Independent verification of Mexico Vs. Malawi

by Knowsnothing 24 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Found Sheep

  This fact was a major turing point for me. Sorry but the troll follows my posts so please ignor..... I just wanted knowsnothing to know it is a valid and interesting topic
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  Cadellin

  Bucholz, thanks for the info! So, did very many Mexican brothers obtain a "fake" cartilla? How was this whole thing viewed by JWs there? To me, the bribery was one thing but the carrying the cartilla that said the "brother" had completed his military training seemed somehow worse. Or am I misunderstanding?
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  startingover

  Marked
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  00DAD

  I've wondered this same thing about several points that Ray Franz makes and asked a similar question in this thread:

  Do the Governing Body members ever go Door-to-Door

  If we aren't willing to accept Ray Franz' testimony on the issue, then what would constitute acceptable "Independent Verification"?

  I have to point out that we have a problem here. And I'm not intending to dis Bucholz in any way--I don't even know him, which in fact is the point: an anonymous member of a internet forum confirming this is good, but not in itself sufficient proof.
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  diamondiiz

  I would like to add that WTS in Mexico wasn't a religious organization, even though under the 1917 constitutions they had the right to be registered but they chose not to. Until, the 1990s(?) they were known as a Cultural Society and the KHs were Cultural Centers. Since government didn't allow religions to own property, wts had no problem owning land and buildings, this law applied to even cults since the 1917 Mexican constitutions allowed for existence of such. Whether this had any relevance in wts decision in the 1960s I don't know.

  Just because bribes are "natural" arrangement in a country, that doesn't make them a legal way of doing business but only acceptable by the society where this is practiced. What the apologists are trying to do, is downplay the fact that bribe is an illegal act because everyone is doing it. And that maybe a small number of witnesses would have done so because of born in witness population, which is irrelevant as we're talking about wts allowing the bribes to take place and we're not focusing on individual jws.

  Feb4, 1960 is the letter from Mexican branch asking about Cartilla, and this is the wts reply from COC.

  

  To me, it looks like GB took the path of least resistance. Since bribing was an acceptable practice in Mexico and other countries they allowed Mexican to do so if their conscience didn't bother them. GB didn't think too deeply on the matter and the consequences. From looks of it, Malawi witnesses thought it was wrong to buy a "political" card, so GB simply agreed with their stand and made an example of faithful witnesses in Malawi for their view of purchasing a "political" card.

  • Again, does the branch not realize that the card can be obtained without bribery and without the military training merely by getting exempt from military service? And that it could have been obtained before the brother was a JW? Is the branch calling this a 'custom among the brothers' when in 1960, statistically speaking, less than 10 brothers would have been drafted for the military training each year during that decade.
  • Interesting that the Aug 27, 1969 letter from the Mexican branch did not quote the Feb 4, 1960 letter because that was the letter that they themselves wrote according to Franz or Cameron and that letter contained no policy but rather only their question. It would have been the June 2, 1960 letter from the WTS to the Mexico branch, not the Feb 4, 1960 letter that the Mexico branch quoted from.

  First point is irrelevant as stated earlier because the apologist is trying to downplay the fact we're talking about wts and not individual actions. It makes no difference if there was only 1 jw drafted who paid a bribe after wts gave him their blessing or if there were 1000s. It's wts' decision we are talking about.

  If WTS made a mistake in dates regarding letters, so what? The point is they allowed the practice, not that they pointed to wrong letter.

  http://i43.tinypic.com/21ka5ci.jpg

  Whoever the ThirdWitness is, he is in same mental state as Rolf Furuli.
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  Knowsnothing

  Thank you, all for your colaborating research. I suppose I wanted to investigate any possible faultiness, but what happened, happened. I don't know what it is, but I find it irresistible to refute apologists, and he (Teary Oberon and Third Witness), seemed to have a good argument going.

  WTS has double standards, plain and simple!

  A special thank you to Bucholz for sharing that with us.

