I suspect a fascination with the Browning Automatic Rifle.
Sovereigntists differentiate between human flesh and legal fictions by using ALL CAPS for the latter. If one of them tries to sign a contact using ALL CAPS, don’t expect them to consider the contract to be enforceable against them. By extension, they often use ALL CAPS when referring to things they don’t consider to have legal authority, or that they just plain dislike.
I have a client who pops by every few months to swear out affidavits before me concerning his ongoing conflict with the rest of society in general and the law in particular. He’s a sovereigntist, so rather than exposing the court to him trying to weasel out of his oath based on which of his names he uses, in what order he uses them, and whether or not he ALL CAPS some or all of them, I cover all bases, e.g.: “I, John Doe, a.k.a. John DOE, a.k.a. JOHN DOE, a.k.a. John Doe, a.k.a. John, a.k.a. JOHN, a.k.a. Doe, a.k.a. DOE, do solemnly swear . . . .”
When folks pop in to swear out an affidavit (which I usually don’t even charge for), it usually only takes a couple of minutes, for I’m not reviewing the content – I’m only officially witnessing them swear that the content is true, but with this sovereigntist, inevitably our meetings to take his oath always take a full afternoon, and include listening to his diatribes about Thomas Paine as he tries to convert me to his particular flavour of crazy. Needless to say, with him I only accept cash on the dash prior to services at my lawyer’s rate rather than a clerk’s rate, which makes my pocket book happy, but also makes him happy for actually being able to swear out his affidavits rather than being given the bum’s rush. There’s a whole lot of alien weirdness packed into how the minds of these folks function, as if their synaptic gaps are permanently misfiring.
That is an opinion.
The fact is that the “bunch of guys” were The United States of America in Congress Assembled as those representatives (you call “a bunch of guys”) debated the question of slavery while prosecuting the defensive war against the criminal British, as they decided to “discontinue the slave trade” which you call “complaints to the government,” which could possibly mean, if I can guess as to what you mean, that you mean those “complaints” (discontinue the slave trade) constituted one federated part of the government communicating to those few who were profiting from the slave trade. Therefore your words could mean, again if I were to guess what your words mean, that you think that the government IS the criminal slave traders.
The slave traders form a specific type of government: the side where the Criminals Rule.
Why do you capitalize “BAR”?
WRONG! (oooh! All caps.)
The assembly of September and October 1774 may have referred to themselves as the Continental Congress, but they were not a nation, (such nation would not be declared for another 18 months), and there is no reference in their meeting, minutes, or declarations to “states” or even to being united. They acknowledged their establishment as colonies and made no reference to separation from Britain at that time.
Completely wrong on one point: there was no “defensive war” in September, 1774. The actual discussions were in regard to petitioning Great Britain to make changes that would re-establish good relations with Britain. The tenth resolution passed by the assembly concluded with the following:
There is not a single reference to a defensive war, (and the fighting would not break out for another six months). Your claim is not even opinion, it is just error.
Most likely wrong on your second claim: there is no evidence that anyone “debated the question of slavery.” Certainly you have provided no evidence of such a debate. The only paraphrased reference to slavery that you have provided could just as easily have been an effort to protect slave breeders/sellers in North America from competition with slave takers across the Atlantic. Given the other matters of trade they discussed, (a complete embargo of all trade in or out of the colonies with the exception of the profitable rice export business), my speculation seems more likely than your wholly unsupported interpretation.
So, basically, you choose to make errors of history, then spin an interpretation of a few words while refusing to support your side with evidence.
Unpersuasive.
I’m trying to figure out who amongst the political actors at the time of the Revolution supported the “Rule of Law” as defined by our friend.
The following are excluded:
George Washington - slave-owner, therefore “criminal.”
George Mason - slave-owner, therefore “criminal”.
Thomas Jefferson - slave-owner, therefore “criminal”.
James Madison - slave-owner, therefore “criminal”.
John Adams - supported the Alien and Sedition Acts, therefore “criminal”.
Who was supporting the “rule of law” as defined by Josf? 
William Samuel Johnson - Wikipedia of Connecticut
One of our local historical figures. Oh wait, “In general, he favored extension of federal authority.”
So, also a criminal. Shucks.
Anyone who went to Philadelphia was presumably a criminal, because they participated in the overthrow o the “rule of law” Articles of Confederation, even if they later dissented, like Mason. So they’re all out.
Patrick Henry of course opposed the Constitution, but he owned slaves, so “criminal.”
Don’t forget anyone who endorsed majority rule, which would include anyone who participated in a colonial assembly, state legislature, or Congress.
Anyone who disagrees with the OP, really.
Does this mean we all have to start writing our NAMES in ALL CAPS?
It depends on whether you’re you or the free man associated with you.
-REALLY NOT ALL THAT BRIGHT, Corporate Person, not to be confused with Really: Not-All-That-Bright, Free Citizen of The Unitary People’s Republic (Democratic) of Middle Florida
Is this like a magic spell, or is it more like a cheat code in a video game?
