Being born with no political rights

Dear Readers,






Growing up in the Jehovah's Witness denomination, I had no political rights.  All you had to do was follow the demands of a bunch of old men in Brooklyn, New York.  I can understand why some people don't get involved in politics, but I also see potential consequences of not being politically-active.  The excuse that "Satan" is in "control" of earthly governments is not really a good excuse to me and never has been.  I'm surprised that more ex-JW's don't bring this topic up. Jehovah's Witnesses don't really have any political rights, the only right that the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society is going to give you is the right to practice the prescribed beliefs that they have set up for you.  I have mentioned numerous times that I never agreed with much of it growing up. Leaving the Organization/JW denomination wasn't as difficult for me as it might be or might have been for some others.  My religious journey as you might know did not end with the Jehovah's Witnesses. It only kept going.








JW Blog which as I mentioned is run by two atheistic ex-JW men had an article from a Watchtower Yearbook from 1934, where Joseph Franklin Rutherford who was the 2nd President of the WBTS made statements in which he largely agreed with many of Adolf Hitler's viewpoints and seemed to view Hitler as a having "high moral standards", despite not actively being involved with politics.  That is absolutely frightening and abhorrent to me. Not to mention the fact that the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Bible Students and countless other religious groups were persecuted by the Third Reich during World War II. I do not agree with Rutherford about much of anything, especially the idea of Adolf Hitler having "high moral standards". The man was a tyrannical murderer.  His propaganda and rhetoric led to the systematic murder of millions of innocent people from all sorts of different backgrounds.  I see being politically-active as a way to protect your civil liberties.




One comment from a JW on JW Blog, I cannot remember the exact words but this person was making fun of the authors of the blog for letting governments tell them what to do. Well, this JW is missing a very important point in my opinion. He doesn't seems to understand that at least with politics, you can vote to change and lobby against unfair and unjust laws, I doubt he can say the same for his particular fundamentalist Christian denomination. Can you vote to change JW beliefs and practices that seem unfair, hateful or wrong, dude? Personally, I would think not.  What do you think, my dear readers? Think about it.


Sincerely,


B.W.