Only on Paper: The Pathetic Story of Commerical Redemption, Freemen-on-the-Land, Sovereign Citizens, Lawful Rebellion, & Community Immunity

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Dissidents are searching for loopholes wherever they can find them, with the singular goal of wanting to reduce the degree they are compromised; that is, they want to lower their own exposure to suspicion or danger from the government. Instead of applying the scientific method and documenting the results objectively, the most typical approach for most of them is to pontificate, through the alternative media, their subjective interpretation of what they think is true; unfortunately, they always fail to provide any sort of follow up, usually due to the fact that such follow up would demonstrate their interpretation to be completely wrong. Had they the smallest amount of intellectual honesty or emotional humility, these wayward dissidents wouldn’t inadvertently be propagating such misinformation and even disinformation over the Internet.

 

 

As I’ve written about before, there is a noticeable tendency for many consumers of new media to seek out arbitrary leadership of some kind. Whether they take the form of a Patriot Rockstar or a Messianic figurehead, these miscreants receive the popularity that they do because they not only tell people what they want to hear, but they do it in a way that is completely sensationalistic, much like how the corporate mainstream media does (which they pretend to oppose). One peculiar flavor of these Rockstars and Messiahs alike are the faux common law advocates, who proselytize their beliefs as if they were fact.

One foundational concept in political philosophy is that of the consent of the governed, which is peddled by the faux common law advocates as being representative of their end goal; namely, either changing the government to one which any citizen would be more than happy to consent to its governance, or revoking that consent from a despotic government, such as we now have. Rooted in social contract theory, it has been hotly debated by political philosophers over the centuries whether such consent to be governed is primarily collective or individual in nature. John Locke explains:

 

“For when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with the power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority…it is necessary the body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority: or else it is impossible it should act or continue one body, one community, which the consent of every individual that united into it, agreed that it should; and so every one is bound by that consent to be concluded by the majority.”

 

It would seem that once a citizen is a member of a political society, he is agreeing ahead of time to the political decisions of the majority, yet this would suggest that the only explicit consent to be governed extends only to whether an individual enjoys membership within a society, or not. Locke details further:

 

“[T]hat every man, that hath any possessions, or enjoyment, of any part of the dominions of any government, doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government, during such enjoyment, as any one under it; whether it be his possession be of land, to him and his heirs for ever, or a lodging only for a week; or whether it be barely travelling freely on the highway; and in effect, it reaches as far as the very being of any one within the territories of that government…so that whenever the owner, who has given nothing but such a tacit consent to the government, will, by donation, sale, or otherwise, quit the said possession, he is at liberty to go and incorporate himself into any other common-wealth; or to agree with others to begin a new one, in vacuis locis, in any part of the world, they can find free and unpossessed.”

 

While this would suggest perhaps the foundation for the “love it or leave it” fallacy, I mention this because Locke was attempting to illustrate the importance of acquiescence with regards to the consent of the governed. Although I personally disagree with him as to the precise extent for what exactly would constitute such an acquiescence, I point it out here to demonstrate the idea of qui tacet consentire videtur ubi loqui debit ac potuit; that is, he who is silent is taken to agree when he ought to have spoken and was able to (in other words, the notion that silence is consent, albeit tacitly).

But what about explicit consent itself? Surely, as some would argue, perhaps if explicit consent is relevant to whether an individual desires membership within a body politic, then why wouldn’t it also be significant whenever politically binding decisions are being made? Lysander Spooner asserted that since none of us individually signed the federal Constitution, it is not binding upon us; since none of us ever explicitly consented to the government as established by the Constitution, then therefore it is of no weight or importance upon our lives. By implication, this would mean that any group of men, who seek to coercively impose any notion of “government” upon us as described in the Constitution, are nothing more than a gang of criminals and tyrants seeking powerful control and domination over their fellow man. As briefly described in The Probability Broach, it is reasonable to speculate that had the Declaration of Independence required the unanimous consent of the governed, then the powers of government would automatically have been rendered small, limited, and inoffensive to the sensibilities of the people; admittedly, it is greatly debatable whether such a night-watchman State would be realistically able to protect life, liberty, and property if it necessarily required the consent of those who had committed torts against their fellow citizens.

