TrueTomHarley

A downvote for a 59 Caddy? Are you nuts?
Downvote it at your own peril, Dimitar. I happen to know that tail fins are chief among the perilous weapons in the arsenal of both north and south. kings. Mark my words, they will be game-changers.

The villain got off but Perry impaled him on the fins of his Cadillac.

Oh for crying out loud! 
Not everything is about you.

The villain got off but Perry impaled him on the fins of his Cadillac.

Oh for crying out loud! 
Not everything is about you.

I can only read your comments SM and I will explain why I have blocked certain ones..it is not out of fear..but I have discussed in the past with such ones.
but it becomes like being on a merry go round..round and round we go with no sensible discussions….much energy is spent..and wasted…and fruitless debates are worthless to each side.
To those I have blocked I say be at peace with your decisions…I am not scared of you…I have had discussions with ones like you and pearl many times..many many times ..and it becomes fruitless for both sides….my energy must be reserved for others….and not those that try to pull us into endless merry go round that never stops.
I have no time for certain ones who speak in a Judas tongue…which drips with the blood of many you have deceived….and shipwrecked many faiths……
  Being hurt or abused by one’s in power in our faith does not excuse certain ones who break away and devour their own former brothers and sister who are working in the trenches ……instead it is best to learn to step Over those ones…it’s a test of faith for sure .but it can be done. 
Even Jesus walked away from ones who did not discern his sayings…..it’s a principle some would do well to follow for their own  sense of peace..perhaps it’s best some  block me to get that,

The villain got off but Perry impaled him on the fins of his Cadillac.

It is like that scene from The Fugitive, when the sinister doctor tells Sam Gerard and crew that they’ll never catch Richard Kimble because “he is too smart.”
“Well…we’re smart, too,” one of them replies and he gets a chorus of agreement from his fellows, all asserting how smart they are.
So be instructed by this Dimitar. We also are all very smart. Very very smart. So smart that we would have to get dumber to get any smarter.
And there are others you haven’t listed here. They’re smart, too. 

It is like that scene from The Fugitive, when the sinister doctor tells Sam Gerard and crew that they’ll never catch Richard Kimble because “he is too smart.”
“Well…we’re smart, too,” one of them replies and he gets a chorus of agreement from his fellows, all asserting how smart they are.
So be instructed by this Dimitar. We also are all very smart. Very very smart. So smart that we would have to get dumber to get any smarter.
And there are others you haven’t listed here. They’re smart, too. 

Possibly even the Book of Mormon itself.  Merrill writes:
”The Book of Mormon went on sale March 26 1830. On April 2nd the Rochester Daily Advertiser printed the first review of the volume. “The Book of Mormon has been placed in our hands. A viler imposition was never practiced. It is an evidence of fraud, blasphemy, and credulity shocking both to Christians and to moralists. The author and proprietor is Joseph Smith junior, a fellow who by some hocus pocus acquired such influence over a wealthy farmer of Wayne County that he later mortgaged his farm for $3000 which he paid for printing and binding... the blasphemous book.”
His wife was deeply suspicious of Smith and his visions. She was vehemently against that farmer, Martin Harris was his name, mortgaging his farm to finance the printing. Harris himself balked at the price tag of the printer, but writes Merrill: “When Harris hesitated Joseph came up with a divine “revelation” ordering him to finance the publication whereupon Harris mortgaged his farm and his wife left him.”
Yeah, I did such things back then but I wouldn’t now. My guess is you would not either. Possibly I should, but they’re just kids far away from home, under enormous pressure to stay where they are. (as @xero’s book makes clear). I am not in position to benefit them but i am in position to mess them up. So if I disagree, I am not forceful about it.
I heard or read somewhere some top Mormon honcho say how much he appreciated when people are nice to their missionaries. ‘I can do that,’ I thought, and I have behaved that way since. In a small town festival in Pennsylvania, my wife and I came across a couple of them at their station. I just engaged them in chat. To their obligatory thrusts I said who and what I was and that an effort to sway me elsewhere would go nowhere. After that I just asked about them, who they were, where they came from, are they homesick, and so forth.
The title character of xero’s—the book is autobiographical—is thwarted from abandoning his assignment, something he really really wants to do. “Have you prayed about it?” a higher up want to know. He replied that he had. ‘What did the Holy Spirit say to you?’ was the follow-up question. He replied that the Holy Spirit had said it was okay. “The Holy Spirit doesn’t work that like!” was his answer.
The book’s author spins his own talk alongside that of Joseph Smith. He has done his homework, spinning some non-Mormon historical details that only someone familiar with the region’s development (which I am) would know.

