JW Insider

My parents, from California, visited Brooklyn Bethel every few years, and even after my father's retirement, he got invited to stay on a temporary basis for some electronics and audio work. But they had only been to Patterson twice, and Wallkill once. They keep thinking every visit might be their last opportunity with health issues and "this old system the way it is." But every couple years they still come back for another visit.

I, too, have decided to visit there again soon. If anyone wishes to speak with me, I will be dressed in an oversized crocodile suit topped with a blue frumpy Dr. Seuss hat, munching popcorn, with my tail hanging over the edge onto the ground floor.
Please be discreet and don't make a scene. Do not worry--I will be wearing a tie so as to blend in.

FWIW, I have a tour of Warwick scheduled for 11:00am on Friday 12/7, and will also be in Mahwah and Wallkill over the weekend, touring Wallkill soon after 10am on Monday. If anyone else from here wants to meet up I'll be wearing black slacks, black shoes, a white shirt, and a mostly black tie.
That probably won't help, will it? So I will wear a mostly white shirt that is actually blue striped (an LLBean style) if you look at it closely, and I will wear a black tie with blue geometric designs (small diamonds in gray, lt.blue, dk.blue, black). Also the black shoes are really "sneakers" just made to look like dress shoes, not very shiny.
(Also, I'm 61, married, 6'3'', 245lbs, have some gray on the sides of my short brown hair, and I like long walks around the lake.)
Anyway, for real, if anyone wants to meet up, I'll answer to "JWI" or something similar, or even my real name. That goes for anyone who works in Warwick or Wallkill, too, who might be following along.

Hope ye three meet up.

I actually did have somone approach me once, on a Woman and the Seed tour at the NYMet, and ask “Are you Sheepandgoats?”I had just related a story that I had also related online. It much surprised me, for while I like to think, like any blogger, that my readership is huge, I know that it is not so.
He and his wife are from overseas. We have kept in touch since.

Within ten minutes of speaking with someone, I can almost always tell what their primary news sources are. THAT is fake news. Don’t like something? Dismiss it as “fake news.”

The above is from Al Gore's book "The Assault on Reason." I assume that it was him and not Donald Trump, as Trump actually claimed, who invented the term "fake news" (shortly after inventing the Internet). But he's right. Fake news was a theme of:
Orwell's "1984." Or Well's "War of the Worlds" from 1894. (H.G.Wells) Or Orson Welles' broadcast of Well's "War" as actual fake news in 1938. Fake news has been at the heart of most of our supposedly real news for centuries. It's recently become a way to try to differentiate unsanctioned fake news from official fake news.
You missed all those pride parades in ancient Greece?
That's a bit of fearmongering that tends to contradict the fearmongering over a rising population.
Another contradiction to Malthusian fearmongering.
Turn up the sensitivity on the meter and everyone will find their way onto the spectrum. It's probably more like: Autism, which was once diagnosed in 1 out of 1000. . . .  Now, one can easily go back and retroactively diagnose Fred Franz, Alan Turing, The Absent-Minded Professor, etc.
Agreed.
Actually, it had gained ground as "Jewish" and early "Christian" Gnosticism to the point where it was actualy threatening to compete with actual Judaism and Christianity for many years. In the common forms of Gnosticism, Satan was the good god, and Jehovah was the bad god. Now it's more of an attention grabber.

I think you provided some very good examples of what I meant. These things you mentioned are serious or symptoms of serious problems, but they don't give us the kind of ammunition we had in the 40's and 50's. Also the fearmongering of the 70's was coming at us from all directions. The WTS did not invent it, it just resonated with the WTS when brothers read books like "Famine 1975" "The Population Bomb" and any quote that indicated the world couldn't last but a few more years at most.
But now, we are so enamored to problems, that even the usual fearmongering has fizzled.
As @Outta Here helps remind us indirectly, and as @Kosonen reminds us directly, however, there is enough flexibility in the Bible passages to account for anything and any situation. If it's madness and chaos, it's because it was exactly predicted for our time. If it's relative peace and security, it's because it was exactly predicted for our time.

Quite a  relevant observation: 
(1 Thessalonians 5:2, 3) . . ."For you yourselves know very well that Jehovah’s day is coming exactly as a thief in the night. Whenever it is that they are saying, “Peace and security!” then sudden destruction is to be instantly on them, just like birth pains on a pregnant woman, and they will by no means escape." 

