"The theme of this thread, or at least my comments in it, might be summarized as "please look at the net long-term consequences of what you propose"."
Dear MeanMrMustard, That is always wise counsel, to look at the net long-term consequences.
When you see the net long-term consequences of the government over-taxing income of certain people, does it move you to want the government to stop over-taxing income so that others don't get fleeced?
When a parent sees their child harmed by a vaccine, does it move that parent to want the big pharma company to stop making that vaccine so that other children don't get hurt?
When human rights activists see that some women are using abortion as birth control, does it move those human rights activists to want the courts to make abortions illegal so that other babies don't get killed?
"Maybe if we just got the government to seize all the WT property, drag the members, including the GB out into the streets and shoot them one at a time, declaring anyone who shuns their family will end up like this, that would stop this horrible tragedy."
No one here is proposing violence toward anyone on the GB or in the JWBorg organization. But it is not unreasonable for these people who have lost loved ones and know the pain that comes from the disfellowshipping doctrine to want to have the source of that pain removed so that others don't have to suffer in the same way.
The corporate structure of the WTBT$ is hurting people. It doesn't matter if the WTBT$ claims to be "religious". If the government overtaxed you and said they were doing it in the name of "religion" it'd still be overtaxing you and their claim for overtaxing you would be fraudulent, because God never told them to overtax anybody.
It's not a matter of the WTBT$ being "a religion". The WTBT$ is working as a governing entity of their own little world-wide empire. The Governing Body says they are doing things "in the name of religion" but some of those things are illegal according to their own "constitution". Since they are breaking their own rules, they are liable to lose their tax-exempt non-profit status and the legal backing for their registered corporate structure.
"Oh Lord, Thor, Zeus, or even the all mighty Eru Iluvatar, please grant these posters the ability to see more than one layer of cause and effect. Please I beg you!"
May the true God Jehovah grant you the ability to see that the WTBT$ isn't really a religion. It's a business scamming religious people. Bad businesses eventually get shut down when they cheat both the government and their victims. How much more so when they do it fraudulently "in the name of God!" Jehovah's going to let the governments tear down that WTBT$ corporate structure. Completely and unexpectedly to most people, and in a way so that everybody knows the WTBT$ didn't have His approval.
It'll be a lot like this for the WTBT$ (and all the other religious institutions that fleece their flocks and teach twisted doctrines)...
1 Kings 9:8,9
"And this house will become heaps of ruins. Everyone passing by it will stare in amazement and will whistle and say, ‘Why did Jehovah do that to this land and this house?’ Then they will say, ‘It was because they abandoned Jehovah their God, who had brought their forefathers out of the land of Egypt, and they embraced other gods and bowed down to them and served them. That is why Jehovah brought all this calamity on them.’"
The disfellowshipping doctrine is not a teaching of Jehovah. The disfellowshipping doctrine is a teaching of the false gods of the GB/FD$/WTBT$. Their bloodguilt for the disfellowshipping doctrine (and their other false doctrines) will come back upon their own heads. They have sown falsehood, and they will reap the consequences. One of those consequences will be losing their legal "corporate" status as a religious organization.