Possibly even the Book of Mormon itself.  Merrill writes:
”The Book of Mormon went on sale March 26 1830. On April 2nd the Rochester Daily Advertiser printed the first review of the volume. “The Book of Mormon has been placed in our hands. A viler imposition was never practiced. It is an evidence of fraud, blasphemy, and credulity shocking both to Christians and to moralists. The author and proprietor is Joseph Smith junior, a fellow who by some hocus pocus acquired such influence over a wealthy farmer of Wayne County that he later mortgaged his farm for $3000 which he paid for printing and binding... the blasphemous book.”
His wife was deeply suspicious of Smith and his visions. She was vehemently against that farmer, Martin Harris was his name, mortgaging his farm to finance the printing. Harris himself balked at the price tag of the printer, but writes Merrill: “When Harris hesitated Joseph came up with a divine “revelation” ordering him to finance the publication whereupon Harris mortgaged his farm and his wife left him.”
Yeah, I did such things back then but I wouldn’t now. My guess is you would not either. Possibly I should, but they’re just kids far away from home, under enormous pressure to stay where they are. (as @xero’s book makes clear). I am not in position to benefit them but i am in position to mess them up. So if I disagree, I am not forceful about it.
I heard or read somewhere some top Mormon honcho say how much he appreciated when people are nice to their missionaries. ‘I can do that,’ I thought, and I have behaved that way since. In a small town festival in Pennsylvania, my wife and I came across a couple of them at their station. I just engaged them in chat. To their obligatory thrusts I said who and what I was and that an effort to sway me elsewhere would go nowhere. After that I just asked about them, who they were, where they came from, are they homesick, and so forth.
The title character of xero’s—the book is autobiographical—is thwarted from abandoning his assignment, something he really really wants to do. “Have you prayed about it?” a higher up want to know. He replied that he had. ‘What did the Holy Spirit say to you?’ was the follow-up question. He replied that the Holy Spirit had said it was okay. “The Holy Spirit doesn’t work that like!” was his answer.
The book’s author spins his own talk alongside that of Joseph Smith. He has done his homework, spinning some non-Mormon historical details that only someone familiar with the region’s development (which I am) would know.

It is like that scene from The Fugitive, when the sinister doctor tells Sam Gerard and crew that they’ll never catch Richard Kimble because “he is too smart.”
“Well…we’re smart, too,” one of them replies and he gets a chorus of agreement from his fellows, all asserting how smart they are.
So be instructed by this Dimitar. We also are all very smart. Very very smart. So smart that we would have to get dumber to get any smarter.
And there are others you haven’t listed here. They’re smart, too. 

You mention or tag this fellow so often that I am convinced you are a secret fan. Nothing else can account for this constant craving of yours for his attention.
It is sort of like when a fellow accosted Bob Dylan with “I am your greatest fan!” Dylan looked at him speechless for a second and finally said, “Good for you.”

Maybe. My insurance man was a Mormon. He died, but I am still with the agency he founded. (whether Mormons or not I am not sure—I think they are) I turned to him upon the recommendation of another Witness for business liability insurance. In time he commented on some scheme I had bought into from some brothers for health care insurance. He’s looked it over, he said, ‘and the premiums are unrealistically low.’ I was a young man then. I said how it is different with the Witnesses because they cut out the middleman and they are not greedy and it is not really insurance but pooled resources and all but said it had God’s smile of approval on it, but in time the monthly newsletter began acknowledging subscribers were asking why their bills were not being paid. To my knowledge, it was not dishonesty, just starry-eyed incompetence. I never got any premiums back, but that is true with any insurance. I never had any claim to submit—it was ‘major medical’ only, not routine doctor visits. I recall a Watchtower observing much later that just because someone is a good Christian, that does not mean he is a good businessman.
Yes. Maybe what we see is only what rises to the surface but they are trustworthy people. It is strange because so many of the roots are downright screwy. They originate from my neck of the woods, you know. At an antique/collectibles/junk shop I picked up a set of books by local historian Arch Merrill. Pioneer Profiles (1957) has a chapter on “The Mormon Prophets” There I learned that Joseph Smith was anything but the Mormon equivalent of Charles Taze Russell. 
“To many of his neighbors in the drumlin county around Palmyra and Manchester in the restless 1820s, Joe Smith was a lazy, dreamy young bumpkin, one of a shiftless tribe. To them his claims of conversing with angels and receiving divine revelations were so much humbug.
they knew him as “a gangling lad in a calico shirt and patched pants with his yellow hair sticking through a hole in his dirty hat a mystical sort of fellow who was forever digging for buried treasure. peering into a magic stone and finding water in the earth with a twig when to their mind he should have been toiling on his father's farm. They conceded Joe ‘had a way with him’ and was a glib and convincing talker.”
Is the guy just anti-Mormon? Doesn’t seem so. His next sentence is:
“Today that same Joseph Smith is revered by nearly a million people in 30 lands as a divinely inspired prophet. Those fine thrifty people are popularly known as Mormons and from the unlettered farm boys visions of golden plates hidden in a drumlins breast and from my handful of rustic disciples sprano the now mighty Church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints.”
Maybe I’ll have to say of them the same thing I say to people who pound us over the head with inconsistencies from years past: “If you have to go back 100 years to dig up dirt, there can’t be that much dirt to dig.”

