Wait!
We only hear of the few *failures *of the FoTL defenses. Their many successes are not recorded in the same manner as the bogus sham admiralty court records that the shadow government feeds the sheeple and therefore are not paraded about by the puppet media shills.
My favorite is that they claim they are independent of the US laws while using our streets, enjoying public protection, etc.
My favorite is that they claim they are independent of the US laws while using our streets, enjoying public protection, etc. Oh and the confirming the consequest fallacy. All admiralty courts have flags with gold fringe therefore anywhere there is a gold fringe is an admiralty court.
If words had half the power these bozos think they have, we English majors would be Kings. Kings, I tell you!
The FBI regards the various sovereign citizen groups, FOTL and their ilk as ‘domestic terrorists’
I’m sure some of them are in it for the scam (there was a case locally where a man used the FOTL defense after he broke into a home, changed the locks and treated it as his own. When the owners got back from vacation, they had to go to court to get their home back. Fraud, forgery, and so on were involved)
The rest of the believers are clearly mentally disturbed. I suppose the DSM will come out with a new diagnosis for it soon.
Darn prescriptivists!
Yes, I’m a linguistics major.
Not necessarily. When they first started appearing in court on criminal matters, it wasn’t uncommon for a judge to send them off for psych assessments, to see if they were competent to handle their defence.
In most cases the answer came back that they were competent, and just believed extremely strongly in an unusual ideology.
I don’t know about the rest of you, and I certainly don’t want to defend the guy shooting the video, but ISTM that the officer was a little hasty in reaching for his taser. We can’t see what the “freeman” was doing to provoke him, but he didn’t seem to be particularly violent or threatening. Obnoxious as hell, yes. Dangerous? Not so much. But I wasn’t there, of course.
But why didn’t the officer just say, “I’m a sheriff. You must obey me.” That would have shut the freeman up, right?
Holy crap! That decision is 86,000 words! The length of an average novel!
You’re right that he is very amusing, and an extraordinarily clear writer, but I didn’t have time to read 86,000 words. Especially since it’s very depressing to see how completely immune to anything resembling logic or clear thought these OPCA litigants are.
But high praise to Justice Rooke for his extraordinary effort.
Nope. It wouldn’t have.
I’m not sure if ‘competent to handle defense’ is the only kind of mental illness that is relevant. Since I’m not a psychologist I’ll just use the general term psychosis. It’s a break from reality. Someone with paranoid psychosis may be able to be able to testify in court, but if they keep accusing innocent people of stealing their money and taking them to court, they’re still mentally ill.
These FOTL / soverign whatsits people are clearly nutjobs to use a technical term. Which variety of nut, no idea.
To say the FotL type are insane gets you onto really, really, slippery territory.
Exactly how different is “My Birth Certificate is a bond worth some fraction of the net value of the country”
and
“The Bible is God’s word and must be obeyed or you will go to Hell?”
If you protect one, you need to protect both.
If either is presented as a legal argument, neither is to be accepted.
A sat through a YouTube of some fellow who was doing a presentation of the vanilla FotL bit.
Completely rational, friendly fellow in what looked to be a conference room at a motel.
He starts by saying that he is a carpenter by trade, and all he knows is how to bang boards together - if you want legal advice, talk to a lawyer. If you want accounting advice, see an accountant". Then he goes into this incredible spiel of law and accounting, including how your natural person is a different entity that the one which holds the millions or billions.
And I did read Rooke’s findings. A fantastic document completely accessible to laymen.
One concept he hit on was brilliant: These nutters love to present strange documents in various colors of ink and referencing many documents, none of which have a bit of relevance. It seems that Canadian Law allows the Court to assess fees based, at least in part, on the time spent hearing the case. The good Justice’s suggestion: Issue the clerks stamps reading “Accepted” or some such to be used on obviously fantasy documents - this keeps them out of the actual casework. Then inform the twit that the Court will accept and read the papers, but only for the purpose of calculation court costs.
Until it gets more expensive to screw around than it is to pay a lawyer, these nuts will persist.
I would love one of these judges when they are having them jailed for contempt say to the Bailiff, “Throw him in the brig.” I saw one video of a guy I’ll call Cooter in his possum huntin’ outfit tell the judge that his body resided at the address given but he was a natural man living in that body and that under natural law he has a right to hunt and feed his belly. The charge apparently stemmed from some sort of hunting or poaching violation so he may have actually had a case of an indigent not starving or “My grandpappy hunted these hills.” rather than FOTLBS.
SaiNt: of the clan CAD. I do not bind myself to any contracts. Use of any letter in the name of my fictitious body constitutes trademark infringement and you agree to pay me $1 quintillion in gold for each violation.
They’ll just mark the bill “Accepted for value” / “a4v” and keep going.
Wait a minute! I just had a brilliant idea to help FMOTL types!
If you become a slave by your parents filing for a birth certificate, and you’re owned by someone or some entity right? Well isn’t a master financially and legally responsible for their slaves since slaves are by definition property?
Bingo bango, if you have a BC you’re not responsible for any legal or civil rulings or sentences, your master is!
So just tell the court you’re a slave, and prosecute or rule against financially my master!
God I’m a genius!
Perhaps you were unaware or forgot that these “soveriegn citizen” FOTL type believe that only sheriffs have legitimate legal authority. It was one of the claims that rancher/criminal/nutjob Cliven Bundy was making.
If that court officer had claimed he was a sheriff, the guy might have been cowed into submission.
But you’re right, probably not.
I can assure you the State CAN find ways of extracting real money.
There are multiple Youtube videos of this nut out there, including a couple by actual TV news corporations. Short version is that he has a charge sheet as long as your arm and a history of antognising the locals officers into tasering him, including trying to take a pistol into the court room. He is currently suing them for a bajillion dollars.
IOW he is well known to those court officials. He has a long history of antagonism towards them, they and various judges have explained all this too him before and they feel threatened by his behaviour.
Under the circumstances they showed admirable restraint. If some nut with a history of like that tried to force his way through me, I wouldn’t give him any warning at all.
Thanks for that explanation.