"I'm a sovereign human being, I stand under common law only" - Thread of Freemen

So many good quotes, I can barely choose.

“He was approaching the law from what he thought was a studious basis,” said Middleburg Heights Prosecutor Peter Hull. “He seemed to have a real sense that an injustice was being done [to him].”

And Middleburg Heights isn't some back-country cowtown, it's a decent sized Cleveland suburb just east of where I went to college.

Commenter OTM:

Artor • 36 minutes ago
Huh. If he thought he was not governed by the laws of the US, why did he think his 2nd & 14th Amendment rights were violated? This is the funny part of the Sovereign Citizen movement. They think the law doesn't apply, but that there is somehow a loophole in the law that lets them avoid it. Which is it? Does the law not apply, or does the law provide a way to weasel out of it? You can't pick both options, but it takes two brain cells to rub together to be able to realize that.

Welllll, sort of. I don't know about this guy but he could simultaneously believe that he wasn't bound by US law but that local officials who weren't in on the secret parallel shadow government should still treat him according to its tenets.

Artor with the classic "as a rational person let me tell you how irrational your beliefs are" gambit

The common law largely springs from royal decrees and even if you adopt the modern idea of sovereignty as stemming from the crown in parliament, the obvious assumption is that no individual is sovereign, not even the monarch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFE7qpFq-G4

copper in this one is quite sweet

when you see it in action like that, it's p close to str8 evil isnt it

evil plus boneheaded, the deadliest combination

this seems like some extreme kind of psychosis in action, doesn't it?

in a way, so do most non-mainstream worldviews/conspiracy theories? i guess this is the bit that i find interesting about them - a creative elaboration of how the world is based on the same evidence that others draw more mundane conclusions from. problem with the Freemen iteration is that in the end their worldview is very stilted, repetitive, uncreative.

"Sovereign Citizen" arrested for shooting a Bureau of Land Management ranger claims he's an "Attorney General of the United States":

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/blm-shooting-suspect-statutory-attorney-general

Under 18 U.S.C. Section 6, I am an agency of the United States.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JvrN-SrPXug/UJdOM7qKhhI/AAAAAAAAT5A/XgCtXYfVsg0/s1600/outoftheloopcd3.jpg

Earlier this month, one of them opened fire on a courthouse in Georgia, hit a cop, and that was that for the dude.

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2014/06/06/sovereign-citizen-is-suspected-in-georgia-courthouse-shooting/

otm

the system works!

Apparently, it will be easier to die in a blaze of courthouse glory when Georgia's new concealed carry law kicks in. Meanwhile, US State Dept. advices those who want to renounce citizenship:http://travel.state.gov/content/travel/english/legal-considerations/us-citizenship-laws-policies/renunciation-of-citizenship-right-of-residence.html

Of course, that's the legal not the Lawful way (to Hell).

Oh, and as recounted in the original biography of John Nash, A Beautiful Mind (the book is so much richer and more worthwhile than the movie---no Imaginary Friends and Enemies, for a start), he's inspired by a guy who sought to renounce Cold War American citizenship and become the first Citizen of the World. So Nash, schizzed-out, goes to Europe, attempting to follow in the footsteps of his hero (who deserves his own book; blanking on the guy's name, else I'd look him up right now).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Davis

this guy?

suggest me a site i can draw a graphic online and post it and i'll show you- nothing coming up on google

― 30 ch'lopping days left to umas (darraghmac), Tuesday, November 26, 2013 8:29 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://sketchtoy.com/

?

i feel like the "freeman" folk are like poststructuralists who don't really dare to accept the logic of their own worldview

stop trying to assign smart words to such bafflingly dumb people

also don't use sovereign citizens as just another pretext to shit on your academic bugbears

pretext i barely even discourse

i have no idea what you mean! i meant no slam on poststructuralists, who i have learned a lot from. do either of you have any idea what my academic background or interests are to be so confident in knowing my "academic bugbears"?

in short, i think you're reading way too much into it.

i'm just saying, the freemen seem to be motivated in part by some sudden revelation that there is no absolute foundation to government. which is an interesting and useful revelation to have. their reaction is to assert its illegitimacy, rather than a general recognition that governments and other entities acquire and maintain credibility and authority (and thus consent to use force, etc.) in complex and shifting ways.

xpost

also i don't think the smart/dumb binary is very useful here.

its a useful bedrock to keep in mind ime

yeah, but i think the relevant point is that these people are deluded, not necessarily that they are dumb (even if some/many of them are, by whatever measure).

choosing to be dumb, at whatever remove from yr 'intelligence', becomes yr de facto level of dumbness

obliged hl
http://sketchtoy.com/61736401

is it the World Cup?

and in a way, I suppose, it is /blair

haunting, dm.

that is a cool site tho

stop trying to assign smart words to such bafflingly dumb people

words to live by, in any context.

sudden revelation that there is no absolute foundation to government

These aren't those people. They still believe in an absolute foundation for government, society, law etc. - they just think that it's hidden, not the one that everyone agrees on. They still quote, with absolute certainty, their interpretations of pieces of law, the constitution or whatever. They're not postmodernists: they're just conspiracy theorists, convinced they alone know the truth.

I interviewed Garry Davis for like four hours once, he seemed kinda cheesed that his movement never really took off

cool! the interview i mean, i find the world citizen thing pretty inspiring

Watch yer step if you go stateless though (re that State Dept. link).

http://www.legalcheek.com/2014/09/judge-sacked-after-he-orders-defendant-to-be-electrocuted/

Good response to these dudes imo

If any more evidence were required of his mercurial nature, then there is this historical tit-bit:

That's English. ('stun-chuff' is perhaps more worthy of a raised eyebrow)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-official-wants-judge-removed-for-ordering-man-be-shocked-with-stun-cuff/2014/09/09/6397b7aa-385c-11e4-8601-97ba88884ffd_story.html

http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/indigenous-affairs/2014/09/06/freemen-movement-targets-indigenous-australia/1409925600

That's English.

Ah ha, thanks. I genuinely have never seen or heard that before. I've always known it to be "tid-bit".

In American English, it's 'tidbit', whereas British English uses the original 'titbit'. Works in the same innuendo-expunging way that 'cocks' become 'roosters'.

Feel like indigenous Australians have some strong justification for arguing in this vein. Much more so than insolvent libertarian creeps.

And while Freemen, western libertarian branch anyway, are all total lamers, the judge ordering an electric shock in court is like o_0 almost as much as Ferguson, so fuck that fucking judge.