Ah, I hadn't considered that. Good point. 👍

I assumed it was to absorb recoil. The Queen must be terribly frail at this point. No sense breaking her arm, or having the gun veer off target and hit something or someone.

I don't think it's the intention to have them from the get go. I think it's an unfortunate "ants a picnic" phenomenon. Like how house parties are great fun, but eventually you have to stop having them because inevitably some frat bro asshole fills the toilet with kitty litter (thanks again Lonny, you prick)

A churches main goal is blind, unquestioning obedience. Mainly for the purposes of profit,, but they'll swear it's for the Prophet. That is it's own scam in and of itself, it needs no further shenanigans. But it also takes a real amoral, narcissistic asshole to make a career out of duping ignorant saps full time. So it's not like they'd let morality or even legality get in the way of fucking the congregation, financially or physically. They probably dont see much of a difference.

The church can't really purge themselves of this kind of person without shutting down most of the rest of the scam. And there's too much money in it to just walk away. So they do what they can to cover it up and use PR to make it seem like they're not just letting it all continue.

My mistake, I misspoke about tithing. I wasn't trying to imply that the Church tithes to the Vatican. I used the wrong word. They do donate through Peter's Pence, but it's voluntary, so I'll drop that issue except to say those who do donate are in fact finding this abuse.

I'm not an American, though I do know what you mean. And politicians routinely get called out for financial mismanagement, and when people get mad enough about it, the people vote someone else in, so it does allow for a change of leadership.

I can't really see a problem with the people demanding their Cardinal or Bishop or whomever standing down for a failure to protect children from sex abuse and cover-ups within the organization. Either individually or collectively. Each person has the right to hinge their participation on this issue if they choose. And many do. The Catholic Church is losing followers in droves because of it. I don't think of it as a "who should be the one who decides the course of the church" because that seems sanctimonious. I look at it from the perspective of not wanting to continue riding a bus that is going nowhere good, and saying "either change course or I'm getting off"

The various crimes and cover-ups, conscious choices to be intolerant, literally the whole ball of wax is only able to continue because people continue to enable them. They do so by being complacent with the atrocities committed by the church, but more importantly they do so by directly funding the leadership that allows these crimes to occur, and funding their coverups, their legal defense, etc etc.

Your church should refuse tithing until leadership stands down and the issues are dealt with. But they won't, because obedience without question is a core function of Catholicism, or religion as a whole.

If you're part of a biker gang that doesn't do human trafficking, but you kick up to one that does, and you know they're using your money to do it, how clean is your conscience?

A business has a responsibility to the public. If your factory has a chemical leak and destroys the houses around it, it has to pay to rebuild them.

If your business has the capacity to produce drunk drivers who can mow down houses, you have a responsibility to take reasonable steps to prevent it. If a person doesn't seem like they can hack another drink, you aren't supposed to give them one. Full stop.

That said, a person does have personal responsibility as well. If they choose to get drunk, and choose to drink until they can't have good judgement, they're still choosing to put themselves in that spot.

This happened just down the road from me. The fire was visible from a looooong way off. She drove the wrong way on a one way street for several blocks, blew through lights, and then ultimately plowed into a house at full speed. Everyone has to evacuate their pets and kids and so on, the house exploded, the neighbouring properties had to be demolished.

While the venue is responsible for kicking her out when she was too inebriated to be at the concert, they're gonna have to prove they called her a cab or the cops or something. Just booting her to the street and washing their hands of it will leave them very liable here.

But at night, I travel down into the subway, Wearing chain mail, locked and loaded for gun play. And battle the gigantic friggin killer mutant rats. And if I fucking quit, who the fuck would do that? I'll give you a hint, the answer is no one! That's why I'm in the sewer dressed up like a shogun.

"I Run NY" by Lonely Island ( https://youtu.be/W9PoshXXA7M )