I think her lawyer made a mistake with the handling of that question. My point is that what they said is probably not going to satisfy an apologist who has heard these rumors but is open to having his or her mind changed. Will it satisfy the exJW community? Yes, but so what. We were satisfied already. I don't mind if you disagree with me, but I will call you out every time you keep mischaracterizing what I'm saying.

20

local memorial attendance

by outsmartthesystem in

jw
friends

so i have a friend that is still "in" because of his elderly parents.

he attended the memorial and reported back to me what i thought was encouraging.

we have two congregations in the city i live in.

Chaserious

I think last year might have been the beginning of a decline. I suspect the decline may have started a few years earlier in the U.S. if just counting English congregations. My suspicion is that declines in English have been masked by increases in foreign language groups for a while.

54

Part 2 of the 2013 Conti and Simons interview now on YouTube (questions posed by JWN members)

by cedars in

part 2 of the interview series has now been uploaded to youtube.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmewxug3kck.

for those who are unfamiliar, this is the second part of a series of videos covering an interview with candace conti and rick simons where the questions were posed by members of this forum.. questions answered in this video are.... .

(to rick, asked by hoffnung) why was watch tower bible & tract society of pennsylvania, together with more watchtower corporations, not sued as well?.

Chaserious

If I'm perpetuating the lie, then making her answer the question on the interview is perpetuating the lie. I don't understand why Simons would have her answer these questions that have nothing to do with the case. Maybe it is more of a denial than I originally conceded. But the direct denial is from Simons, and there is a big difference between denying something and your lawyer denying it. There are no consequences if the lawyer is wrong.

Also, the question included allegations about stolen goods and selling drugs. I still don't know exactly what their position is on these two things. Candace only denied the "last thing", which I assume means the prostitution, but Simons' statement also seems to deny anything non drug related, which I assume means receiving stolen property as well. And neither of them said anything about selling drugs, as opposed to just using them. Personally, I don't care if she did any of these things. She is a brave victim regardless and deserves compensation. It just seems like a bad PR move by Simons to take that question that she is not obligated to answer and then not really fully answer it in the end.

54

Part 2 of the 2013 Conti and Simons interview now on YouTube (questions posed by JWN members)

by cedars in

part 2 of the interview series has now been uploaded to youtube.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmewxug3kck.

for those who are unfamiliar, this is the second part of a series of videos covering an interview with candace conti and rick simons where the questions were posed by members of this forum.. questions answered in this video are.... .

(to rick, asked by hoffnung) why was watch tower bible & tract society of pennsylvania, together with more watchtower corporations, not sued as well?.

Chaserious

Rip - I disagree that it would have been used in the trial. Under evidentiary rules, usually only convictions are allowed to be introduced to discredit a witness. So if she was convicted for drug crimes, it could be asked, but (and totally hypothetically) if they had evidence she engaged in prostititution they probably would have not been allowed to ask about it at trial since there are no convictions. I am not reading anything into it or perpetuating anything. I'm just pointing out that before I saw the interview I would have thought the accusation was totally BS, but the way she answered it seemed very strange to me. I agree 100% that it doesn't change the facts of the case. That's why I said I would not have dignified it with an answer.

Cedars - The more unequivocal way that I would expect most people to answer a false charge like that is something like "That is a lie. I have never engaged in prostitution." Don't you think that would have been more clear and simple? I agree that Rick was very direct, and certainly different people might perceive it differently.

Mindblown - I don't know what postings you are referring to, if any, other than this one. You can suspect me all you want. Just pointing out my own observation.

54

Part 2 of the 2013 Conti and Simons interview now on YouTube (questions posed by JWN members)

by cedars in

part 2 of the interview series has now been uploaded to youtube.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmewxug3kck.

for those who are unfamiliar, this is the second part of a series of videos covering an interview with candace conti and rick simons where the questions were posed by members of this forum.. questions answered in this video are.... .

(to rick, asked by hoffnung) why was watch tower bible & tract society of pennsylvania, together with more watchtower corporations, not sued as well?.

Chaserious

Thanks! Perhaps I am being a bit cynical here, but I can't help but wonder why Candace did not directly answer the prostitution question. She answered it by saying she got good grades in school and she was in a relationship with the same man for 8 years and she made mistakes because it was a way of coping with the weight of the abuse, and made an oblique reference to "that last thing" being "the farthest thing from the truth." And then Simons categorically denies that there is any evidence of the prostitution allegation. Again, perhaps this is cynicism, but it comes across that she answered the question in a very coached manner, perhaps so as to avoid giving a clear answer that she could be confronted with in court in the event a new trial is ordered. Her lawyer of course, cannot be questioned on his denial. I just don't understand why if they choose to take that question, she doesn't issue a categorical denial herself.

Of course, it's totally understandable that whatever mistakes she made were certainly heavily influenced by the horrible abuse she suffered. I wouldn't even have dignified those "blame the victim" allegations with a response.

12

Those Working or Have Worked In Accounting At Bethel Listen Up about Whistleblowers Reward

by frankiespeakin in

you can get a reward for blowing the whistle if you got information about fraud.. http://www.fraudfighters.net/?gclid=coj9z6x0p7ycfw7hqgody2waig.

if youre a whistleblower with information about fraud on the government, then you may be able to bring a qui tam lawsuit under a federal law known as the false claims act.

a qui tam lawsuit is one brought by a private citizen, but in the name of the government.

Chaserious

Tax fraud is explicitly excluded from the qui tam statute.

There is a separate whistleblower/reward provision in the Internal Revenue Code. But since they are not subject to filing tax returns, I still don't see it. Maybe if they were running some kind of business and laundering the money through their nonprofit or something. But it wouldn't be under the qui tam law that the article is talking about.

12

Those Working or Have Worked In Accounting At Bethel Listen Up about Whistleblowers Reward

by frankiespeakin in

you can get a reward for blowing the whistle if you got information about fraud.. http://www.fraudfighters.net/?gclid=coj9z6x0p7ycfw7hqgody2waig.

if youre a whistleblower with information about fraud on the government, then you may be able to bring a qui tam lawsuit under a federal law known as the false claims act.

a qui tam lawsuit is one brought by a private citizen, but in the name of the government.

Chaserious

That's not what I'm saying. There is no qui tam case. You have to defraud the government for there to be a qui tam case. They don't do business with the government, so where is the case?