Interesting point. From about 1914 through 1948, there was so much bad stuff affecting so many people and very large population groups (India-Pakistan, etc) that it would have been difficult to argue against the Watchtower's message that Jesus had been present since 1874 (changed to 1914 in 1943) and that "Babylon had fallen" and that the "Great Tribulation" had actually started in 1914, with a short reprieve for the chosen ones, only to start up again "shortly." The "tribulation" was expected to start up again in the few "remaining months" remaining in this system. That expression about only a few months, not years, was used in the 1940's, 1950's, and then again about the 1970's.
It was easy to explain that Satan was angry and knew he had only a short period of time when looking at the world from 1914 through 1945, especially in Western terms. But the great wars grew mostly cold after 1945, and even though millions have died since in smaller wars, these have not really reached levels reported in the 1914-1945 era, or even the few hundred years prior to that. Pestilence and plague even famine have reached the lowest levels in hundreds of years due to soap and the end of the age of exploration.
Of course, the "outbreak" of human population is now due in large part due to lack of pestilence, plague, war and famine. This means another reckoning when the population of this "outbreak" reaches the ends of the terrestrial Petri dish. This means war, famine (and thirst) all over again.
But for the moment, it takes a bit of extra fearmongering to convince people that Satan's anger is at its highest peak, because his short period of time is even shorter now than it was in 1916 and 1941. Even as Witnesses, we may no longer be growing in population relative to the rest of the earth, but we still enjoy the greatest levels of peace and security. We can only assume that Satan changed his tactics, and that the end will just as likely come during a period of peace and security. To keep us on our toes, however, showing a few videos anticipating armed forces against us might be useful, too.

Interesting point. From about 1914 through 1948, there was so much bad stuff affecting so many people and very large population groups (India-Pakistan, etc) that it would have been difficult to argue against the Watchtower's message that Jesus had been present since 1874 (changed to 1914 in 1943) and that "Babylon had fallen" and that the "Great Tribulation" had actually started in 1914, with a short reprieve for the chosen ones, only to start up again "shortly." The "tribulation" was expected to start up again in the few "remaining months" remaining in this system. That expression about only a few months, not years, was used in the 1940's, 1950's, and then again about the 1970's.
It was easy to explain that Satan was angry and knew he had only a short period of time when looking at the world from 1914 through 1945, especially in Western terms. But the great wars grew mostly cold after 1945, and even though millions have died since in smaller wars, these have not really reached levels reported in the 1914-1945 era, or even the few hundred years prior to that. Pestilence and plague even famine have reached the lowest levels in hundreds of years due to soap and the end of the age of exploration.
Of course, the "outbreak" of human population is now due in large part due to lack of pestilence, plague, war and famine. This means another reckoning when the population of this "outbreak" reaches the ends of the terrestrial Petri dish. This means war, famine (and thirst) all over again.
But for the moment, it takes a bit of extra fearmongering to convince people that Satan's anger is at its highest peak, because his short period of time is even shorter now than it was in 1916 and 1941. Even as Witnesses, we may no longer be growing in population relative to the rest of the earth, but we still enjoy the greatest levels of peace and security. We can only assume that Satan changed his tactics, and that the end will just as likely come during a period of peace and security. To keep us on our toes, however, showing a few videos anticipating armed forces against us might be useful, too.

Kinda brings tears to my eyes. Come on God, bring in that New World. 

FWIW, I have a tour of Warwick scheduled for 11:00am on Friday 12/7, and will also be in Mahwah and Wallkill over the weekend, touring Wallkill soon after 10am on Monday. If anyone else from here wants to meet up I'll be wearing black slacks, black shoes, a white shirt, and a mostly black tie.
That probably won't help, will it? So I will wear a mostly white shirt that is actually blue striped (an LLBean style) if you look at it closely, and I will wear a black tie with blue geometric designs (small diamonds in gray, lt.blue, dk.blue, black). Also the black shoes are really "sneakers" just made to look like dress shoes, not very shiny.
(Also, I'm 61, married, 6'3'', 245lbs, have some gray on the sides of my short brown hair, and I like long walks around the lake.)
Anyway, for real, if anyone wants to meet up, I'll answer to "JWI" or something similar, or even my real name. That goes for anyone who works in Warwick or Wallkill, too, who might be following along.

