Correct, and AFAIK (and IANAHistorian or Political Scientist) neither Jefferson nor the other founders explicated or explicitly defended this concept of “the governed as a whole”—a concept that you have to admit seems a bit suspect from an objective standpoint. All the other arguments the founders made seem to depend on individual rights, but when you get to this “consent of the governed” thing, suddenly you’re talking about some collective? The “freemen” seem correct in inferring that IF the government and the founders are logically consistent then there must be some intermediate step by which an individual willingly becomes part of this whole. Rather than admit that their premise might be flawed, they dedicate themselves to finding this missing step somewhere in the arcane structures of the law, whence we get all the nonsense about Admiralty law and gold fringes. They are searching for something that doesn’t exist, and so they resort to “finding” it in anything they don’t understand.
Does it really? I don’t agree that this is either objective or seemingly correct.
I don’t really see how it’s that complicated objectively. When they talk about individual rights, they are talking about specific rights in the face of government authority. But for any of the governmental structures they created to have any meaning there has to be a government, and every time a majority or minority is mentioned, it implies that the majority can, under certain circumstances, force its will upon the minority. An individual is just a minority of one. That’s what is logically consistent.
Seems to me that their parents consented to government on their behalf by choosing to have their child acquire US citizenship by birth.
But what’s the philosophical rationale for it? You go straight from wanting the government to have meaning to allowing force upon the minority. But what’s the justification for wanting to empower the structures of government and why do those justifications warrant infringing upon the agreed upon rights of the minority to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
Keep in mind, I agree with you that it is justified for the majority to impose its will (in certain circumstances) upon the minority, but I don’t think (and neither do the FOTL) that you can find that justification if you limit yourself to the arguments put forth explicitly by the founders. And again, the basis of FOTL/sovereign citizen thought is the (false!) idea that the laws and the justifications for the laws put forth by the founders must be explicitly logical. Someone above likened it to Kirk trying to trick Nomad into a logical trap. It’s not enough for them to say “Clearly the founders must have thought majority rule was acceptable or they wouldn’t have established it.” If the government didn’t show its work in getting from the premises of natural law to the conclusion of majority rule, the whole thing broken because of a giant loophole that surely (they think) the courts will acknowledge if it’s pointed out to them.
I agree with you, but that goes against the 17th century Protestant philosophy that led to the idea of individual rights and that (according to the FOTL) forms the only legitimate basis for law. What are you, some kind of Papist? 
I sometimes wonder if the political theory of the Founders had at its root a contradiction: trying to reconcile a natural philosophy that’s ultimately anarchic while still retaining government. If you take natural rights seriously at face value, you come to the conclusion that there shouldn’t be any government at all, like an L. Neil Smith libertarian utopia. But that would lead to a power vacuum and the reimposition of tyranny, as the then not-so-long-ago example of Cromwell showed. So then the best that could be done was to deliberately create a preemptive. limited tyranny as a sort of vaccine to even worse alternatives.
In general, I am concerned about the appearance that law enforcement agents are turning to tasers as their FIRST line of response to any resistance or confrontation, rather than as an intermediary step between conversing and use of lethal force. While tasers are generally non-lethal and usually non-injurious, there are people who and conditions where they are dangerous. That’s why Canada has scrutinized their policy, and I approve.
Training is also important to differentiate resistance and fighting back with motion from reacting to pain, etc.
Inform him that he will not be allowed in, and trying to force his way past is grounds for arrest. Advise him that they are placing him under arrest. Tell him to put his hands behind his back, try to physically position him. If he does not comply, instruct him that they will taze him if he fails to comply.
I have to wonder if that played a role in the slow response in the courtroom. They took their time double checking and conferring on the radio in order not to disrupt the proceedings. I assume their intent was to arrest him as soon as they cleared the courtroom, except he exited with the rest of the crowd.
He was physically there so he could present his case that they did not have proper jurisdiction. He had to go to them physically to have the conversation.
Agreed. They seemed to flounder for a while with his passive resistance, but took extra strong action when he made the mildest active resistance.
Interesting, and it has two cites of The Straight Dope.
Technically, when he physically tried to push past the guards, that was assault. It was not violent and not causing harm or potential harm, but it did change from passive resistance (refusing to comply) to active resistance.