Maybe. My insurance man was a Mormon. He died, but I am still with the agency he founded. (whether Mormons or not I am not sure—I think they are) I turned to him upon the recommendation of another Witness for business liability insurance. In time he commented on some scheme I had bought into from some brothers for health care insurance. He’s looked it over, he said, ‘and the premiums are unrealistically low.’ I was a young man then. I said how it is different with the Witnesses because they cut out the middleman and they are not greedy and it is not really insurance but pooled resources and all but said it had God’s smile of approval on it, but in time the monthly newsletter began acknowledging subscribers were asking why their bills were not being paid. To my knowledge, it was not dishonesty, just starry-eyed incompetence. I never got any premiums back, but that is true with any insurance. I never had any claim to submit—it was ‘major medical’ only, not routine doctor visits. I recall a Watchtower observing much later that just because someone is a good Christian, that does not mean he is a good businessman.
Yes. Maybe what we see is only what rises to the surface but they are trustworthy people. It is strange because so many of the roots are downright screwy. They originate from my neck of the woods, you know. At an antique/collectibles/junk shop I picked up a set of books by local historian Arch Merrill. Pioneer Profiles (1957) has a chapter on “The Mormon Prophets” There I learned that Joseph Smith was anything but the Mormon equivalent of Charles Taze Russell. 
“To many of his neighbors in the drumlin county around Palmyra and Manchester in the restless 1820s, Joe Smith was a lazy, dreamy young bumpkin, one of a shiftless tribe. To them his claims of conversing with angels and receiving divine revelations were so much humbug.
they knew him as “a gangling lad in a calico shirt and patched pants with his yellow hair sticking through a hole in his dirty hat a mystical sort of fellow who was forever digging for buried treasure. peering into a magic stone and finding water in the earth with a twig when to their mind he should have been toiling on his father's farm. They conceded Joe ‘had a way with him’ and was a glib and convincing talker.”
Is the guy just anti-Mormon? Doesn’t seem so. His next sentence is:
“Today that same Joseph Smith is revered by nearly a million people in 30 lands as a divinely inspired prophet. Those fine thrifty people are popularly known as Mormons and from the unlettered farm boys visions of golden plates hidden in a drumlins breast and from my handful of rustic disciples sprano the now mighty Church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints.”
Maybe I’ll have to say of them the same thing I say to people who pound us over the head with inconsistencies from years past: “If you have to go back 100 years to dig up dirt, there can’t be that much dirt to dig.”

