I did not sleep well last night. I tossed and turned until 4 am . Got up and decided to see what was going on.
I am so disappointed in some of you.
Simon posted a thread requesting people not post links to the new Shepherding book. Some of you totally ignored him and repeatedly posted links to the book. At the time he posted the thread he removed at least 7 links to the book.
Over the last few days I have removed at least 4 links that were made prior to Simon's request. But what shocks me is that some of you have continued to post links even after the request. I have removed at least 10 links that were made after he request. And some of those by the same posters! And to top it off some of you seem to think you can be smart about it and obscure the links but I wasn't born yesterday and know some of the tricks and found those links too.
Don't you care about this website? Is getting a WTS-published book more important to you than this website and all the help it has provided to YOU as well as to hundreds of others?
But as annoying as that was that was not the reason I didn't sleep well last night.
djeggnog, admittedly an active Witness was posting copyright law information. What he was posting agreed with the research I had been doing on copyright law so I know he wasn't trying to make us all scared of what the WTS could do here.
Shepherd was also posting info about copyright but he disagreed with djeggnog. That isn't a huge issue because from what I had been reading judges can interpret the gray areas of the law differently. That is the way of most laws. You have to know what the loopholes are. And copyright law has a lot of loopholes, especially digital copyright which is still in its infancy.
So I was posting copyright law and djeggnog and shpeherd were also posting information about copyright law.
Well it seems some people smell JW and start circling for blood. Posters started to attack djeggnog personally. They dragged in information about their personal lives. They started making fun of him and his ID. The put down the information he was posting simply because he was a JW.
djeggnog admitted that he was posting for 2 reasons. He valued JWN and he didn't want to see it have problems and he wanted to clarify the law so WE would be safe. And for that he got slammed - slammed hard.
djeggnog is not responsible for WY policy. He isn't responsible for anyone dying. I have 2 people in my family who died due to their mismanagement of sexual abuse cases. But he wasn't involved in that. He is just one more Witness who like the rest of us were conned by a very smart publishing company.
I was a JW. Do you want to blame me for every terrible thing that happened to you or your family while I was a JW? If something happened between 1963 and 1985 I am just as much to blame for those bad things as any other JW? That is if you want to continue to blame all JW for WT policy. Should I apologize?
Attacking JWs here who come here especially to offer information and help do not deserve what I saw happen to djeggnog.
He said he can take it but he shouldn't have to.
On one side we were all praising a JW, "Bro Johnson", for providing the Sheherding book to us and on the other side castigating another JW for also helping us.
I don't blame "Bro Johnson" for not wanting to show up with his own ID. Some of you might have had a go at him too.
I actually fell back to sleep around 6 am and managed to get about 4 hours of restless sleep. I woke up knowing what it was that was bothering me.
We cannot continue to attack every active JW who comes here. We cannot continue to blame every JW for what the WTS does when they enforce their policies. Otherwise you have to blame me and the poster after me and the one after that and yes you will have to blame yourself because you too were part of the problem. If that is the way you want to think about this.
We were all hurt by this organization. Some are still hurting due to the WTS' shunning policies. But JWs are not responsible for the problem. They are as conned and misguided as we were.
At least we are free. They are still in bondage AND they don't even know it.
Maybe, just maybe we need to be a little kinder to those who are still trapped. Maybe we need to stop expecting them to take the blame.
Maybe when they come here to help us we need to thank them because let me tell you as much as I appreciate what "Bro Johnson" did I think it took a lot more guts for djeggnog to come out from behind the curtain to help us