  00DAD, I read your thread, and both LeavingWT and The Sheppard offer eye-witness testimony that they indeed saw members of the GB preaching. Whether they went D2D, seems irrelevant to me. The issue you seemed to have with them were that they were "too busy" to handle mundane JW activities, such as preaching. Yet they did.

  Even if they didn't D2D, you couldn't exactly say they weren't setting an example. Just saying
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  dgp

  I haven't read the entirety of the article in the link posted by Knownothing. I skimmed through it and I think I find an omission there. One that Ray Franz does not fail to explicitly mention. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, it is the center of his allegation concerning Mexico.

  The point that is missing is that Jehovah's witnesses did not really need to pay a bribe. Mexican law explicitly exempts "religious ministers" from the requirement of registering or participating in the military service. It has been that way since 1942, which is the year when the Regulations to the National Military Service Act were published. All the Watchtower needed to do was to identify male witnesses as "religious ministers" to get an exemption.

  The heart of the matter is that, in order to do so, the Watchtower would have needed to operate in Mexico as a religious entity. Meaning they would have to put all of their property in the hands of the Mexican government, as all other religious persuasions had to do. Mexico had a notoriously anti-religious government; just for the sake of comparison with the United States, I understand that Ernesto Zedillo was the first acting Mexican president to set foot in a church in 200 years. And that was twelve years ago or so.

  The Watchtower presented itself as a "cultural" association. It did not use the Bible in its preaching, and it did not claim to "baptize" any member, but to "perform the rite". Of course the Mexican government knew about this. They just let them get away with it for a while. It is my impression that one of the ways social control is exerted in Mexico is to let you break the law and pretend no one notices, only so that violation can be used against you at the "right" time.

  The requirement to give control of religious property to the State has been abolished, and that is why the Watchtower no longer claims to be "a cultural organization".

  I interacted with someone who presents himself as a Mexican witness today. I asked him about military service today. He says that, nowadays, Mexican male witnesses routinely send their papers to the branch office, so they get exempted from the military service.

  What this means is that it was possible for the Watchtower to operate within the law of the "land", as they would call it. They chose to evade the law instead, and this happened because they wanted to maintain control of material assets.

  It should be highlighted that this military service was never what you would call a serious thing.

  I also notice that the article in the link does not directly quote Mexican laws. I believe that is infortunate, but it does not invalidate the conclusions reached by Raymond Franz against the Watchtower.

  Here is a link to the actual text of the Act, enacted in 1942:

  http://www.sedena.gob.mx/pdf/leyes/ley_smn.pdf

  These are the regulations (1942 as well)

  http://www.sedena.gob.mx/pdf/reglamentos/rglmto_ley_smn.pdf

  (Find Article 38 and you'll see)

  This document also discusses military service in Mexico:

  http://catarina.udlap.mx/u_dl_a/tales/documentos/ledi/santos_g_d/capitulo4.pdf

  All I needed to do was Google "ley del servicio militar nacional". These are publicly available documents.

  I believe the article in the link most regretfully omits the fact that "religious ministers" were always able to get exemption from military service, with nothing but a formal statement of their church's authorities identifying them as such.
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  Knowsnothing

  Also, thank you dgp for that extra info.

  I'm going to link those sites, for easy access.

  Here is a link to the actual text of the Act, enacted in 1942:

  http://www.sedena.gob.mx/pdf/leyes/ley_smn.pdf

  These are the regulations (1942 as well)

  http://www.sedena.gob.mx/pdf/reglamentos/rglmto_ley_smn.pdf

  (Find Article 38 and you'll see)

  This document also discusses military service in Mexico:

  http://catarina.udlap.mx/u_dl_a/tales/documentos/ledi/santos_g_d/capitulo4.pdf

  All I needed to do was Google "ley del servicio militar nacional". These are publicly available documents.

  I believe the article in the link most regretfully omits the fact that "religious ministers" were always able to get exemption from military service, with nothing but a formal statement of their church's authorities identifying them as such.
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  ekruks

  The worrying things is that JWs generally know nothing about this!

  I'm sure some would think if they did hear about it.
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  KiddingMe

  Marked