anyone following the derek chauvin trial?.
if you are actually following it, not just listening to the media, you will likely realize that there is a huge gap between what is going on in court and what is being reported in the media.. if the trial was fair, i think he should be acquitted.
there is plenty of reasonable doubt about the cause of death (his dealer doesn't want to testify because he could be guilty of 3rd degree murder for selling him a fatal amount of fentanyl) and even doubt over whether the officer even had his knee on the guys neck or did anything counter to what they were meant to do as per policy.. but is it fair?
we all know of kingdom halls being sold for the past few years.
recently i ran into an elder from a nearby congo, and he told me, that they were in the process of selling their hall, but sudenly it was paused, and he expressed it like the gb put a stop to all selling projects world wide.
any of you heard about that ?.
It’s kind of hard to sell a church when there is nobody allowed to go to church. All churches are rapidly moving online and selling assets. If you put something on the market for too long, it goes stale and nobody wants it because it creates the perception that something must be wrong with it.
On the other hand, the market is quickly heating up because there is a ton of cash burning holes in peoples pockets.
They are good at selling buildings, they’ve had experience with the Obama recession, they know when to hold them and when to sell them.
some call it reverse discrimination.
whatever you want to refer to as, in your opinion, are white people being unfairly picked on?
it seems acceptable that if you are white you are viewed with disdain.
@Pete: the link between power and racism is baloney. It sounds good on paper but it is really advocating for equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity.
It’s like saying because Shaq is good at basketball, he can therefore not complain about being treated poorly by his neighbors or that it matters less that someone is racist against him than some other black person. Either everyone is equal and should be treated equally, or they don’t and you should be racist/sexist/etc against someone based on what you perceive to be their group identity.
Having money or a good job in a high position does not protect you from racism or suicidal ideation or an abusive spouse, matter of fact, it often hides much more problems than people may think.
There is no such thing in a free society as someone who is powerless. If you feel powerless, do something about it, there are plenty of examples, including Shaq, Obama and others who came from what the left likes to call powerless groups and are now somehow the richest, most powerful people in sports, politics and business.
If you call a group powerless, that means you have pre-judged them and there is no meaning in their efforts to get better. It’s what the left does with black people and Hispanics and others, you can’t do it yourself, you need handouts, you need help, you need money from the all-powerful white man and that is a sentiment that in the end reflects the white supremacy that started the modern Democratic Party to protect segregation in the US (they used the same arguments to suppress blacks, black people were too stupid and needed the white man).
Racist ideas of group supremacy is what keeps the Democratic Party in power. Why do you think they keep giving handouts to the black community? Because it breaks the family structure and keeps blacks dependent on them and thus a vicious cycle of needing money and voting to keep themselves in poverty in exchange for short term bailouts. Why do you think they allow so much unaccompanied minors from South America? Because without parental structure, they’re being thought from a young age to be dependent on big government and thus will vote to keep themselves poor and dependent on big government when they become of age.
And thus you find the secret to power: keep everyone dependent on you, give them enough so they won’t starve and use tribalism (group identity) as one of the easiest ways to make sure no group gets big enough to get any other ideas. What Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are doing is the pipe dream of any dictator.
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This is just an advert for a spam site. There is literally nothing but spam links on the forum (which you don’t need an extension for).
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what do you think of the following sample disassociation letter from 4jehovah.org ?.
if you are looking to disassociate from jehovah’s witnesses, here is a sample letter you can modify for your use:.
i have decided to disassociate myself from the ____________ congregation of jehovah’s witness.
I don't think it bears any legal weight though. From the first sentence where you disassociated yourself, their internal rules no longer apply to you and you no longer have any say in their internal rules. The stuff about the rules of engagement are thus moot.
Do note that in most English Common Law countries, you can sue an organization for breaking its own rules in a court of law as long as you are a member of that organization. Typically these are financial and leadership disputes among their boards and the members, but it is possible to bring any type of suit. The problem is its cost and it is thus easier to just start your own organization.
You can sue for slander, hence why they no longer announce WHY you were disfellowshipped from the platform.
last year millions of people were singing his praises.
what’s your opinion of him right now?.
@Jeffro: you’re just cherry-picking data now. What about Belgium? Italy? UK? They have twice and even three times the death rate. They are also, like the US in the middle of major trade routes and thus have a lot of international travel.
