We must work together within the law, for we ARE THE LAW.
The neat part about countries and sovereignty is - it only works if others agree with you. I mean theoretically a small group, say a county in a state, COULD declare sovereignty and it would work if the US acknowledged it, and/or a bulk of the world powers.
If I were Putin I would offer anyone who makes a flag and laid boundaries recognition. Just to fuck with the US gov. more.
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Emperor Norton managed to get folks to respect his authority, but he had a slick uniform and was much more polite. He was arrested once, but the public was outraged and the arresting officer’s superior ordered him released. Norton was kind enough to issue a royal pardon to the arresting officer. That dude know how to handle himself like someone worthy of respect.
Now if we can just get that bridge renamed…
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I like to call them “Constitutionalists.” I see them from time to time in criminal hearings here in California. My experience is that they travel in packs, and try to support each other with legal advice. The last time I saw a group of them, one of the pack had written a “motion to dismiss” a criminal complaint for another member of the pack (I can only imagine what the contents were). When the judge asked the author if he was a lawyer, the author said “well, I haven’t taken the bar.” The judge told the author to sit down, and without skipping a beat said “the motion is denied” and set a date for the arraignment. Afterwards, outside of the courtroom, another member of the pack was shouting in very loud tones that the defendant “NEEDED A WRIT OF MANDAMUS!” I saw the defendant later when he was by himself, and I begged him to ask for a public defender.
In any event, I don’t remember the last time I said this, but kudos to the deputy for his polite and professional behavior.
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I appreciate respect for people, even when they employ asshattery. At least they’re trying?
We’re fucked, aren’t we?
shakes head
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About 24 years ago, my first Summer in Chicago, I spotted an ad in the Chicago Reader about a weekly meeting of anarchist in Lincoln Park. (I think it was every Sunday at 2 PM, but it’s been a lot time, so I could be off on that!) I was young and curious, and seeking exploration of new ideas, so I went to a few of the meetings. Now first of all, if the idea of a scheduled set meeting for anarchist is funny, you’ll be as amused as I was over how orderly the meetings were run. Even then, I knew Robert’s Rules of Order when I heard them, and they were big on the “proper” way to take turns addressing the group, asking questions, etc. What it came down to was that this group wanted to complain about current conditions, dream of a better way for things to be (without too many specific details, of course), and not really reject organized society very much at all. (It also became clear very quickly that none of them really had much knowledge of history, or how various pieces of society fit together.)
All in all, they weren’t a bad lot, but they were frustrated, more than a little naive, and quite a bit unfocused. I could certainly see the attraction, especially since none of them did anything more aggressive towards achieving their “goal” of anarchy than handing out photocopied pamphlets that could be best summed up as “Having to work for a living sucks.” I’m sure at least some of the group would have been right at home in this sovereign citizens kind of group, although the SC movement sounds a lot more right wing survivalist type than the intellectual stoner types organizing that anarchy.
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I’ll admit to not having seen the actual post, just some of the replies to it, but am I correct in assuming that the poster probably wouldn’t accept that those rules applied to them anyway?
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Diplomats aren’t.
(To be clear, she’s crazy, and she’s not a diplomat - just saying that there are people from other countries who aren’t subject to local laws.)
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as i see it, the rights which confer responsibility are not the same as those which are inalienable. for instance, while free association should be inalienable, incorporation - which requires contract and tax law - conveys responsibilities.
this is where i think libertarians, and sovereign folks go off the rails. money is not speech, and property is not an inalienable right.
money is something we invented. it only has value at scale because of law. similar with property. both, the pessimist in me believes, will always exist and will always require threat of force.
so, if you want my government to protect your contracts, then you’d sure better pay your taxes, keep your money out of my electoral process, and stop polluting my air with your chemicals.
we are all so used to moden society we believe “but it’s mine” is an argument with some sort of real, intrinsic meaning.
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Diplomatic immunity doesn’t work that way. Diplomats can’t be hauled into court and charged with a crime, but they can be arrested and they can be expelled, and depending on the policies of their country of origin they may then be subject to trial back home. Usually the diplomat’s government will pull them for anything much more serious than traffic violations before a formal expulsion, in the interest of smoothing over international incidents. And then that foreign service officer’s career is at an end.
But that Lethal Weapon 2 notion that foreign embassy employees can go around committing felonies with zero repercussions (aside from those dished out by MAVERICK COPS who DON’T PLAY BY THE RULES!) is fanciful to say the least.
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Thank you for that. I see now that what I have been talking about is exclusively the inalienable. In my idiolect, rights are inalienable. Those other things need to be called something else. But that - as I say - is only my idiolect and I have no right to impose it upon others. But it should at least clear up any confusion, so - once more - thank you.
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Lets move beyond the law issue.
Take debt, and in particular state debt. In the UK that’s 12 trillion [when
you include the debts that are hidden off the books].
Should someone born today be born into debt servitude? My view is that
evil.
Should that same person have to consent to service the debt run up by
others? My view is yes. Turns out that everyone would not consent to it on
the grounds that its evil.
But the state needs violence or its threat to force people to pay.
Hence the question of consent is very relevant.
The more general argument, should you be forced to do things by the state
that harm yourself, or should you have to consent to that.
At the end, what’s the role of the state.
My view, its to protect people against harm done to them by others.
The problem, what happens when the state causes the harm?
No, at least not individually.
That’s the whole point of having a state.
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I have a different view.
The state’s role is to protect you from harm caused by others. I can’t see you arguing against that.
So when the state is the actor causing the harm, what should an individual do?
But the state will inevitably weigh people’s interests against each other and take sides. Someone is going to get hurt.
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It’s worse than that.
If you look at the UK and its state pension [your Social security system], even a minimum wage earner is shafted in their old age.
The state has shafted everyone.
If ‘almost certainly won’t be arrested or charged by local authorities, tried in local courts or serve time in local prisons; if any of these things happen, it’s a rare exception, even for serious crimes’ is your definition of ‘subject to local laws’, then I don’t know what to say, except you’re wrong.
Recent history is replete with examples of diplomatic officials committing far worse than ‘traffic offences’ and essentially walking. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_immunity#Uses_and_abuses_of_diplomatic_immunity.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center has a useful primer”
What the hell did I just read. It seems like something that a schizophrenic would create.
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Now now. Schizophrenics aren’t responsible for the contents of their hallucinations.
But, yeah, Sovereign Citizens are a special kind of wingnutty, at the intersection of conspiratorial thinking, magical thinking and wishful thinking (plus a heaping helping of libertarian “I got mine, screw you” attitude).
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I don’t know anything about the group you encountered, but Anarchism is usually about rejecting hierarchical society, not organised society.
“Anarchy is organization, organization and more organization” - Errico Malatesta
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