Revoking such consent to be governed, regardless of whether that consent is individual or collective, is the more important issue at play here. Just as Locke explained how a criminal perverts the state of nature by putting his victim into a state of war with him, governments do something similar when they become tyrannical:

 

“[W]henever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence. Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new legislature, (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society.”

 

Right there, Locke admits that legislation, when it is passed into public law, if it should be engineered to deprive the citizenry of their liberty or property, is prima facie evidence for a state of war. He also says:

 

“Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty, will be born by the people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going; it is not to be wondered, that they should then rouze themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure them the ends for which government was at first erected; and without which, ancient names, and specious forms, are so far from being better, that they are much worse, than the state of nature, or pure anarchy; the inconveniences being all as great and as near, but the remedy farther off and more difficult.”

 

Besides the fact that I’m sure you’re able to pick up where Thomas Jefferson got some of his inspiration when he was drafting the Declaration back in 1776, Locke here is justifying the right of revolution, which is the deontological justification for not only civil disobedience, but also guerrilla warfare. Distinct from this is Spooner’s contention that since the group of men running around and calling themselves a “government” never received his consent to be ruled by them in the first place, then there is nothing for him to revoke; put another way, Spooner already considered himself in a Lockean state of nature, as it were.

I provide this overview of the consent to be governed because it is the ostensible goal of the faux common law advocates to either secure or revoke it. They have asserted, time and again, that if they can “reclaim their rights” within a state of nature by filing the “appropriate paperwork” with the government, then they would be able to peacefully escape tyranny by rescinding all of their adhesion contracts with all of the relevant government entities. Obviously, such a highly individualistic orientation smacks more of Spooner than of Locke, yet these same faux common law advocates strongly insist that they are not anarchists. Regardless, what I am interested in, is gauging the efficacy of their methodology, not their New Age spirituality many of them seem to peddle about in their recorded lectures.

You must understand that the foundational underpinning idea for these faux common law advocates is the corporate UNITED STATES myth. Based upon a misunderstanding of 28 USC § 3002 (15)(A), they interpret “United States means a Federal corporation” to somehow mean that the United States is a corporation (that is, a “corporate government”). Jason Erb’s rebuttal of this myth expounds upon this, and he also uses 28 USC § 3306 as well as a list of United States federal corporations to debunk this entire silly notion of a so-called “corporate” government:

 

“If you look at the context of that definition, it becomes clear that it’s not saying that the United States is a federal corporation, but rather, it’s referring to federal corporations incorporated by the United States. At the beginning of the section, it says: ‘As used in this chapter:’ Therefore, the reference to the ‘United States‘ as ‘a federal corporation‘ is only applicable to Title 28, Part VI, Chapter 176 of the United States Code. Even within that limited context, it’s not referring to the United States as a federal corporation. If that was the intent, it would have been defined as ‘the United States, a Federal corporation.’ Looking at a different subchapter of the same chapter, namely, Subchapter D, Section 3306 (Remedies of the United States), (a): ‘(1) avoidance of the transfer or obligation to the extent necessary to satisfy the debt to the United States;’ If the meaning of ‘(A) a Federal corporation‘ is substituted, we get: (1) avoidance of the transfer or obligation to the extent necessary to satisfy the debt to a Federal corporation.”

 

Just to round out this line of cogent reasoning, federal corporations include such governmental entities like the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Peace Corps.

What about Colonel House‘s infamous quote about the United States being “a dummy corporation,” as well as his blatant admission that a global plot was hatched by international bankers to take over the world? Putting aside the issue of central banking and the New World Order, while it is claimed that Col. House seems to have confessed to such a monstrous conspiracy in a private meeting with then-President Woodrow Wilson, it is also admitted that the source citation for this quote is literally unknown. At best, only secondary and tertiary sources are known, and it has been postulated that it is likely that the quote itself was computer generated by software bots combing the Internet for relevant and frequent search terms.

