TrueTomHarley

Excellent point as always. The answer is the same as that given Srecko. Make volunteer work illegal. Those volunteer fire departments? Tell them to let the houses burn. Those volunteers at the hospitals? Tell those lazy patients to get themselves out of traction and take care of their own needs. Those volunteers during every election? Free them! Tell Trump and Sanders to knock on doors and present their own case.
The purpose of life is to accumulate money. How can people do that if they are giving away their work? Free them from being manipulated. Let no  one do anything without a paycheck.
I made a normal one, too. What we need is a Department of Volunteer Monitoring so that any volunteering can be run by you for your approval or not. I suggest they will all be quickly approved except that concerning JWs

Moreover, the hundreds of volunteer workers, most of them young people, were exposed to what they had never been exposed to be—antique restoration work. Many made use of it in their later secular employment—thus saving state vocational and worker displacement & retraining services—trust me, there are a ton of them in the states—oodles of money. Such agencies gave Witnesses high praise for doing their work for them. It is all in the secret files that you can’t see.
 

There you go, then. The position of every Witness is that what they do does help people—in fact it offers them the most lasting help, in contrast to efforts whose effects are temporary. Your position is that it does not.
You could desist, you know. It is inherently more noble to defend something than to attack it.

Same here.  And that will also get criticism because some set themselves up as jury and judge in high supreme court.

Excellent point as always. The answer is the same as that given Srecko. Make volunteer work illegal. Those volunteer fire departments? Tell them to let the houses burn. Those volunteers at the hospitals? Tell those lazy patients to get themselves out of traction and take care of their own needs. Those volunteers during every election? Free them! Tell Trump and Sanders to knock on doors and present their own case.
The purpose of life is to accumulate money. How can people do that if they are giving away their work? Free them from being manipulated. Let no  one do anything without a paycheck.
I made a normal one, too. What we need is a Department of Volunteer Monitoring so that any volunteering can be run by you for your approval or not. I suggest they will all be quickly approved except that concerning JWs

Volunteerism is volunteerism. What’s it to you where they choose to volunteer?
Besides is a life-saving work that preachers of the good news have been entrusted with. That being the case, I fitted my own vehicle with flashing lights and siren. Don’t worry—I got them cheap at the junkyard and restored them myself. 

Stop paying the rent then 😀

Isn’t there some verse somewhere about crazed animals who hurtled over the precipice?

They live in dorms. Nice dorms, to be sure, with common access to other areas, but still they are dorms.

Isn’t anything sold for that reason?
Yes. Make it illegal to volunteer for anything. Those volunteer ambulance departments? Make them illegal. Tell no one to budge unless someone puts a check in their hand.
Oh, very well, you idiot. Go buy your house for full price—even over price. Write letters to the editor to voice your outrage at those who buy fixer-uppers.

Isn’t anything sold for that reason?
Yes. Make it illegal to volunteer for anything. Those volunteer ambulance departments? Make them illegal. Tell no one to budge unless someone puts a check in their hand.
Oh, very well, you idiot. Go buy your house for full price—even over price. Write letters to the editor to voice your outrage at those who buy fixer-uppers.

Yes. And always always always the point of attack for rebels will be the divine/human interface. It was true with Miriam as you pointed out. It was true with the early Christian congregation. It was even true regarding Judas. He and God were tight—they were no problems there! But that fellow who claimed to be the messiah was not at all what Judas had been expecting. Judas has scoped it out for 3 years and concluded that he did not fit the bill at all.

You’re just upset because you practice “Buy high, sell low” and they don’t.
There was a certain amount of protest from the malcontents of the time about building ornate palaces. The brothers weren’t having any of it. They weren’t building anything, they pointed out—they were restoring what was already there. In so doing, they brought an architectural jewel brought to life and received considerable praise from the local community. It had fallen into neglect and disrepair. A few more years and the wrecking ball would have claimed it. 
‘Don’t witness to any visitors,’ the tour guides were told. ‘Let the building be the witness.’ They acquired a fine meeting place for a song and a bit of elbow grease. The brothers were happy. The community was happy. Everyone was happy except you and Witness.

