Originally published at: Mayor to sovereign citizen demanding private information about staff: "Go f✴ck yourself" - Boing Boing
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Sometimes you need to speak in a language some folks understand.
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it would surely be cheaper and more ethical to just provide any relevant public records addressed by the request and deal with the problem when it actually happens.
Um, no.
That’s reactive thinking, and that generally causes harm in the very short term. What the Mayor did was proactive, with an intention on avoiding harm, and that level of response is entirely warranted.
And a SovCit’s primary tool is harassment, and that shit is damned hard to stop on a reactive basis- the best response is stopping it before it can even start, preferably with a subtextual message of “We will not tolerate this shit, PERIOD.”
(Apologies if it seems harsh, but having been harassed in the past by bullies, one learns to spot the precursors to harassment early.)
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I was going to make a very similar statement, especially in response to this part:
Though a satisfying response to pests who want to disrupt services, incur costs or harass workers, it would surely be cheaper and more ethical to just provide any relevant public records addressed by the request and deal with the problem when it actually happens.
Dealing with “the problem when it actually happens” is a day late and dollar short if “the problem” is “we made it easier for some sov cit knob to commit a violent offense, and they obliged.”
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Indeed. SovCits are very stupid people and don’t take a hint. If you treat them as if their behavior was just part of ordinary business, they think they are making progress and will keep at it.
Drop the professional pretense, and tell SovCits how you really feel. They’re too dense to figure it out any other way.
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When SovCits send nonsensical documents and the recepient doesn’t dignify them with a response, they take it as proof that their beliefs are true and their methods are effective.
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The other issue is, are the names and addresses of staff public information? I would assume for elected and appointed officials, the answer would be yes. But for hired staff? I wouldn’t think that would be generally public information. But maybe it is. If it is, then the person requesting the information can go through proper legal channels to force the mayor to release the information. Oh wait…he’s a sovereign citizen. He doesn’t recognize the authority of the state. How’s he going to go through proper legal channels if he doesn’t respect proper legal channels? What a conundrum for him.
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I don’t know about New Zealand, but AFAIK home addresses of public officials in the UK are not public information, with a few exceptions like the Prime Minister’s residence in 10 Downing Street.
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Our agencies had interactions with individuals of a similar ilk referring to themselves as “auditors” - typically with phone on record bothering employees in parking lots or attempting access into buildings. We have directives on how to defuse these situations or point them to proper public info request channels.
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This is somehow very … British … and reminds me of Private Eye’s famous Arkell vs Pressdam response.
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See here Basically, the examples given show that a private address is absolutely private information, and even the police are not entitled to it without a warrant.
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I’d vote for him.
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Nope. s 6 & 9 of the NZ Official Information Act 1982 allow for information to be withheld to protect both the safety and privacy of individuals.
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SovCits love their magical incantations. This one should do the job.
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We had one of those “auditors” come to Georgia a few years ago. I think he was from Maryland. He was going from county to county and basically invading courthouses and police stations. The courthouse thing was weird, because he very easily could have recorded something not allowed - jury members, witnesses, etc. I dont think he knew it but he was on thin ice.
However he went on a couple counties over and announced by his youtube channel that he was going to try this with that police department.
Whatever happened there went badly wrong for him - by the next day he had deleted his entire youtube channel.
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Len Salt of the Earth.
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I’m currently reading Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapiens”, and he goes on a great deal about “imagined orders”. A modern state is an “imagined order” backed by years of precedent and tacitly endorsed by a large number of people (most of whom almost certainly understand only a tiny fragment of whatever it is that they’re endorsing).
I could have a fleeting respect for SovCits if they pointed out that the state is simply a (semi-)consensual legal fiction that has validity only because we choose to believe in it. That’s certainly true. But it misses the point that this legal fiction owns a great many handcuffs and guns and is supported by people willing to wield both. If you wish to replace the prevailing legal fiction with one of your own choosing, you must either find more people willing to back your imagined order, or more guns, or both.
The particular idiocy of SovCits isn’t even that they think they can replace the established imagined order by one of their own invention, one that is uniquely beneficial to them, and which is endorsed only by them and a few of their brain-wormed friends. It’s that they think they can do so by chanting what are in effect incantations, magical strings of nonsense syllables that they believe will cause the servants of the existing order to suddenly change their beliefs and embrace the SovCit’s personal fantasy world. And not only are they trying to work magic, but it’s sympathetic magic. SovCit hocus-pocus mimics the magical incantations that underpin the modern state, rather in the same way that the cargo cults of Melanesia built fake runways and airplanes to try to summon back their sometime US occupiers with their cornucopia of Free Stuff.
There are magical incantations that can overturn imagined orders, but they tend to sound like “¡Viva la revolucion!” or “A bas les aristos!” or even “We the people …” They work by convincing a critical mass of people to reject the current imagined order and embrace a new one. Numbly reciting SovCit cod legalese and declaring that the courtroom flag is the wrong shape is going to do diddly-squat to win anyone over to your cause, and you’re stupid to even try it.
SovCits are Law of Attraction revolutionaries. They don’t want to do the work. They believe that if they clap their hands and say that they believe in fairies, it will change something. Well, guess what, dumbass? Tinkerbell is still dead, and you’re going to jail.
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Likewise the followers of Romana Didulo think that they can overthrow the supposedly illegitimate Canadian government by printing copies of Didulo’s “royal decrees” and sending them to whichever government department, bank, utility company, insurance company, etc. they have a beef with.
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Yes, but according to Wikipedia, she has (or claims to have) “high-level extraterrestrial connections”, so that’s totally different.
Also, she fought Chinese communists in secret tunnels under Canada, which surely has to count for something.
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I know that being a senior public servant in certain fields, such as a judge, is sometimes a justification to have your name and address silent on the electoral roll in Australia.
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