Still, despite evidence (or in Col. House’s case, the lack thereof) showing the untenability of the corporate UNITED STATES myth, adherents of it stubbornly cling to any shred of data that seems to support their position, no matter how flimsy. For instance, faux common law advocates (in an unprecedented effort of theirs to actually bother referring to the common law) have been known to cite paragraph 2 of the 1886 United States Supreme Court case Van Brocklin v. Anderson:

 

“The United States is a government, and consequently a body politic and corporate, capable of attaining the objects for which it was created, by the means which are necessary for their attainment. This great corporation was ordained and established by the American people, and endowed by them with great powers for important purposes. Its powers are unquestionably limited; but while within those limits, it is as perfect a government as any other, having all the faculties and properties belonging to a government, with a perfect right to use them freely, in order to accomplish the objects of its institution.”

 

At this point the faux common law advocates would scream in delight when Chief Justice Marshall referred to the United States as “this great corporation” as proof that the United States is somehow a corporation, yet they fail to understand the context as well as the subtext at play here. Notice when the Chief Justice also said that the United States is a body politic; what 14^th Amendment multi-national corporations can you think of who can claim the same? Similarly, both Ballantine’s and Bouvier’s law dictionaries include legal definitions of what the United States is, which seem to say that the government is a corporation. What the faux common law advocates are missing here is that they assume from Van Brocklin, Ballantine’s, and Black’s is that the United States is a corporation, instead of correctly understanding from the remaining pieces of these very same sources that the United States isn’t a company or a business, but a government that has corporate characteristics. This is analogous to when “leftists” incorrectly assert that capitalism is the same as corporatism, and that these oligopolized corporations are “somehow” emblematic of the free market, when the truth of the matter is that the corporatocracy has free market characteristics, such as the price system (manipulated by virtue of government privilege, as it is). An alleged “corporate government” is not the same as a government possessing corporate characteristics, such as the ability to sue and be sued.

The final nail in the coffin of the corporate UNITED STATES myth, I pray, is a simple rebuttal using the process of incorporation as the abstract fulcrum. For adherents to say that the United States is a corporation lies also an implied claim that fascist businesses such as Wal-Mart or McDonald’s would be able to incorporate new corporations themselves. As I hope you can begin to see, the only way this might be able to work out and still be a viable idea is for the United States to be an utterly unique “super corporation,” which is the only one with the monopolistic ability to incorporate new corporations; but if that is the case, who incorporated the United States? If you refer back to Van Brocklin, Justice Marshall said that the American people, through their state conventions back in the late 1780s, ordained and established the United States by ratifying the Constitution. Does this mean by implication that you and I, composing individual units of the American people, can simply incorporate new corporations on our own without the government? No, because the United States is, first and foremost, a government established by the ratification of the Constitution, not some business seeking to enter into a cartel arrangement by applying for government protection via the 14^th Amendment. The process of incorporation, as it is practiced legally today, is not a social compact formed by individual humans, but a request for permission to establish personhood for a legal fiction in order to receive government privileges.

Next, it is imperative to understand the STRAWMAN hypothesis. Also known as the “ALL CAPITAL LETTERS argument,” this idea’s validity is built upon the logical soundness of the corporate UNITED STATES myth. According to this concept, a natural person’s name is written as “John-Adams: Doe” whereas an artificial person’s name is written as “JOHN ADAMS DOE.” Since you are presumed to be the natural person, the existence of this artificial person is then assumed to be prima facie evidence of capitis dimunitio. As I’m sure you’re slowly realizing, these claims are a series of non sequiters; not only is there no evidence for this, but there are government documents rejecting the STRAWMAN hypothesis. Section 3 of the 1996 case United States v. Washington said:

 

“Finally, the defendant contends that the Indictment must be dismissed because ‘KURT WASHINGTON,’ spelled out in capital letters, is a fictitious name used by the Government to tax him improperly as a business, and that the correct spelling and presentation of his name is ‘Kurt Washington.’ This contention is baseless.”

 

Paragraph 11 of the 1998 case United States v. Frech ruled that:

 

“Defendants’ assertion that the capitalization of their names in court documents constitutes constructive fraud, thereby depriving the district court of jurisdiction and venue, is without any basis in law or fact.”