You’re just upset because you practice “Buy high, sell low” and they don’t.
There was a certain amount of protest from the malcontents of the time about building ornate palaces. The brothers weren’t having any of it. They weren’t building anything, they pointed out—they were restoring what was already there. In so doing, they brought an architectural jewel brought to life and received considerable praise from the local community. It had fallen into neglect and disrepair. A few more years and the wrecking ball would have claimed it. 
‘Don’t witness to any visitors,’ the tour guides were told. ‘Let the building be the witness.’ They acquired a fine meeting place for a song and a bit of elbow grease. The brothers were happy. The community was happy. Everyone was happy except you and Witness.

I find solace that Charlie Watts, the drummer for The Rolling Stones, is a pretty normal family guy who lays low when the others would carry on with women, partying and drugs.
Once upon a drunken time, Mick Jagger pounded on his hotel door at 2 AM, demanding to know: “Where’s my drummer?!” Charlie punched him in the nose. “Don’t you ever call me your drummer!” he said. “You’re my singer!”

The mission statement of Tom Irregardless and Me appears directly on the title page: “For we have become a theatrical spectacle to the world,” Paul writes to the Corinthians. “That being the case, let’s show them some theater!” is my addition.
It is the greatest show on earth, with actors playing characters good and bad, strutting their stuff, playing out their roles under the big tent. For the longest time I was frustrated that The Watchtower seldom names names—“one politician said” is the vagueness that they continually served up. Then I realized the underlying truth: it is a play that we are watching. You don’t have to name the actors of the play—it can even be a distraction if you do. Name a villain and you create the illusion that holding that villain accountable and making him take responsibility solves the problem. Instead, cart him off to the hoosegow and another actor instantly steps into his shoes—the show goes on with barely a hiccup. 
As the greatest showman on earth—Cecil B. DeMille—and every showman worth his salt before of after well knows, every show needs not just a hero. It needs a villain! The show will tank in popular estimation without a villain—it simply becomes too dull to hold interest. “There’s a great villain in that Bond movie,” people will say as they change channels. Fortunately, in the Greatest Show of Earth, there are villains galore! Who are they? Apostates! “Taste and see that Jehovah is good,” says the verse. They have tasted and seen that he is bad. They are the villains.
Let us assign them a theme song, taking inspiration from Queen’s ‘We Are the Champions:’
We’re the apostates, my friends
And we’ll keep on fighting ‘til the end
We’re the apostates
We’re the apostates
No way we’ll lose this
We hope you choose us
‘Cause we’re the apostates of the world!
There! Isn’t that nice? What! Do you think only the Israelites can come marching to battle singing their song? No! They came marching for battle that day, but they didn’t expect to draw a sword! Singers were out in front! (2 Chronicles 20:17-21) But if they listened very closely, they might have heard the approaching enemy also singing—the Queen song!
See the scoundrels attacking what they always attack—the divine/human interface. Has that not always been the case? It was the case with Moses and the rebellious Israelites. It was the case with the apostles and the malcontents that they strove with all their might to restrain. It was even true with the one who turned on Jesus—Judas. He and God were tight—there we no problems there! But this imposter claiming to be the Messiah! He was not at all what Judas had come to expect. And those yo-yos that he was attracting! “Untaught and ignorant,” Acts 4:13 (KJV) calls their head ones—don’t even go there!
See the apostates diving into the archives! ‘Have Witnesses predicted the end before?’ they mutter their empty thing. ‘Yes! They have—several times! And now they would cover it up!! Well, we won’t let them! Aha ha ha ha!!!!!’
Witnesses want to cover it up? Really? Anybody see Gerrit Losch speaking to hundreds at the Gilead graduation—it being broadcasted to millions? He’s the one noted for digging up stats. He must have referred to a couple dozen predictions for the end—starting with one in the year 400. Christopher Columbus even had one! I hadn’t known that. Isaac Newton as well, who wrote more on religion than he did on mathematics and science combined. That’s one that he didn’t mention, perhaps because the date is yet ahead: 2060.
Our brothers, too, have made some, he said, pointing to two in the 1800’s and a gaggle of them around 1914, so many that I thought he might not even slap me down for when I characterized them as that time you missed the nail with the hammer, and in frustration swung several times more, again missing each time!
