One of the Ikeda cult's outraged condemnations of the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood after they excommunicated Ikeda for being a jerk was that the priests' religious approach was "legalistic", whatever that was supposed to mean, suggesting that those nasty priests were keeping the laity under such rigid control that there was no room even to breathe. Here's some AI to the rescue:

>In the context of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), the term "legalistic" describes an over-reliance on rigid rules, clerical authority, or literal adherence to religious formalities.

Now take a look at what SGI members who have been all-in with SGI for decades create, when they have the freedom to set up something new for themselves, to hopefully attract new people:

On the copycat site a couple of SGI-USA longhauler Olds set up to troll us from, we're able to see how the SGI's antagonistic attitude toward human freedoms, particularly freedom of thought and expression, the underpinnings of freedom of speech, plays out - their site is locked down (must be given PERMISSION to post/choose a topic); while commenting is allowed to some degree, there are numerous restrictions - must pertain to the topic posted by an SGI member AND be in the same mindset/tone/flavor as originally posted (comments must be in agreement - enforced "unity", in other words), stay on topic, no digression, no profanity, plus limitations on how many WORDS commenters are allowed to use! Of course these rules are applied selectively - they don't apply to any of the SGI-member participants, but against everyone else, particularly anyone who disagrees or has a critical perspective, they're enforced with a vengeance. Even shorter than limit comments have been deleted with a "Too long!" scolding, in violation of their own rules supposedly permitting a certain number of words total. What fun is it to have POWER if you can't flex it on some fools??

At one point, those SGI longhauler Olds were trying to limit participation to one comment per person per day, and comments to only 10 per post total (with non-SGI-loyalists' comments frequently deleted to make room for the SGI rulers' extra comments to still "fit" with their "10 comment total" rule, often to make it sound like the SGI members had won some argument when the opposite was the case).

As a result, participation there is now limited to those initial subreddit founders plus the numerous sockpuppet alt-identities created by one of them, who self-defines as mentally ill, just so she'll have someone to talk at. No one else is paying any attention to them any more - their subreddit is as stagnant as the earlier SGIUSA-themed subreddit, if not more so.

What does this demonstrate about the "humanity" of the SGI-USA's (non)discussion meetings whose structure and organization they've obviously imported whole to create their subreddit? Who's going to stick around?

This clearly shows what the priority is within the SGI-indoctrinated mindset - that all human expression must fall within an extremely restrictively defined scope; there is no freedom of speech, and asserting and maintaining strict control is the priority. Tone policing rules the day; unless commentary meets very narrow constraints, it is forbidden and will be punished. Online, there's only so much they can do, but they dirty-delete comments (often to make it appear that the challenger either ran off in shame or was soundly defeated by the SGI longhauler Old) and ban anyone who disagrees with them or challenges their bullying. The priority is that comments conform to the structure and standards decided by those SGI longhauler Olds; beyond that, it really doesn't matter what anyone else has to say. They really don't care unless it agrees with them and slavishly follows THEIR rules, thereby affirming their superiority and control.

"Legalistic", maybe?

Obviously, there aren't really any "takers" for the "opportunity" those SGI longhauler Olds set up - while they might accuse SGIWhistleblowers of similarly deleting/banning those who attack the SGIWhistleblowers' support-group function, that is to protect and defend this vitally important support group from the SGI bullies who want to destroy it and make it go away, so there's a real purpose to it. The fact is that SGIWhistleblowers continues to grow. It's almost at 4,600, in fact, and those "readership" numbers continue to steadily increase, while after over 6 years in existence, the copycat subreddit is still under 375 subscribers. Quite a contrast. If there were "millions" of SGI members out there pining for MORE of the SGI-style (non)discussion meeting format, I'd imagine they'd steadily stream into that copycat site where their self-expression could be strictly controlled by others and they'd end up limited to the agreement and praise that are the norm on any SGI-themed facebook page - see the image above and you'll get the idea.

This appears to be the SGI ideal - as you can see from that "Soka Gakkai SGI" facebook page, SGI members typically think "dialogue" means "agreeing with each other" - echoed here:

>A[n SGI member] friend recently assured me, "I had seven people in my living room last night and we had a wonderful dialogue. We all agree that violence is wrong, war is wrong, and that by helping others to see this, we can create a peaceful world."

>No offense, I told my friend, but **sitting down with like-minded people and affirming your shared beliefs isn't necessarily a dialogue. Rather, we need to engage people who fundamentally disagree with us.**

>**Dialogue fails when we march into it thinking that we have all the answers -- or that ours is the only "correct" view.** - [a report](https://www.reddit.com/r/sgiwhistleblowers/comments/1u0dzqq/why_theres_no_point_to_dialogue_with_sgi_members/)

What of the "violence" against another's humanity of denying them the freedom to express themselves however they choose, though? That's a "dialogue" you'll never see in any SGI-member-controlled space!

If SGI's goal is to simply draw together the few people who seek such a controlled, limiting environment and such shallow "discussions"restricted to agreeing with and affirming topics someone else has decided, then that's great - they will continue circling the drain, because the population of individuals who want that kind of restricted environment is vanishingly small. People want to express themselves, not simply play "cheering section" to topics others have chosen FOR them that do not interest them enough that they have anything at all to say about it. And SGIWhistleblowers will continue to attract the individuals who want to express themselves, to ask questions that aren't related to any topic someone else has chosen, and to decide for themselves which topics they'll suggest to the group for discussion.

It's pretty obvious which one is wanted and which one is not. The numbers don't lie.

"Legalistic"?