 

So, here we have it established in the common law that when your legal name is completely capitalized, it is not evidence of fraud or as a status of being a taxable business; by implication, I interpret this to mean that there is also no STRAWMAN bearing your name. Why then, though, does the government bother to capitalize your name in the first place? I will refer you, dear reader, to rule 16.1 of the 2008 Federal Style Manual:

 

“The general principle involved in the typography of datelines, addresses, and signatures is that they should be set to stand out clearly from the body of the letter or paper that they accompany. This is accomplished by using caps and small caps and italics, as set forth below. Other typographic details are designed to ensure uniformity and good appearance. Street addresses and ZIP Code numbers are not to be used. In certain lists that carry ZIP Code numbers, regular spacing will be used preceding the ZIP Code. Certain general instructions apply alike to datelines, addresses, and signatures.”

 

There you have it. No grand conspiracy, no horrendous monsters lurking under the bed or hiding in the closet, just waiting for their chance to hurt you. Capitalizing all the letters of your legal name is simply an attempt to “ensure uniformity and good appearance” on government documents, that is all.

Of course, the faux common law advocates are far from letting sleeping dogs lie, for they insist that the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) provides whatever legal remedy you may desire, whether it be getting a traffic ticket dismissed or avoiding mortgage payments. As I’ve mentioned before, the applicability of the UCC is hampered, not only because of its polemic reliance upon both the STRAWMAN hypothesis and the corporate UNITED STATES myth, but also on the mistaken notion that it can be used against the federal government, despite the fact that the UCC is only enforced by the 50 American state governments, which suggests to me that these adherents don’t actually understand dual federalism at all. If anyone bothered to check Section 1.308 of the Texas Business and Commerce Code, they’d see that all of the UCC where I live is Texas state law, not United States federal law. Even if the UCC worked as the faux common law advocates claim it does, it would only be applicable to Texas LEOs, judges, bureaucrats, and legislators, but not circuit court judges, the alphabet soup boys, or congresscritters. The applicability of the UCC, according to the faux common law advocates, is fundamentally dependent upon the validity of the STRAWMAN hypothesis because of its breadth, which as I’ve demonstrated, is grossly exaggerated and ultimately inapplicable.

Several of the most notable techniques advertised by the faux common law advocates are ostensibly rooted in the UCC. For example, Victoria Joy is credited as the individual with “developing” the Notary Public Protest Method. Robert Menard described it as such:

 

• Step 1: You can send them a letter by registered mail. In it you mention the rule of law and invite them to discuss. You are in fact extending an offer. Unless they accept your offer, they are going into dishonour.
• Step 2: Three days later, you go to your Notary Public with your offer to discuss that your adversary either rejected or ignored and you have the Notary send it again, acting in his capacity as an Office of the Court. If they again dishonour it, they have dishonoured an Officer of the Court.
• Step 3: Three days after they dishonour the Notary, you have him send them a Notice of Dishonour. They are informed of their dishonour and given a chance to correct it. Again, they have three days. If they do nothing, go to step 4.
• Step 4: Three days after they received the Notice of Dishonour, if they have not responded honourably, you have the Notary send a Notice of Protest. This is end game, for you have proof that you are in honour and they are not. They have lost the right to claim any conflict and they have no right to enter into negotiations. They have essentially lost. Their hands are dirty and yours are not. Now you go to Step 5.
• Step 5: Take your Notice of Protest and bring it to a Justice of the Peace and have an Administrative Judgment entered against your adversary. Begin collection proceedings against them as you would for any court judgment.

 

As you can see, no actual judge was used here, just an administrative procedure; at least, that’s how it was being sold to all of us as. Another favorite method of theirs, which has incurred quite a bit of negative publicity, is the use of commercial liens against government agents. John David Van Hove warned:

 

“Caveat: We do not advise amateurs playing with liens. They demand the finest attention to detail and lengthy study. A lien is a double edge sword and can cut both ways if improperly administered. This is a powerful tool of liberty. Do not misuse or abuse the process for greedy or self-interested purposes. You do not have enough information in this book to perfect a lien. Enter at your own risk. We disclaim any responsibility or liability for the misuse of this information.”

 

Despite that warning years ago, the controlled press has rendered the various faux common law advocates infamous with their disinfo pieces as they aired on CBS, ABC, KSTP (local ABC affiliate up in St. Paul, MN), CBC National (up in Canada) and even the Southern Poverty Law Center’s own video press release. Now, I think the corporate whore media has blown it out of proportion, for if they had bothered to consult actual state law, they would have found that liens can be used under certain circumstances, such as those described under Title 5 of the Texas Property Code. I say this because virtually every time the news cycle mentions any of these faux common law advocates, they hit below the belt by claiming that these commercial liens are evocative of something they call “paper terrorism.” It is at least grossly negligent to describe their use of commercial liens this way, for it simply does not fit the criteria for what legally constitutes terrorism because it lacks violence.