Courts dealing with sovereign citizen plaintiffs generally describe their invocations as “magic words.” But it’s the latter, I suppose. I mean, I don’t think I’d turn you into a newt if I typed it wrong. I just wouldn’t get 100 extra lives.
Are there supposed to be “secret” law school books given out in undercover law school classes that supposedly teach these arcane things to lawyers and judges, so that they know to let these “sovereign citizens” go without penalty when they say things *this" way or write things that way?
Procedural question, Josf.
In our parlance, the term ‘federal’ generally refers to two discrete concepts:
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A system where responsibilities are divided and reserved between an over-power and several parallel under-powers, ie a “federal system” where the over-government is in charge of matters x, y, and z, and the under-governments are in charge of matters a, b, and c, and their respective bailiwicks being more-or-less equal.
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Within the context of the above system, the over-power (the “federal” government as opposed to the state governments.")
Inasmuch as it seems to me that you feel we are using the term incorrectly, what term would you use to describe these two phenomena?
Battle of Lexington and Concord is dated April 19, 1775.
Elliot’s Debates Volume I dates the “discontinue the slave trade” as 20th October 1775.
A federated defensive power (soon to be officially labeled as The United States of America) formed as a result of the commencement of hostilities (War of Aggression perpetrated by the British upon Americans) perpetrated by a former member of a federal union.
That defensive power that formed as a result of the commencement of hostilities (April 19, 1775) agreed to “discontinue the slave trade” on the 20th of October, 1775.
That defensive (federated) power drove out, caused to surrender, defeated, and thereby effective defended against, that hostile, aggressive, criminal power (“crimes committed against the liberties of one people”): an antin-federated criminal power.
Claims of failing to debate, such as claim where information is WRONG, along with claims of merely repeating, are forms of debate from one side: the side that resorts to false claims.
If the dates are wrong, then the source of the error is knowable.
The lack of redress of grievances (Rule of Law) inspired secession from a formerly federal association between the people of America and the people of Britain. John Adams points out that the fact is that the commencement of hostilities factually determines the end of the federal association. The Declaration of Independence points out the fact that many attempts were made to gain redress of grievances; all of which failed, proving the nature of the association as a tyrannical, or despotic, and criminal (“crimes committed against the liberties of one people”) association forced upon American people by British people.
So, in context to the crimes enumerated in the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, including war against nature itself, a human being is no longer federated with the human being who offers slavery as a form of association, whereby the slave cannot gain redress of grievances, and the slave cannon run away (secede) from the involuntary union.
Once the slave realizes that the slave is a slave, during the times when the so called master, who is a criminal during the enslavement of the slave, fails to offer a way out (remedy) of the involuntary association, the slave is realizing independence, forming independence, and then the slave secedes, or runs away, becoming free in mind, spirit, and in body. Then the criminal adds to the list of crimes as the criminal enforces fugitive slave “laws,” which are rules issued by criminal slave traders, slave owners, slave consumers, slave masters perpetrating crimes against human nature itself.
People on the side of Rule of Law offer to everyone a remedy so as to give to those who step outside of Rule of Law a means by which they can return within the collective area of protection under Rule of Law. It is easily recognizable that human beings, when afforded opportunity (lack of defense against crime is a form of opportunity for criminals to become criminals), will be tempted to step outside of Rule of Law, and the formerly moral human being acting morally before the crime is then perpetrating a crime upon an innocent victim when perpetrating the crime, then the same criminal who perpetrated the crime may return to moral actions. Look ma, that guy is well dressed, and speaks well, and has a nice looking family. Sure, and that can be a perception of Pol Pot too, when Pol Pot was not currently consuming people.
Babies, for example, are defenseless against those who “take candy away from a baby,” and how tempting (and to who is it tempting) to take candy away from babies, or take liberties from (to enslave) people, if there is no effective power of defense, no Rule of Law, no moral conscience driving people toward effective defense in time and place? If it is unaffordable to take candy from a baby, or unaffordable to take liberties away from (enslave) people, then who would be tempted to do so under those conditions of unaffordability? Unaffordability (Rule of Law) can be compared to “easy pickings,” or compared to a “tax subsidized” business where the entire country of people are told to PAY OR ELSE and from that FUND the slave traders pay people to return their slaves back to their enforced, criminal, enslavement (removing the liberties of people), so which Divisions works best to discourage, outlaw, un-fund, defend against some people taking the liberties of other people if someone is afforded the moral choice between the two Divisions: A. Rule of Law says “discontinue the slave trade,” B. Slave trade is now very profitable because it is now subsidized?