Maybe. My insurance man was a Mormon. He died, but I am still with the agency he founded. (whether Mormons or not I am not sure—I think they are) I turned to him upon the recommendation of another Witness for business liability insurance. In time he commented on some scheme I had bought into from some brothers for health care insurance. He’s looked it over, he said, ‘and the premiums are unrealistically low.’ I was a young man then. I said how it is different with the Witnesses because they cut out the middleman and they are not greedy and it is not really insurance but pooled resources and all but said it had God’s smile of approval on it, but in time the monthly newsletter began acknowledging subscribers were asking why their bills were not being paid. To my knowledge, it was not dishonesty, just starry-eyed incompetence. I never got any premiums back, but that is true with any insurance. I never had any claim to submit—it was ‘major medical’ only, not routine doctor visits. I recall a Watchtower observing much later that just because someone is a good Christian, that does not mean he is a good businessman.
Yes. Maybe what we see is only what rises to the surface but they are trustworthy people. It is strange because so many of the roots are downright screwy. They originate from my neck of the woods, you know. At an antique/collectibles/junk shop I picked up a set of books by local historian Arch Merrill. Pioneer Profiles (1957) has a chapter on “The Mormon Prophets” There I learned that Joseph Smith was anything but the Mormon equivalent of Charles Taze Russell. 
“To many of his neighbors in the drumlin county around Palmyra and Manchester in the restless 1820s, Joe Smith was a lazy, dreamy young bumpkin, one of a shiftless tribe. To them his claims of conversing with angels and receiving divine revelations were so much humbug.
they knew him as “a gangling lad in a calico shirt and patched pants with his yellow hair sticking through a hole in his dirty hat a mystical sort of fellow who was forever digging for buried treasure. peering into a magic stone and finding water in the earth with a twig when to their mind he should have been toiling on his father's farm. They conceded Joe ‘had a way with him’ and was a glib and convincing talker.”
Is the guy just anti-Mormon? Doesn’t seem so. His next sentence is:
“Today that same Joseph Smith is revered by nearly a million people in 30 lands as a divinely inspired prophet. Those fine thrifty people are popularly known as Mormons and from the unlettered farm boys visions of golden plates hidden in a drumlins breast and from my handful of rustic disciples sprano the now mighty Church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints.”
Maybe I’ll have to say of them the same thing I say to people who pound us over the head with inconsistencies from years past: “If you have to go back 100 years to dig up dirt, there can’t be that much dirt to dig.”

Dogs are kept in quarantine for somewhere between 6 to 12 months over here…..

Maybe. My insurance man was a Mormon. He died, but I am still with the agency he founded. (whether Mormons or not I am not sure—I think they are) I turned to him upon the recommendation of another Witness for business liability insurance. In time he commented on some scheme I had bought into from some brothers for health care insurance. He’s looked it over, he said, ‘and the premiums are unrealistically low.’ I was a young man then. I said how it is different with the Witnesses because they cut out the middleman and they are not greedy and it is not really insurance but pooled resources and all but said it had God’s smile of approval on it, but in time the monthly newsletter began acknowledging subscribers were asking why their bills were not being paid. To my knowledge, it was not dishonesty, just starry-eyed incompetence. I never got any premiums back, but that is true with any insurance. I never had any claim to submit—it was ‘major medical’ only, not routine doctor visits. I recall a Watchtower observing much later that just because someone is a good Christian, that does not mean he is a good businessman.
Yes. Maybe what we see is only what rises to the surface but they are trustworthy people. It is strange because so many of the roots are downright screwy. They originate from my neck of the woods, you know. At an antique/collectibles/junk shop I picked up a set of books by local historian Arch Merrill. Pioneer Profiles (1957) has a chapter on “The Mormon Prophets” There I learned that Joseph Smith was anything but the Mormon equivalent of Charles Taze Russell. 
“To many of his neighbors in the drumlin county around Palmyra and Manchester in the restless 1820s, Joe Smith was a lazy, dreamy young bumpkin, one of a shiftless tribe. To them his claims of conversing with angels and receiving divine revelations were so much humbug.
they knew him as “a gangling lad in a calico shirt and patched pants with his yellow hair sticking through a hole in his dirty hat a mystical sort of fellow who was forever digging for buried treasure. peering into a magic stone and finding water in the earth with a twig when to their mind he should have been toiling on his father's farm. They conceded Joe ‘had a way with him’ and was a glib and convincing talker.”
Is the guy just anti-Mormon? Doesn’t seem so. His next sentence is:
“Today that same Joseph Smith is revered by nearly a million people in 30 lands as a divinely inspired prophet. Those fine thrifty people are popularly known as Mormons and from the unlettered farm boys visions of golden plates hidden in a drumlins breast and from my handful of rustic disciples sprano the now mighty Church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints.”
Maybe I’ll have to say of them the same thing I say to people who pound us over the head with inconsistencies from years past: “If you have to go back 100 years to dig up dirt, there can’t be that much dirt to dig.”