Worthy of mention are two other methods used by the faux common law advocates, which are likewise ostensibly rooted in the UCC, namely, a Notice of Understanding and Intent and a Claim of Right (NOUICOR) and Accepted for Value (A4V). The purpose of NOUICORs is to deny consent to be governed; it’s also known as disobeying the government “with lawful excuse.” NOUICORs include a fee schedule, thus making it a UCC tool (fee schedules, simply put, are an attempt to bill government agents, usually cops, for the “service” they “provide” whenever they harass or arrest someone, for instance; it’s an attempt to make government agents truly accountable for their actions by trying to literally make them pay for it). The justification for this method in Canada was Section 39 of the Criminal Code of Canada, but I say “was” because it was repealed in 2012 (in America, no known justification by the faux common law advocates is known to exist).

A4V, as I’ve written about before, are also known as bills of exchange or consumer purchases. Fundamentally rooted in the STRAWMAN hypothesis, A4V assumes that your birth certificate is a financial security; by using the A4V method, you can access the hidden money kept in a super secret bank account in order to pay all your bills. Even though Robert Menard admitted he screwed up his original explanation of the somewhat similar Code 96 remittance option, he could have avoided it altogether had he simply asked some government accountants what exactly Code 96 is, pursuant to Rule H6, Part II, page 17, section 2.2(b)(i) of the Canadian Payments Association. Fortunately, we also have the United States federal government’s interpretation of A4V; first up, is the Treasury’s Office of Inspector General:

 

“The Department of the Treasury is also aware of several fraudulent schemes that involve what are claimed to be securities issued or backed by the Treasury Department or another part of the U.S. Government…another scheme is a variation of a common fraud generally known as ‘redemption’ or ‘acceptance for value’ that incorrectly asserts the United States government has trust accounts linked to each citizen. The theory is not supported in fact or law and has been soundly rejected by the federal courts. Perpetrators will annotate or stamp invoices with ‘Accept for Value’ or similar language, with various numbers purporting to be account numbers. Such annotations are without merit and establish no rights or privileges in any federal or state account or agency.”

 

Well, that doesn’t sound too good. What is the FBI’s perspective on this issue? They said:

 

“Proponents of this scheme claim that the U.S. government or the Treasury Department control bank accounts – often referred to as ‘U.S. Treasury Direct Accounts’ – for all U.S. citizens that can be accessed by submitting paperwork with state and federal authorities. Individuals promoting this scam frequently cite various discredited legal theories and may refer to the scheme as ‘Redemption,’ ‘Strawman,’ or ‘Acceptance for Value.’ Trainers and websites will often charge legal fees for ‘kits’ that teach individuals how to perpetrate this scheme. They will often imply that others have had great success in discharging debt and purchasing merchandise such as cars and homes. Failure to implement the scheme successfully are attributed to individuals not following instructions in a specific order or not filing paperwork at correct times.”

 

It would seem to be the case that the government considers A4V and similar methods to be a fraudulent scam. Although it would’ve been nice for the Treasury’s OIG to cite those federal court decisions, I think it is sufficient for the time being to understand that if the United States Department of the Treasury is not going to honor any returned bills with A4V scrawled on them, then I would take that as prima facie evidence that A4V simply does not work.

Before I provide you all with a typology of the faux common law advocates, there is one more concept you must understand. An infrequently mentioned yet foundational idea promoted by many dissidents is the idea of a prison-without-bars; however, the faux common law advocates pervert this idea to mean that all of us are somehow subject to “admiralty” or “maritime” law, and that somehow the UCC are the “rules” for how to successfully “navigate” the “high seas of commerce.” Then, these same miscreants use genuine adjectives, such as describing something as Orwellian or Kafakaesque in order to illustrate the prevalence of legalese. Although those terms highlight truly observable things, they manipulate this to push for their misconception of an “admiralty/maritime prison-without-bars.” Please keep in mind that as you try and understand the law (for the government takes ignorantia juris non excusat pretty seriously), that anything Orwellian is that which is contradictory, anything that is Kafkaesque is that which is unknowable, and that which is either surreal and absurd has having no meaning.