From what I can gather here about you, I think that most of the 130 do not believe you are evil, and probably do not wish to treat you badly, but as you say, they THINK they are following the rules. Also, they will not merely treat you this way just because they feel you were concerned about the "child abuse" issue. If you have told the whole story then it is pretty clear that you are treated as someone who has formally disassociated, and we are told to treat that person the exact same way as someone who was disfellowshipped. (I think that is an abuse of power by the way on the part of the WTS policy.) It's probable that someone has added a few other "details" for the ears of the congregation, real or imagined. The more likely concern is that you have somehow become a spiritual danger because you are actively seeking out false information from apostates to spread it among the congregation in order to sow divisions and contentions. Many in the congregation must believe that your current motive is to promote such apostasy, even if you are personally still "salvagable." They are told that to treat you like this is a way to save you. 
I personally would not follow the rules in this regard when it is a person I have known and if I feel that my continued association is more likely to be scriptural than unscriptural. There have been two persons where my opinion of them and my association with them didn't change a bit after they were disfellowshipped. One stayed out and one came back. I don't advertise this to the rest of the congregation, for fear of stumbling others, and for my own fear of the same kind of unscriptural disciplinary treatment that others have been subjected to.
But there is also a certain kind of friendship we build up with others that goes beyond rules and regulations. We show a certain type of loyalty (loyal love) to the other person, and they to us. In the Bible, if David had become a murderer and an adulterer, Jonathan would have still loyally stuck by him. "There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother." (Prov 18:24)  I have seen several friendships like this, and would hope that no human rules would ever get in the way. I had a roommate at Bethel who joked that his friend who had recently been invited to Bethel, was like this. He claimed that even if he murdered someone, that this friend would never change. I thought about that and decided that he should move out and room with this arriving friend. 
If we truly have love, even for our enemies, we should have no problem dealing with tax collectors and sinners. How much more should we show love to someone who is in dire straits for a reason we already understand and one we can help them understand. This does not mean that I would go out of my way to seek out such a person, unless I was sure I could help them feel better with some encouragement. Often they truly put themselves in a situation where the best thing they  to do is to find their way back into the organization and I will often encourage that. But I would never encourage family members to disfellowship themselves from that disfellowshipped person.  It has been rare, but as I said, I have had a couple of occasions to "break the rule" in this regard.
 
I like a lot of what the GB and the JW org are doing, and I love many of my fellow associates in the congregation. But, YES, I really mean it. Speaking out is what I am doing right now. I often speak out against unscriptural policies, or discuss them here to help make sure whether my own reasoning is wrong. I don't have to speak out in front of my local congregation, nor do I cause divisions. I speak out on this forum, and I will sometimes speak frankly and honestly with people who approach me in person. I also send a couple letters a year to the GB and JW org. For the past few years, these have been anonymous. I have used this site to try to formulate the scriptural reasoning behind these letters.
I have already spoken out against abuse and bad policy in this regard for about seven years now -- not just on forums but in person. This is why I cannot completely understand the treatment you are getting. At several opportunities over the last 30 years, I have spoken out against a policy of tolerating spousal physical abuse against wives, because my own sister had an experience like this with the usual requested cover-up from authorities and hospital personnel. I have even turned in a young 20 year old brother who showed serious problems in this regard at gatherings. He is not quite a person of full mental capacity, but this won't matter to an abused sister who would feel traumatized if he takes these types of actions any further. And it's quite possible he already poses a criminal danger when not in public. There should be heightened awareness of these problems to protect all potential victims, and where necessary, secular authorities and law enforcement need to be involved.