Agreed.
That is on the long version. Since he refuses to turn off the camera and refuses to leave, they begin to clear the courtroom. I assume they were going to then confront him again and arrest him for whatever (disrupting the peace, failure to comply, whatever), but he chose to leave with the rest of the crowd, thus relieving the situation. So when he’s standing around in the lobby area, they apparently are conferring on how to proceed. I assume that is when they agreed on the plan to block his access and arrest him if he tried to push his way in.
Yeah, that jumped out at me. I notice mom wasn’t quite so eager to push the camera issue a second time. Then again, there is one moment when she tells him “I want to to do what they tell you”, so she wasn’t fully as committed as he was.
Are you trying to create joinder between his toes???
And that the elites who created this system were smart enough to do it but stupid enough to leave loopholes gaping enough for a lukewarm-IQ teenager to exploit.
If Zimbabwe’s rules worked and had a greater consensus amongst Americans than current laws, then, I guess you’re right.
I’m not sure where Chimera is coming from with his (her?) remark. Canada is a common-law country, as is the USA (and the UK, Australia, India, and to the best of my knowledge, Zimbabwe). Most “common law” countries take their system of law from the British tradition. In this regard, Canada is no different from the US: stare decisis rules. What this means is different caselaw, same result.
That being said, I’ve been doing some research into the Freeman stuff (including caselaw), and there are some differences between the US and Canada in this regard. Perhaps most laughable is the fact that Canadian freemen seem to think that the United States constitution and statutes apply here in Canada; at least, according to the documents they foist on authorities. I’ve reviewed Canadian freemen documents that cite the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, the American UCC, Magna Carta, and the US Code. None of the above apply here in Canada.
In short, law works in Canada the same way it does in the US; and as a result, the freemen’s arguments are just as worthless here as they are in the US.
Zimbabwe is a common-law country in a procedural sense; that is, its courts follow precedent and the rule of stare decisis and so on. But the substantive law of Zimbabwe is not the English common law but the Roman-Dutch common law (“the law in force in the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope on 10th June, 1891, as modified by subsequent legislation”) which it shares with South Africa and other countries in the region.
Magna Carta? I’d consider it to be part of Canada’s Constitution. (Not that it would be of any use to the nutters.) All the US law would not be binding, of course, but might be persuasive (again, not that it would be of any use to the nutters).
Here’s an interesting brief from the Parliamentary Information and Research Service that asserts that the Magna Carta is part of our legal heritage and influential, but it is just an ordinary statute and is not part of our Constitution.
But is there even a single clause in the Magna Carta that hasn’t been superseded by subsequent law?
Arguably, due process, which was received in the BNA, although s. 7-14 of the '82 Charter would seem to cover it.
(The more I look at it, the more I think I’m wrong with respect to my opinion that the Magna Carta is a constitutional document – it’s the concept that is entrenched, not the document.)
For what it’s worth (from Wiki):
That’s my understanding. Magna Carta is part of our constitutional heritage, certainly. But the important rights (habeas corpus, for example) granted by it have been superseded by the Constitution and the the Charter.
It typically isn’t, and it appears in many cases as if documents have been copied and pasted from American websites or similar documents originating in the US. It’s kind of amusing to be reading through court documents filed in a Canadian court by a Canadian freeman, and find an assertion of his Fourth Amendment rights, with no reference made at all to Charter s. 8.
Well, you know, Canada, Inc., is a Delaware corporation and a wholly-owned subsidiary of The United States of America, Inc., currently in hock to the British Crown, Ltd., which is in turn majority-owned by the Bilderburgers, a private corporation based out of Malta.
Ultimately, the chain of ownership traces back to Larry “Bud” Melman, who faked his own death and is really a heck of a guy.
I know you’re having a little fun, but my research has indicated that some (not all) Canadian freemen really do believe that “Canada Inc.” is incorporated under the laws of the United States; and that the head office (i.e. capital) of Canada Inc. is not Ottawa, but the Canadian embassy in Washington DC.
I wonder if that means that the huge fund that governments have attached to Canadian freemen’s birth (or berth; they use the spelling interchangeably) certificates comes from the US treasury, or the Bank of Canada? 