Now, for what you’ve all been waiting for – the specific types of faux common law advocates! Briefly listed, they are known as Commercial Redemption, Freemen-on-the-Land, sovereign citizens, Lawful Rebellion, and Community Immunity. Each one deserves an overview, for their nuances are both relevant and revealing of the entire sham.

Commercial Redemptionists are the most pure of UCC adherents. Thanks to such slogans as “become a creditor, not a debtor,” the Redemptionists may also advertise their bill of wares as a way for their customers to become “secured (third) party creditors.” Out of all the other faux common law advocates, the Redemptionists possess the greatest number of adherents by far, such as Winston Shrout, Jack Smith, Brandon Adams, Gordon Hall, and, sadly, The Anti-Terrorist (AT) as well. Although the Redemptionists are fellow travelers with the sovereign citizens and Freemen-on-the-Land, they greatly differ from them in the respect that the Redemptionists only want to “control” their adhesion contracts, not revoke or rescind them, because for them, the consent of the governed is a non-issue.

Freemen-on-the-Land are a primarily non-American phenomena, with major clusters operating in Britain and Canada. Their desire is to live free of statutory law, and they try to give proof of their purported legal status via a NOUICOR, which is intended to revoke their consent to be governed by rescinding all of their adhesion contracts simultaneously. Although they have done some marginally good work in terms of raising public awareness about the right to travel, they do like to play fast and loose with the definitions of words in the law dictionaries. Their most recognizable adherents include Robert Menard, Veronica Chapman, Mary Croft, Irene Gravenhorst, and Robert Christy. Generally speaking, it is safe to say that the “Freemen” are not denizens, but simply just disgruntled wannabe expats.

Sovereign citizens are uniquely American in their origin. As you can probably infer from their very label, the words “sovereign” and “citizen” are, in fact, oxymoronic when used together (even AT had to fess up about this). Some have the notion of a special Title 4 flag, but as I’ve debunked before, Old Glory is the 4 USC § 1 flag! The sovereigns, like their Freemen cousins, consider the adhesion contracts they have with various governmental entities as the only proof of their consent to be governed; unlike the Freemen though, the sovereigns do not think that any single document (such as a NOUICOR) is going to be able to simultaneously rescind their adhesion contracts, so they opt to go about doing it one-by-one instead. Their most recognizable adherents include John David Van Hove, J.M. Sovereign Godsent, Alfred Adask, Donald Barber, and Tim Turner. Although I don’t appreciate the corporate whore media focusing on the sovereigns’ use of liens instead of on their ideology (usually by throwing Bob Paudert on camera, who then proceeds to whine about how “violent” the sovereigns are because his jackbooted kid got shot by another equally stupid kid), the sovereigns can also be easily disproved by paragraph 74 of the 1793 case Chisholm, Ex’r v. Georgia:

 

“To the Constitution of the United States the term SOVEREIGN, is totally unknown. There is but one place where it could have been used with propriety. But, even in that place it would not, perhaps, have comported with the delicacy of those, who ordained and established that Constitution. They might have announced themselves ‘SOVEREIGN’ people of the United States: But serenely conscious of the fact, they avoided the ostentatious declaration.”

 

There it is in black and white, but I doubt that’s not going to stop the sovereigns from getting on camera and saying even more stupid shit about the Constitution or the UCC in the future.

Lawful Rebellion is a term coined by one John Harris, a tattooed British carpenter. The idea here is more closely analogous to the Freemen, whereby if you serve two affidavits successfully on Queen Elizabeth II, then, like the Freemen, you are exempt out of having to obey any statutory law. Harris’ argument is not based on adhesion contracts, necessarily, but more on the notion that Her Majesty’s crown has been usurped by an enemy rebel government, and that as a loyal British patriot, Harris (and others like him) stand defiant against having to obey the dictates of these invaders. Article 61 of the Magna Carta is used as the justification for entering into a state of “lawful rebellion,” yet, Richy, one of Harris’ groupies, admitted that article 61 wasn’t intended for the people to revoke their consent to be governed. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the words “lawful” and “rebellion” are, in fact, oxymoronic when used together (just like with the so-called “sovereign citizens”).