Did he soft-peddle 1925 or 1975? He doubled down on them! He did not even use for an out the two perfect ones he had—that the early Christians, too, were obsessed over the end date: “Lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time?” they asked the resurrected Jesus the moment they laid eyes upon him. What godly person doesn’t want to see the end of this experiment with human rule? But Losch doesn’t even go there.
He’s trying to cover something up, is he? Doesn’t sound that way to me. Who knew that the stiff old German had it in him? When the blaggard throws a punch that he expects to smash in your face, you simply step aside, admit everything, fill in a few details he doesn’t know, and the slob’s own momentum sends him hurling past you head over heals! ‘The Governing Body humbly admits its mistakes and moves on,’ Losch states.
See the apostates reframing obviously good works as bad! Is it actually possible to characterize the Witnesses’ disaster relief mobilizations as evil? They find a way! One vile character says it is one of Satan’s lying signs and wonders, proving he can transform himself into an angel of light! When that doesn’t work, she says, ‘Big deal. Everybody does it!’ When that doesn’t work, she says, ‘Witnesses only help themselves—why don’t they rebuild everybody?’ They don’t because they are in no position to. They are volunteers, for the most part, using vacation time. What they can do is show others how it is done, show them the model that makes it possible for them to do likewise if they wish to or are capable of. 
Then she says—it’s unbelievable! it’s her fourth tactic!—if the homeowner has insurance, they suggest donating the check! Duh! They commence repairs without knowing or caring whether there is insurance. What! She would accept $100K worth of work, and when the friends suggest donation, tell them to take a hike? Are you kidding me? What does she plan on doing with that check, anyway? Doesn’t she come mighty close to suggesting insurance fraud, which she doesn’t notice in her quest to make it hot for her former friends? I can’t imagine it happening very frequently because Witnesses are decent folk who would never dream of so taking advantage of others’ generosity. But she has no problem with it.
See them try to reframe reality—turning the good into evil that Jehovah’s Witnesses police their own as few others do so that they may best ‘practice what they preach.’ See how they deliberately sow confusion that leaving the reporting to child abuse to the parties involved is the same as ‘covering it up.’ When the gold standard of child abuse is to “go beyond the law,” impossible situations arise with regard to persons who, not surprisingly, expect you to abide by the law. Change the law! as Geoffrey Jackson pleaded, and everyone will be happy. It will make the Witnesses’ job “so much easier.” Few others undertake that job—of self-policing—so if the laws are screwed up it affects them not at all. 
Who are these “apostates”—and I usually call them malcontents, detractors, or some like word, because outside of the Witness community, and even inside it, people tire of the term. 
From the meta-data of ‘TrueTom vs the Apostates!’—
“No New Testament writer fails to deal with then-rampant apostasy—a movement which finds its counterpart today. Two Bible chapters are entirely dedicated to it. Apostates of that time would “despise authority.” How could that become a problem unless there was authority? They loved “lawlessness.” How could that become a problem unless there was law? They favored acts of “brazen conduct,” had “eyes full of adultery,” and were “unable to desist from sin.” How could that become a problem unless there was someone to tell them that they could not carry on in that way? Not only is the nature of apostates revealed in the above Bible verses, but also the nature of the Christian organization.”
Any faith too bland to have quality apostates—I am almost proud of ours—is too bland to be given the time of day. They validate us. The more “respectable” churches where anything goes—what would people apostatize from?
See them snarling in their lairs! What accounts for their discontent? Well—let us not get too flippant (as we have several places in this post)—some of them genuinely caught the short end of the stick and then declined congregation efforts to restore them. But in general, whenever one discards a scenario in which there is discipline for one in which there is not, it will be like releasing a compressed spring—it rebounds wildly, delirious with its newfound freedom, caring not where it goes. This will be true when one leaves behind the school, the military, or the job. It will especially be true if one quit or was expelled from that institution—and that is the case of most on the anti-JW site. Many of them have come out as gay. Witnesses may not gay-bash as do some evangelicals, plenty of whom froth on the subject and tirelessly prod legislators to make it hot for gays in general society—Witnesses don’t do that—still, there is no place for gay sex relations within the Witness organization—and that hardly endears them to former members who have gone that way. There is a plain backdrop of ‘settling the score’ to be detected in many posts. It is anything but easy to hold the line on Bible morality in a quickly changing world.“
to be continued.....maybe