Expelling is Biblical. That's true. But what is the method and are Christians under some kind of rule of law that needs to be applied uniformly in all situations? What if it was a principle that is good, but the way it was executed even in Bible times turns out not to have been a Christian method.
For example, the Bible allows for a husband to disfellowship his wife. (The Bible never allows for a wife to disfellowship (divorce) a husband, by the way.) But are we under Mosaic rules for divorce just because it is Biblical? In fact, Jesus said that even though it was Biblical, it wasn't what Jehovah really wanted.
(Matthew 19:7, 8 )  7 They said to him: “Why, then, did Moses direct giving a certificate of dismissal and divorcing her?” 8 He said to them: “Out of regard for your hard-heartedness, Moses made the concession to you of divorcing your wives, but that has not been the case from the beginning. Jesus doesn't say Moses wasn't inspired when he made the Biblical concession for divorce as one of the laws in the "perfect" Law covenant. But Jesus rejects this particular "jot and tittle" of the Law as a mere concession for human hard-heartedness, especially because it was being misused in practice.  "Hard-heartedness" is a form of having "no natural affection." (See my earlier post on this topic.)
There is an even more obvious case where the Governing Body now rejects something that is definitely Biblical. In the Bible, it's OK to "beat" your children, physically. When asked about this, GB member Geoffrey Jackson, in front of the Australian Royal Commission,  said that the GB now believe that the "rod" of correction is not a physical rod, but that it is the "virtual" rod of righteous corrective discipline. Of course, what do we then do with the Mosaic Law that says that if you beat your slave to death that there is no punishment as long as it takes the slave a day or two to die? (There is a punishment if the slave dies within in a shorter time period.)
(Exodus 21:20, 21) . . .“If a man strikes his slave man or his slave girl with a stick and that one dies by his hand, that one must be avenged. 21 However, if he survives for one or two days, he is not to be avenged, because he is someone bought with his owner’s money. The way in which the point was made in front of the ARC was for the GB member to avoid this Scripture:
(Proverbs 23:13, 14) 13 Do not hold back discipline from the mere boy. In case you beat him with the rod, he will not die. 14 With the rod you yourself should beat him, that you may deliver his very soul from Sheʹol itself. Instead, he used another verse, from the previous chapter, which was more ambiguous:
(Proverbs 22:15) 15 Foolishness is tied up with the heart of a boy; the rod of discipline is what will remove it far from him. Of course, all of these verses use the same Hebrew word for "rod/stick" and the same Hebrew word for "beat/smite/strike." Same word for "rod" or "stick" is used here too:
(Proverbs 26:3) 3 A whip is for the horse, a bridle is for the ass, and the rod is for the back of stupid people. I'm not in favor of the physical beating of children. There are times when the principle is correct, but the methods used were "hard-hearted." The Governing Body says we have updated our understanding to that of the world here, and I think everyone knows that Brother Jackson is not so stupid as to think that the Bible was not really referring to physical beatings with these Hebrew expressions. It's time we progressed in our understanding of what it means to disfellowship, too. 
You've argued that other religions see familial DFing, for example, as Biblical. But so what? In other religions they might still beat their children, beat their wives and servants, promote racism, divorce on any ground, and promote a lack natural affection, too.

Hey, that's the same picture on which I based my first original "meme"

But then again . . . too few to munch on . . .

FWIW, this part of the Temple of Herod where it was found was apparently from a strata of several items that more likely came from the time of the official Jewish Revolution in Judea which is dated to 66 CE.
The wine bottle motif, was in fact a motif that was given prominence during the Jewish Revolution and is also found on Jewish Revolutionary coins dated to the 2nd and 3rd year of the Revolution. 
Pilate's stone inscription at the "Palestinian" port of Caesarea was in Latin not in Greek. Pilate was part of an occupying force which at the time, was already differentiating itself from previously Hellenized regions by using Latin instead of Greek.
One of the goals of the Roman occupation was to impress the occupied regions with the splendor of Rome and the opulence, talent, finery, etc. Pilate, and other governors, were known for gold rings and expensive tastes, not cheap alloys. (Not only that but the cheap ring is further devalued because it already had a metallic defect when forged based on the way the lettering tries to avoid it, but then runs out of space to balance P I L - A T O, and ends up with P I  - L A T O.)
The skill of the craftsman who inscribed this ring was typical of what a local person, soldier, or freed slave might buy to show his family name. It is crude and awful. In my metal shop class back in 1968, half the class could easily have done a better job with crude equipment. 
To make it Pilate's ring, it is translated in the genitive, as if meaning "belonging to Pilate." But the last letter is not actually visible, and was only chosen to be an O as one method of making this appear to be a "seal ring" or "bulla." As a "bulla" it would have failed in its purpose, as no one would believe a sealed letter stamped with this "bulla" actually had come from Pilate.
It would be the most embarrassing cheap bulla any governor ever had. Like a very bad counterfeit. (I was at the Jewish Museum in NYC about a year ago and saw perfectly executed jewelry designs from the first century that would have belonged to a well-to-do Jewish family. A rich Roman governor would have access to at least the same kind of "laser-accurate" lettering.
There are additional problems with the artifact based on the political situation in Israel, which are harder to prove. But it has long been known that finding artifacts that are of interest to Christians (Westerners) are often timed to embarrassing news about Israel's atrocities. The US is covered from hearing about most of these, but there are English outlets of Israeli news, such as haaretz.com that do not hold much back.
This can sound conspiratorial to many Americans, but finds in the disputed portion of Jerusalem with David's name on it are sometimes forged, but the very real, possible finds are often held back until the timing works better. Same goes for Gaza and West Bank. This particular find was from near Bethlehem and therefore the West Bank. The item has been known for many years, and was supposedly only recently cleaned up for publication. This is in the midst of a decision on Netanyahu's fate in court over a scandal, another scandal where the Israeli Defense Minister was just discovered to have been lying for the last several years about involvement in Syria, and a several other embarrassments from this week. haaretz.com reported on this particular artifact, but also just ran an article that telegraphs some upcoming fighting we can expect out of the West Bank now that Gaza has grown quiet:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-with-gaza-border-quiet-next-challenge-could-come-from-west-bank-1.6701110
I don't know enough about Israeli happenings to evaluate any of these latter ideas. But my doubts are based on the first few ideas already mentioned above.