Maybe. My insurance man was a Mormon. He died, but I am still with the agency he founded. (whether Mormons or not I am not sure—I think they are) I turned to him upon the recommendation of another Witness for business liability insurance. In time he commented on some scheme I had bought into from some brothers for health care insurance. He’s looked it over, he said, ‘and the premiums are unrealistically low.’ I was a young man then. I said how it is different with the Witnesses because they cut out the middleman and they are not greedy and it is not really insurance but pooled resources and all but said it had God’s smile of approval on it, but in time the monthly newsletter began acknowledging subscribers were asking why their bills were not being paid. To my knowledge, it was not dishonesty, just starry-eyed incompetence. I never got any premiums back, but that is true with any insurance. I never had any claim to submit—it was ‘major medical’ only, not routine doctor visits. I recall a Watchtower observing much later that just because someone is a good Christian, that does not mean he is a good businessman.
Yes. Maybe what we see is only what rises to the surface but they are trustworthy people. It is strange because so many of the roots are downright screwy. They originate from my neck of the woods, you know. At an antique/collectibles/junk shop I picked up a set of books by local historian Arch Merrill. Pioneer Profiles (1957) has a chapter on “The Mormon Prophets” There I learned that Joseph Smith was anything but the Mormon equivalent of Charles Taze Russell. 
“To many of his neighbors in the drumlin county around Palmyra and Manchester in the restless 1820s, Joe Smith was a lazy, dreamy young bumpkin, one of a shiftless tribe. To them his claims of conversing with angels and receiving divine revelations were so much humbug.
they knew him as “a gangling lad in a calico shirt and patched pants with his yellow hair sticking through a hole in his dirty hat a mystical sort of fellow who was forever digging for buried treasure. peering into a magic stone and finding water in the earth with a twig when to their mind he should have been toiling on his father's farm. They conceded Joe ‘had a way with him’ and was a glib and convincing talker.”
Is the guy just anti-Mormon? Doesn’t seem so. His next sentence is:
“Today that same Joseph Smith is revered by nearly a million people in 30 lands as a divinely inspired prophet. Those fine thrifty people are popularly known as Mormons and from the unlettered farm boys visions of golden plates hidden in a drumlins breast and from my handful of rustic disciples sprano the now mighty Church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints.”
Maybe I’ll have to say of them the same thing I say to people who pound us over the head with inconsistencies from years past: “If you have to go back 100 years to dig up dirt, there can’t be that much dirt to dig.”

Yeah, I have thought about this too. The only caveat is that the West usually does not parade weapons around, as on May Day celebrations during periods of peace. “Fortresses” look much more godlike when that is done.
Then too, the push push push in the West is toward consumer goods (whereas there was almost none of that in the USSR). Thus, even if weapons are a big deal in the West, they look to something else for a god.
I did point out in ‘Don’t Know Why We Persecute’ that there are three instances in which Russia literally saved the world from nuclear annihilation. (Some are arguable, but all are plausible) 
1) When a certain colonel saw 5 incoming missiles on the Russian defense grid, judged it to be a malfunction, and told his underlings to ignore it.
2) When one of three commanding officers of a Russian nuclear ship off Cuba refused to authorize use of nuclear missiles. The other two were onboard. Authorization had to be unanimous.
3) Krushchev’s telegram to Kennedy during the missile crisis has the distinct air of walking a more inexperienced leader back from the edge.

Maybe. My insurance man was a Mormon. He died, but I am still with the agency he founded. (whether Mormons or not I am not sure—I think they are) I turned to him upon the recommendation of another Witness for business liability insurance. In time he commented on some scheme I had bought into from some brothers for health care insurance. He’s looked it over, he said, ‘and the premiums are unrealistically low.’ I was a young man then. I said how it is different with the Witnesses because they cut out the middleman and they are not greedy and it is not really insurance but pooled resources and all but said it had God’s smile of approval on it, but in time the monthly newsletter began acknowledging subscribers were asking why their bills were not being paid. To my knowledge, it was not dishonesty, just starry-eyed incompetence. I never got any premiums back, but that is true with any insurance. I never had any claim to submit—it was ‘major medical’ only, not routine doctor visits. I recall a Watchtower observing much later that just because someone is a good Christian, that does not mean he is a good businessman.
Yes. Maybe what we see is only what rises to the surface but they are trustworthy people. It is strange because so many of the roots are downright screwy. They originate from my neck of the woods, you know. At an antique/collectibles/junk shop I picked up a set of books by local historian Arch Merrill. Pioneer Profiles (1957) has a chapter on “The Mormon Prophets” There I learned that Joseph Smith was anything but the Mormon equivalent of Charles Taze Russell. 
“To many of his neighbors in the drumlin county around Palmyra and Manchester in the restless 1820s, Joe Smith was a lazy, dreamy young bumpkin, one of a shiftless tribe. To them his claims of conversing with angels and receiving divine revelations were so much humbug.
they knew him as “a gangling lad in a calico shirt and patched pants with his yellow hair sticking through a hole in his dirty hat a mystical sort of fellow who was forever digging for buried treasure. peering into a magic stone and finding water in the earth with a twig when to their mind he should have been toiling on his father's farm. They conceded Joe ‘had a way with him’ and was a glib and convincing talker.”
Is the guy just anti-Mormon? Doesn’t seem so. His next sentence is:
“Today that same Joseph Smith is revered by nearly a million people in 30 lands as a divinely inspired prophet. Those fine thrifty people are popularly known as Mormons and from the unlettered farm boys visions of golden plates hidden in a drumlins breast and from my handful of rustic disciples sprano the now mighty Church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints.”
Maybe I’ll have to say of them the same thing I say to people who pound us over the head with inconsistencies from years past: “If you have to go back 100 years to dig up dirt, there can’t be that much dirt to dig.”