Community Immunity is an idea proposed by Arthur Cristian that seems little different than a Free State Project rip-off (except for the fact there would be no preexisting government to legally infiltrate and subvert). Cristian wants to establish in Australia multiple “Kindoms” or “Do No Harm” communities, which are not obligated to obey statutory law (are you beginning to see a pattern here?). Naturally, I’m curious as to how they figured out how to avoid paying property taxes, since this idea was proposed two years ago. Did they discover that mere possession of allodial title exempted them from any statutory obligations? In any case, their polemics are nearly identical to that of the anarcho-primitivists; the rhetorical emphasis on tribalism and the environment is really hard to miss.

Having covered the different types of faux common law advocates (who in reality just have a hard on for the UCC), there are some debunked assertions I’d like to bring to your attention. The Freemen and sovereigns typically assert that statutory law only applies to artificial persons; if that were true, then how would they explain one of Bouvier’s definitions for the word “person” to say that legislative statutes also apply to natural persons? They also question whether membership in a society obliges them to obey its statutes; again, if true, then how do they explain Bouvier’s definition of the word “society” to say that a body politic is composed of natural persons? They assert that anything “lawful” is mutually exclusive to anything “legal”; on this one, Black’s definition for the word “lawful” is equivalent to the word “legal,” except to the degree that it is noticeably broader than the word “legal” because “lawful,” as Black’s says, “imports a moral substance or ethical permissibility” that “legal” simply does not. Sovereigns and Freemen alike love to claim that consesus facit legem means that torts are consensual; yet again, “consent makes the law” only applies to contract law, not tort or “administrative” law. Finally, United States v. Washington, United States v. Frech, and the Federal Style Manual all disprove the STRAWMAN hypothesis, and the 2012 Canadian court case Meads v. Meads (2012 ABQB 571) disproves the Freemen’s ideology in particular.

I do have some questions I would like either the commercial Redemptionists, the Freemen-on-the-Land, sovereign citizens, the British lawful rebels, or even any members of those Aussie “kindoms” to answer for me, since they have assumed the burden of proof for making such claims in the first place. They are:

 

• What are the source citations from the government’s own documents showing that any birth certificate is in fact a financial security?
• Where is the proof that the birth certificate is evidence of a trust identifying the named person as a beneficiary?
• What is the name of this trust that the people are allegedly the beneficiaries of?
• How does one access these existentially questionable trust funds?
• Where is the evidence that the President’s oath has anything at all to do with birth certificates that are issued by each of the 50 state governments, anyway?
• Where is the proof that a Social Security number is evidence of a debt management program using the birth certificate as collateral?
• Where is the proof that the government courts are in Admiralty/Maritime jurisdiction?
• Where is the evidence that the Uniform Commercial Code are the rules for Admiralty?
• How do you demonstrate when a court proceeding has switched from Admiralty to equity?
• Do court decisions recognize our preexisting inalienable rights, or do they grant us privileges?
• Are adhesion contracts evidence of a citizen being subject to admiralty as well as being proof of one’s consent to be governed?
• Is a driver’s license evidence of having waived the right to travel, at least until such time the license is voluntarily rescinded by the driver? Does the same apply via the registration status of a car?
• Why do you commercial redemptionists, Freemen-on-the-Land, sovereign citizens, lawful rebels, and the immune kindom communities consider yourselves advocates of the common law when all you do is proselytize about UCC and Admiralty, yet nearly none of you rarely ever cite a court case?
• How do you revoke your consent to be governed, again?

 

I will probably never get an answer to any of these questions, but it can’t hurt listing them here. Of course, I’m not holding my breath either, especially considering the credibility of those making these claims, as I hoped I’ve demonstrated the holes in their fallacious reasoning well enough for you all.

Ultimately, this brings me to a point where I must try to conclude what exactly is occurring here. Are the sovereign citizens and company simply nothing more than controlled opposition? Are they and their ilk the Faketriots who willfully feed us disinformation that is right in line with the government’s agenda? Or are they simply Patriotards, “guess-what-I-know” useful idiots who just parrot the baseless speculations, conjecture, and rumors of others?