I’ll do it, but not with confidence. I like your theory. Pay no attention that Paul himself doesn’t mention it. What does he know?
It is well known that portions of Back in the USSR satirize the Beach Boys’ California Girls.

No need to get cross about it .
 

What in the world would make you think that? With the possible exception of @Anna, who may be a high-ranking brother in drag, I think it is most unlikely that anyone is UNLESS they are malcontents working for the other side.
One can never know for sure, because the Internet is the land of the liars.
All comments that I have seen, the ones that have stayed on-topic, that is, have been focused on human matters, if not individual rights. I’ve not seen any that have addressed God’s stated insistence on preserving a clean people for his name.

Expelling is Biblical. That's true. But what is the method and are Christians under some kind of rule of law that needs to be applied uniformly in all situations? What if it was a principle that is good, but the way it was executed even in Bible times turns out not to have been a Christian method.
For example, the Bible allows for a husband to disfellowship his wife. (The Bible never allows for a wife to disfellowship (divorce) a husband, by the way.) But are we under Mosaic rules for divorce just because it is Biblical? In fact, Jesus said that even though it was Biblical, it wasn't what Jehovah really wanted.
(Matthew 19:7, 8 )  7 They said to him: “Why, then, did Moses direct giving a certificate of dismissal and divorcing her?” 8 He said to them: “Out of regard for your hard-heartedness, Moses made the concession to you of divorcing your wives, but that has not been the case from the beginning. Jesus doesn't say Moses wasn't inspired when he made the Biblical concession for divorce as one of the laws in the "perfect" Law covenant. But Jesus rejects this particular "jot and tittle" of the Law as a mere concession for human hard-heartedness, especially because it was being misused in practice.  "Hard-heartedness" is a form of having "no natural affection." (See my earlier post on this topic.)
There is an even more obvious case where the Governing Body now rejects something that is definitely Biblical. In the Bible, it's OK to "beat" your children, physically. When asked about this, GB member Geoffrey Jackson, in front of the Australian Royal Commission,  said that the GB now believe that the "rod" of correction is not a physical rod, but that it is the "virtual" rod of righteous corrective discipline. Of course, what do we then do with the Mosaic Law that says that if you beat your slave to death that there is no punishment as long as it takes the slave a day or two to die? (There is a punishment if the slave dies within in a shorter time period.)
(Exodus 21:20, 21) . . .“If a man strikes his slave man or his slave girl with a stick and that one dies by his hand, that one must be avenged. 21 However, if he survives for one or two days, he is not to be avenged, because he is someone bought with his owner’s money. The way in which the point was made in front of the ARC was for the GB member to avoid this Scripture:
(Proverbs 23:13, 14) 13 Do not hold back discipline from the mere boy. In case you beat him with the rod, he will not die. 14 With the rod you yourself should beat him, that you may deliver his very soul from Sheʹol itself. Instead, he used another verse, from the previous chapter, which was more ambiguous:
(Proverbs 22:15) 15 Foolishness is tied up with the heart of a boy; the rod of discipline is what will remove it far from him. Of course, all of these verses use the same Hebrew word for "rod/stick" and the same Hebrew word for "beat/smite/strike." Same word for "rod" or "stick" is used here too:
(Proverbs 26:3) 3 A whip is for the horse, a bridle is for the ass, and the rod is for the back of stupid people. I'm not in favor of the physical beating of children. There are times when the principle is correct, but the methods used were "hard-hearted." The Governing Body says we have updated our understanding to that of the world here, and I think everyone knows that Brother Jackson is not so stupid as to think that the Bible was not really referring to physical beatings with these Hebrew expressions. It's time we progressed in our understanding of what it means to disfellowship, too. 
You've argued that other religions see familial DFing, for example, as Biblical. But so what? In other religions they might still beat their children, beat their wives and servants, promote racism, divorce on any ground, and promote a lack natural affection, too.