Australia is not very densely populated. Their major cities are roughly the size of Chicago and their capital the size of LA. There are literally more travelers passing through LA than the entire Australia continent though.
Major populations of sick travelled to the US and EU from China in the hopes of treatment while China welded their apartments shut. When Trump closed the borders, they poured in through Toronto and Vancouver as well as Mexico.
There is a reason certain areas got hit harder. It wasn’t for lack of lockdowns, as wherever the lockdowns happened was hit harder. The question is how the government responded to its aftermath. The EU did practically nothing, while Trump shut the borders. The US funded the largest medical research program in history to create the fastest vaccine rollout in history. The EU funded less than $1.4B, China and Russia respectively funded $0.5B, the US funded $2T which is currently the only working vaccines (Sinovac is a coin flip and whatever the EU funded never got off the ground) benefiting the world.
last year millions of people were singing his praises.
what’s your opinion of him right now?.
@Jeffro: death rate in the US is average for most of the developed world. Australia has an average of less than 700k total international visitors per month. The country (continent) is also mostly empty, with their entire population almost half that of California.
The US has 7M visits per month excluding Canada (+2M) and Mexico (+2M) and is also the largest and thus most desirable trading entity in the world. Sure, Australia had less of an impact, because nobody wants to go there.
just sharing this for all the people who hated me saying it.
funny how truth finally comes out if those of us who care enough to become lightning rods don’t let up.
it’s taken a year, but the left wing ( not the same as a traditional liberal ) nut-job bs is becoming quite evident, and this will continue across multiple subjects as time passes.
@Jeffro: this is a forum for ex-JWs, I’m sure the WTBTS has warned you about us apostates, you know thinking for ourselves and not listening to what a big organization has to say on how people live their lives. Tisk, tisk, hope your elders don’t find out.
police in finland has been investigating fundraising of jehovah's witnesses "for years" according to state prosecutor mika appelsin.
before year 2016 society's bank account appeared on jw's magazines and homepage.
it is legal to collect money in religious events - it is view as an offertory by law even when using contribution boxes.
@blue dog: when it’s about taxes and governments, there is no such thing as a technicality.
The fact the WTBTS removed the bank accounts from their website and magazines shows they knew something was fishy, otherwise they’d still be doing it.
This seems to have been something similar to what most other countries require (you basically have to register your non-profit and file your receipts, IRS requires this as well). It seems that local congregations were fine, but they published a bank account for some centralized WTBTS entity (may even have been the US entity) that didn’t have the necessary paperwork or didn’t qualify for the non-profit status (what I could find on the case is pretty murky and Fins don’t necessarily have the same legal concept for churches and non-profits)
If I understand the Finish laws well enough is that the other problem for WTBTS is that they require the WTBTS to tell both the government (and upon request the donor) WHERE the money is going (basically is my money going to fund ISIS or feed the poor). They didn’t want to follow for fear it may have required them to show too much information?
what is the difference between doctors & nurses, and police?.
studies have estimated that medical errors cause 250,000 deaths per year in the us.. police only kill around a thousand people each year in total, with only a small number being unjustified or accidental.. so the difference?.
police are expected to be perfect and for all the hype, you're are far greater risk of being killed by someone in the health industry than by a cop.
@RocketMan: if the police tried to apprehend a suspect but had to let him go because he “resisted”, first of all, nobody would ever go to jail and second, who would be held responsible when they victimized someone else?
Because guess what the media would be saying: 12yo black kid shot by gang member because racist police let him go.
If you don’t want to get shot, don’t fight with police, it’s simple, they are better than you at both fighting and shooting, they trained for it. No sane person would think they can win.
And yes, it is legal for the police to shoot someone who presents an immediate danger to themselves or the public. That classifies anyone trying to run away in a car, anyone with outstanding warrants for weapons charges, anyone with a gun, a knife or other weapon.
The fact not more criminals get shot is a wonder in and of itself. What would you do if you’re standing face to face with a hardened criminal twice your size and with known weapons and a violent history? I would squeeze the trigger as soon as I got a clear shot. And that has been every moronic criminal the media has drug up so far: Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and every “say his name” were active criminals, resisting the police in their legal duties and actively tried to kill or hurt the police while they were being apprehended.