You mention or tag this fellow so often that I am convinced you are a secret fan. Nothing else can account for this constant craving of yours for his attention.
It is sort of like when a fellow accosted Bob Dylan with “I am your greatest fan!” Dylan looked at him speechless for a second and finally said, “Good for you.”

Pearl was a witness and a very nice lady but now teaches demon inspired teachings…I know this for a fact…she has no time for study and writes sitting at her table with pen  and paper..she does not know what she is about to write nor has studied the question she is about to answer from someone.
she writes and it just flows and she herself is surprised at times of what is written….it’s called automatic writing…like channeling …her writings have truths wrapped and Intertwined with expressions and words coming from demon sources …that’s why she can sound intriguing and fascinating at times…the demons can see when we have teached  a wrong belief….they relay the proper understanding to her….years later the brothers have corrected that understanding…..she is being used as a mouth peice for them..so they do give her some truths and this acts as a hook to those who listen to her…it’s how Satan always works….over the years I have seen followers of her have a real hate for witnesses…a real venom comes from them.
satan targets hurt brothers and sisters….while at their weakest…many follow her…some see thru it..having said that. I do understand why she became like that..and it’s a shame a real sad shame….but is no excuse to mislead so many and put them on the road to destruction…it’s a cruel and selfish thing they are all doing.
By the way I have blocked certain ones here who will probably answer this..
 

It's just my personal opinion, but discussion can help a Christian be informed. A person might think that in order to be neutral, it would mean that we should state that the policies of India in 1948, or Peru in 1943, were just as good or bad as the policies of Hitler's Germany in 1941. Neutrality does not mean we remain so uninformed that we can't tell the difference, or that we can't distinguish good from bad, or bad from worse, or mediocre from less mediocre.
Jesus called Herod "that fox." Is it really wrong for a Christian to discuss why Jesus might have called him that?
In Acts, Luke discusses political corruption, a possible bribe that Felix was looking for, and a political motive for some of his actions:
(Acts 24:24-27) . . .Some days later Felix came with Dru·silʹla his wife, who was Jewish, and he sent for Paul and listened to him speak about the belief in Christ Jesus. 25 But as Paul talked about righteousness and self-control and the judgment to come, Felix became frightened and answered: “Go away for now, but when I have an opportunity I will send for you again.” 26 At the same time he was hoping that Paul would give him money. For that reason, he sent for him even more frequently and conversed with him. 27 But when two years had elapsed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus; and because Felix desired to gain favor with the Jews, he left Paul in custody.
Was Luke being non-neutral in exposing some political motives and corruption?
Someone could argue, that all of those examples are history, or that the examples had a direct effect on God's people. But then again, what happened last week, even yesterday, is also history. And Jehovah's people are still being effected by world events.

I always hear out veterans. I will seek out their stories whenever I see a ‘Veteran’ designation on door or car. They have no stories to tell and, for the most part, no one wants to hear them. So I do. I often start by observing ‘how can you not admire someone willing to put his life on the line for what he believes?’ 
I just hear them out, regardless of which way it goes. Sometimes, though I do not insist upon it, I get to throw in the observation that while his/her bravery and conviction is admirable, were he living anywhere else in the world, that bravery and conviction would be directed to another entity, and isn’t that a strange way to run a world?