From what I can gather here about you, I think that most of the 130 do not believe you are evil, and probably do not wish to treat you badly, but as you say, they THINK they are following the rules. Also, they will not merely treat you this way just because they feel you were concerned about the "child abuse" issue. If you have told the whole story then it is pretty clear that you are treated as someone who has formally disassociated, and we are told to treat that person the exact same way as someone who was disfellowshipped. (I think that is an abuse of power by the way on the part of the WTS policy.) It's probable that someone has added a few other "details" for the ears of the congregation, real or imagined. The more likely concern is that you have somehow become a spiritual danger because you are actively seeking out false information from apostates to spread it among the congregation in order to sow divisions and contentions. Many in the congregation must believe that your current motive is to promote such apostasy, even if you are personally still "salvagable." They are told that to treat you like this is a way to save you. 
I personally would not follow the rules in this regard when it is a person I have known and if I feel that my continued association is more likely to be scriptural than unscriptural. There have been two persons where my opinion of them and my association with them didn't change a bit after they were disfellowshipped. One stayed out and one came back. I don't advertise this to the rest of the congregation, for fear of stumbling others, and for my own fear of the same kind of unscriptural disciplinary treatment that others have been subjected to.
But there is also a certain kind of friendship we build up with others that goes beyond rules and regulations. We show a certain type of loyalty (loyal love) to the other person, and they to us. In the Bible, if David had become a murderer and an adulterer, Jonathan would have still loyally stuck by him. "There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother." (Prov 18:24)  I have seen several friendships like this, and would hope that no human rules would ever get in the way. I had a roommate at Bethel who joked that his friend who had recently been invited to Bethel, was like this. He claimed that even if he murdered someone, that this friend would never change. I thought about that and decided that he should move out and room with this arriving friend. 
If we truly have love, even for our enemies, we should have no problem dealing with tax collectors and sinners. How much more should we show love to someone who is in dire straits for a reason we already understand and one we can help them understand. This does not mean that I would go out of my way to seek out such a person, unless I was sure I could help them feel better with some encouragement. Often they truly put themselves in a situation where the best thing they  to do is to find their way back into the organization and I will often encourage that. But I would never encourage family members to disfellowship themselves from that disfellowshipped person.  It has been rare, but as I said, I have had a couple of occasions to "break the rule" in this regard.
 
I like a lot of what the GB and the JW org are doing, and I love many of my fellow associates in the congregation. But, YES, I really mean it. Speaking out is what I am doing right now. I often speak out against unscriptural policies, or discuss them here to help make sure whether my own reasoning is wrong. I don't have to speak out in front of my local congregation, nor do I cause divisions. I speak out on this forum, and I will sometimes speak frankly and honestly with people who approach me in person. I also send a couple letters a year to the GB and JW org. For the past few years, these have been anonymous. I have used this site to try to formulate the scriptural reasoning behind these letters.
I have already spoken out against abuse and bad policy in this regard for about seven years now -- not just on forums but in person. This is why I cannot completely understand the treatment you are getting. At several opportunities over the last 30 years, I have spoken out against a policy of tolerating spousal physical abuse against wives, because my own sister had an experience like this with the usual requested cover-up from authorities and hospital personnel. I have even turned in a young 20 year old brother who showed serious problems in this regard at gatherings. He is not quite a person of full mental capacity, but this won't matter to an abused sister who would feel traumatized if he takes these types of actions any further. And it's quite possible he already poses a criminal danger when not in public. There should be heightened awareness of these problems to protect all potential victims, and where necessary, secular authorities and law enforcement need to be involved.

Because it was a job given to Jewish people to collect taxes from fellow Jews to hand over to the Romans so that they had enough money to be even more oppressive and so that the Romans could display their riches and opulence as a direct humiliation of the people they were oppressing and occupying. For nearly Jesus' entire life on earth up to the 70 C.E. and even as late as 130 C.E., there was a continuous state of revolution against Rome by the Jews from Judea to Galilee, especially Galilee.
Imagine the same situation in Gaza or West Bank today where the Israelis continually abuse and terrorize the Palestinians, hoping to provoke enough backlash so that they can excuse the tactics of bulldozing and exploding their homes to steal their land and squeeze them further into economic ruin. Now imagine a Palestinian who takes a job of collecting taxes from fellow Palestinians to give to the Israelis.