Valid points made on both counts.
Sigh......Maybe they will someday turn over a new leaf and I will see on the webpage:
”Watchtower—home of the polite lawyers, the reasonable lawyers, the Christian lawyers.......anybody representing anything can roll them.”
 

It is entirely a matter of “Is this life all there is”
If one thinks that it is—if one’s sole horizon in life is only for a few decades—the way one approaches many things will be completely different. 
@Annamentioned one victim in the suit who wanted no part of it. He or she wanted to ‘get on with life’ & was content that the perpetrator was punished & and did not feel the desire to blame parties that he thought were not at fault.

I am reminded of a Great Courses CD lecture from someone who teaches theology at Chapel Hill. He poses the question: ‘why would various Christian martyrs appear so eager to get out of this world when they seemingly had so much to offer it?’ ‘He’s forgotten everything,’ I said to myself, if he ever knew it. And he teaches it. At the university. Where the clergy goes to get their degrees that count so highly with you.

Valid points made on both counts.
Sigh......Maybe they will someday turn over a new leaf and I will see on the webpage:
”Watchtower—home of the polite lawyers, the reasonable lawyers, the Christian lawyers.......anybody representing anything can roll them.”
 

The old hen will rightly get mad at me for this one, but:
what in the world could be the problem with Buffalo NY? It has the largest summer garden show in the country. Call that a problem?
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2010/08/redeeming-americas-armpit.html

You know, I’m starting to get into this.
Is not New York called the Big Apple? And if it truly was the same as Babylon the Great—the Great City, could it not be said that God’s wrath will take a substantial bite out of it?
Hmm.....Tim Cook is the anti-Christ!!!!!

Not so fast. I’m starting to come around
To Buffalo, of course!
I am ready. Teach me.
For crying out loud, Where’s the modesty? (a HUGE tell, in my book)

No. I don’t think so on account of the prophet Frank: 
“If I can’t make it, there, I can’t make it anywhere! I’m stuck with you, New York, New York!”
(New York State registered a decline of population last year and the governor famously said that it was on account of the weather. This led to loud guffaws from those who pointed out that the weather has always been the weather in New York. However, I agreed with him and tweeted that New York has some of the highest weather in the country—income weather, sales weather, and property weather.)

Were it not for their concern my Go Kit would be a bag of pretzels.
I am not sure just how it happens—have they been goaded into it? I don’t know. But several of these characters have broken out recently into absolute either lunacy or hatred.

”Amazon is no more! The Greatest Merchant on Earth. Lord Bezos was going to come and then he said No! The two witnesses—Bezos and Cook—who would decimate the Great City! Oh the profits we would have made! Too bad, too bad! Say....what town did Amazon settle on, anyway?”
You are a false prophetess! It is Bezos and Cook. Next to them, Adam is ....um....naked! Go, woman! Go far from here! Mislead not the fine folk at the World News Media Forum any longer!