by snare&racket 56 Replies latest jw friends
It would be a shame to see the site evolve from a place for JW freedom of thought and escape, to political squabbling,
I fear and suspect that corner has been turned.
it isn't a debate, it's a promotion of western, right wing, American conservatism
Indeed, it seems to be more along the lines of "ha ha, let's pwn the libtards".
Political views have been discussed here from day one. From the Gulf Wars to the Neo Conservative movement, to Bill Clinton's indescretions, it was all discussed here
This forum was so rabidly liberal years ago that you could cut the man hate with a knife which was an anger I felt was very much misplaced, especially for those of us trying to help our wives out of this cult.
But that's the nature of politics. The pendulum swings from one extreme to the other. Personally, I prefer the middle but that's not going to change anything
I concur that the heaviness of political (and hard right-wing at that) megaphone on this site has not only disheartened me from significant participation, but my well be scaring away others who might be testing the waters to see what the "apostates" are all about. It ain't so pretty.
Let me draw a parallel that I find interesting (and perhaps you may find it as well, or not, depending on your political leanings).
The other day I had a bit of trouble getting to sleep, and so, out of pure nostalgia and curiosity, I went on to check the first "apostate" website that I ever visited, even, to the best of my memory, before I joined this forum as an active member: Robert King's "e-watchman's post". My jaw dropped! When I first visited, the guy had recently published some book with his own prophetic interpretations - "Jehovah Himself Has Become King" - and was furiously denouncing the falsehoods and weaknesses of the Watchtower Society, and many things I read there were "aha!" moments for me. But then, as time went by, I began to notice a penchant for "One World" conspiracy theories, and it just started to stink, and I dropped it altogether, as my investigations had led me very far away from giving the Bible any credence. When I joined this forum, Robert King had been somewhat of a hot topic here, Pearl Doxsey and the "Anointed Witnesses" were the hot topic (where are they now? I see that they still publish on their website, but they apparently failed to take over the JW's by storm and interest in their movement seems to be waning since 2016 as indicated by fewer and fewer "questions from readers" being answered).
Anyways, fast forward perhaps 5 years since my last visit to "e-watchman". And now ... WOW! The site REEKS of the most absurd conspiracy theories bought straight from Infowars, QAnon and other such sources. It's a cesspool of right wing hatred intertwined with ludicrous and lunatic prophetic interpretations "a la carte" from the biblical prophets and Revelation, and (low and behold) even criticism and denunciation of the Watchtower is taking somewhat of a secondary role on the website. Just, wow! I'm sure this kind of pathological path has got to some day have some entry into the DSM manual of mental illnesses.
What I fear, is that such a valuable resource such as this forum, may be going, slowly but surely, into the same slippery slope territory.
The posts tend to appear to ask a genuine harmless question, then the post is a pro right wing, with heavy left, millennial, snowflake bashing.
I don't think that is how it went down. The posts Simon take down follow the same pattern:
1) Talking about a known debunked left-wing lie. For example, the "all-fine-people hoax". Those threads usually went like this:
Poster 1 : Trump is a racist
Poster 2: Why do you say that? Can you list a few reasons?
Poster 1: Well, did you see he called Nazi's fine people?
Poster 2,3,4,5: That's not accurate.
Poster 1: Why can't you people see he's an authoritarian nazi lover?!
Annnnd deleted...
Poster 1: Why was my post deleted? Look at this link from CNN, it proves it.
Annnnnddd deleted...
2) Categorizing others as "in a cult" because they disagree with political views. Those threads usually went like this:
Poster 1: Trump is a racist.
Poster 2: Can you list a few reasons why you would say that?
Poster 1: Isn't it obvious!! Every day he gives us more and more reasons!
Poster 2: Uhhh, like what?
Poster 1: Oh come on! You are all in a cult. I can't believe that you would leave one cult and join another. You would think that you would have learned your lesson.
Annnnnd deleted....
We've had political threads with no deleted posts. Simon said he doesn't want to hear that type of stuff, and so if people stayed clear of those pitfalls, nothing was deleted. The same type of stuff occurred with Michael Brown, Tray Von, and Roy Moore.
Forgive me if you disagree..... I post this in a hope we can change the course of this site between us all.
OK, what would you have Simon do? Or do you feel like the "right" wingers should be more "left" wing? Are you saying that, in order to help more JWS, conservatives should move to the left?
Blast from the past. (Just so everyone knows I'm not making this stuff up)
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/67757/liberal-equals-ex-jw
Dang it MMM, there you go with a pro right wing, heavy left, millennial, snowflake bashing comment in reply.
FYI: People sticking the "right wing" label on something doesn't make it so.
It's lazy and often completely dishonest.
What about if we just said we don't want to hear any "commie propaganda" and then just say "la la la commie propaganda!" to anything we disagree with?
Would that be annoying? Especially if you could debunk the claim with a reasoned argument, but all you got back was more "see, only a real commie bastard would try to defend it!"?
That's why we allow politics, as long as people take part in a proper discussion. When they just want to dump already debunked propaganda and memes or they are obviously dishonest in their claims of being offended or whatever (e.g. changing whether a policy is good or bad solely based on who is in office) then I become very intolerant very quickly.
Tip: if you can't argue for or against a policy other than stating your personal dislike for the person advocating it, then you likely don't qualify to take part in the discussion and you should be watching reality TV instead.
American politics holds zero interedt for me...so thats most of this site ignored. UK politics even less
I always find this amazing, given how impactful US politics is on everyone's lives, especially those in the UK. It probably has a bigger impact on UK lives than many UK political decisions do.
Just to clarify. . .I was attempting some humorous sarcasm FWIW.
@FedUp: No worries.
@TD: Ha.
Blast from the past. (Just so everyone knows I'm not making this stuff up)
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/67757/liberal-equals-ex-jwTD thanks for posting that link up. It was very interesting to see that people back then were basically the same as today.
In fact no different than 2000 years ago when people were upset at the Roman Government and were looking for a King in the line of David.
Along came a man who said he was of the line of David and his Kingdom was going to take control.
Then they killed him.
But the "Idea" of a Perfect Government still exists today.