Never underestimate the Carousel of Carnivores infecting the alternative media. There was a reason Gary Hunt listed ideological adherents of the UCC in his Divide & Conquer article, and now I finally understand why. Sovereigns, Freemen, and Redemptionists all remind me of that court artist from The Trial, who pressured Josef K. into buying all those paintings, which I’ve described before as representing all those “sovereignty packages” often sold by the patriots-for-profit. Thick bound binders of prepared document templates available for purchase for $450 for a hard copy, or $50 for a PDF version; expensive DVD sets are sold for $99 – $150 per disc set; or you could buy a recurring yearly membership at the not-so-low price of $60 – $500, depending on the level of membership, with the highest figure being as it is for the first year, with only a $300 annual renewal fee.

If you think I am exaggerating, then consider these several tidbits. Robert Menard is reported to have been selling several hundred dollar memberships into the World Freeman Society. John Harris admitted that AT was a friend of his in 2009, but then claimed about a year ago that AT is a Hollywood actor; Harris also claimed that AT got himself involved with commercial redemption workshops, whereby ₤500 were charged per person for a weekend seminar. Harris went on to admit he was offered ₤40,000 to teach corporate fat cats all the legal loopholes he knows so they can cheat more money out of their customers; thankfully, Harris refused the offer. The striking similarities to the activist legal defense fund scams are too hard to ignore.

Yet, there are more people within the alternative media speaking out against this, in one way or another. Dean Clifford admitted that NOUICORs are useless, except perhaps for the fee schedule (Clifford is still unfortunately a Freeman). The manipulative effects within the video communications medium is being gradually exposed by such expository pieces like Because YouTube Said So…, which is relevant to the sovereigns and company if you take Ben Lowry’s brief history of the Freemen-on-the-Land into account. John Harris, Robert Menard, and The Anti-Terrorist all got their start on BoobTube with their recorded speeches and lectures, and although I did enjoy Menard’s Fundamentals of Freedom, I think the essence of it (such as the useful homework assignments) could have been done without all of the UCC nonsense. I suspect that Charlie Veitch’s description of cosplayers seems rather apropos in light of the numerous deceptions from the sovereigns and company.

Unfortunately, there are those rank-and-file adherents of the sovereigns and company who use the over worn “You need to do your research” excuse, never realizing that perhaps why men like Lowry and I intrinsically disagree with them is precisely because we did our research, often exhaustingly! Their faith in the sovereigns and company is as well founded as those who believe in the efficacy of faith healing. May it be true that I have hit a brick wall with these adherents because mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur?

Why all the reformism? That’s what I hope you realize from learning all of this, is that the sovereigns and company simply encompass nothing more than a reformist strategy to suck dissidents back into playing the reformism game within the coercive state structure, yet again. Notice all of the Reactive Ralphie variations from the sovereigns and company that you “must” file a NOUICOR, use A4V, or otherwise badger the judge incessantly whenever you are trying to litigate your own case in court. Where does this all stem from? Is it cowardice, vanity, naivete, greed, or incompetence? Does it instead emanate from a desire to scam, divert, identify and profile, or even provocateur? The sovereigns and company do not possess any concept of due diligence, source citation, or even basic follow up. Just as with any other kind of reformism (such as voting, protesting, or writing your congresscritter), this crap simply just doesn’t work.

What are the alternatives, if there are any? Fortunately, there are; namely, state citizenship, which holds some promise, as does paper-tripping. With regards to the former, I confess that I must save that for another time, simply due to the justifications for its standing, as well as its applicability in quite possibly securing our Liberties for the long haul. Unfortunately, John David Van Hove confused state citizenship as being the same as a sovereign citizen when he referred to the latter as “sovereign ‘state’ Citizens,” but trust me, at least for the time being, when I tell you that they are nothing alike.

Too many dissidents have been suckered in by this junk. They are desperately trying to find a way out of tyranny, and so they choose to explore an avenue that promises them a relatively low-risk way to do so without a shot being fired, only to find out that they are often worse off from the experience, with less time, less patience, and less money to fritter away on confidence games (or much of anything else, for that matter). That’s why I say the Freemen, the sovereigns, and the rest of the whole sorry lot can promise you freedom, but, only on paper.