John Adams, or anyone else, is not “always” a criminal due to one time, one place, when John Adams, or anyone else, steps outside of Rule of Law, going to the other side, temporarily, while perpetrating a crime upon innocent people, in time, and in place; where inculpatory evidence proving the crime (such as the publication of the Alien and Sedition Acts as one example of incuplatory evidence) did in fact occur, and the individual perpetrating the crime is the Executive in command of many people who may obey any order without question. Was John Adams the type of human being who would above absolute power if John Adams was afforded absolute power?
Rule of Law, in a form such as the common law, offers all criminals a means by which their crimes must be proven, beyond reasonable doubt, by the accuser, in a court of law (common law court), whereby representatives of the whole country (jurists) must determine the facts, the law, and punishment, and they must do so unanimously, and according to common law, if the accused is unanimously found guilty by the whole country (through randomly selected, vetted, jurists), the guilty criminal is sentenced and the sentence is executed.
The American version of common law trial by jury is offered in at least 2 cases already linked.
- Battle of Lexington and Concord is dated April 19, 1775.
Aggressors attack defenders. Aggressive Wars are perpetrated by people on one side, the British exemplify people perpetrating criminal Aggressive War, the Nazis also exemplify people perpetrating criminal Aggressive War. The defenders can choose passive resistance, and that can result in greater losses over time, as passive resistance affords criminals the opportunity to increase their pogroms to a point at which extremely large numbers of the population are systematically murdered, such as the examples offered in the Bolshevik slaughter of 20 million Russians under Stalin, and the so called Killing Fields example when the Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot, slaughtered roughly 25% of the entire country of people.
Unopposed tyranny is weighted against the costs of opposing Criminal Rule (tyranny) as Criminals Rule by offering the same deal each time Criminals Rule:
- 20th October 1775 “discontinue the slave trade”
Those people in that congress issued an obvious, unmistakable, moral order. Those who did not obey a moral order, a moral law, where those whose lives where enriched at the expense of victims of slavery.
If that is not understood in the context of Divisions along Rule of Law versus Criminal Rule, then the lack of understanding is not charged to me.
Those who understand how Rule of Law works are those who understand that the Criminals, while they perpetrate crimes, are accountable as such while they injure innocent people for their own enrichment, because they can, because they are unopposed in time and place, or because the opposition to Criminal Rule is insufficient, not enough, and therefore powerless.
The federal union of Americans was powerful enough to drive off the largest army of Aggressive War (for the enrichment of a few, and at the expense of everyone else), yet those same defenders in America were not powerful enough to defeat the few slave traders. The federal union ended when the slave traders took over in 1787.
As to every single owner of slaves, in a land where the slave traders perpetrate their crimes unopposed by moral Rule of Law of sufficient power to end the heinous crime, except for those areas within the federation where people do end the heinous crime within their power to do so, such as Rhode Island; the true nature of the crime is not a collective injury, it is an individual injury done to individual slaves, in individual times, and individual places. All that is needed in Rule of Law is for each individual victim to gain access to Rule of Law as one more member of the whole people are accepted as such, not as property. The accuser (victim of slavery) is given the same due process given to every other accuser, and if a crime (such as slavery) is in progress, then the defenders defend the victim, and the accused is offered their trial by jury.
http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/03/black_slave_owners_did_they_exist.html
Had the criminal slave traders failed (against true moral law opposition, such as the moral opposition offered by Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, and George Mason, to name only 3) to capture (by fraud) the former federation, and had the criminal slave traders failed to turn the former federation into a criminal, tyrannical, despotic, Consolidated Nation State, the crime of slavery would have ended because the crime would no longer pay well enough to inspire greedy people to invest in that specific evil.
Those on the blind side appear not to be able to understand the stark difference between a guilty criminal and an innocent victim. It is not about race, religion, gender, or party, those who perpetrate crimes leave behind a number of injured victims until such time as their crime spree no longer pays so well.
Well, I for one am glad we have outlawed slavery at last.
Scholar Beardpig offers:
For purposes of Debate on the Topic Titled Divisions along Rule of Law versus Criminal Rule, the term “federal” can have as many meanings as anyone cares to employ during Debate.
When I employ the meaning of the word I borrow the meaning offered by John Adams as recorded by Thomas Jefferson, in the publication known as Elliot’s Debates Volume I, and I do so because the meaning makes sense in that context.
With that in mind:
For your purpose you can use the meaning of the word to mean “over” and “under” as it suits whatever purpose you have in mind.
As soon as the “over” no longer addresses a formal Redress of Grievances is as soon as the “over” turns from voluntary association according to Rule of Law, and that places the “under” in a position of accepting or defending against the criminal actions perpetrated by the outlaw who no longer addresses a formal Redress of Grievances.
If the defenders choose defense instead of subjugation (slavery) then those “under” no longer obey the order to pay the excise tax, for example, and then when the “over” perpetrates the crime of Aggressive War, the “under” becomes the “over” in fact when the former “over” is driven out of the country, surrendering, and leaving behind a fair amount of carnage caused by the former “over.”
You have managed what I thought would be impossible. This is even harder to comprehend than all you have written before.