The bizarre conspiracy theory regarding the title "esquire"

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Has anyone asked if this also applies to sheriffs, or more correctly shire reeves?

Actually, forget it. I don’t want to know how the minds of sovereign citizens work. I don’t drink enough for that.

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Rudy Giuliani, Esquire.

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Here you are, openly admitting on the internet in front of God and everyone, that you can supply no men-at-arms. Truly you have abased yourself. How far you have fallen, Fred.

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As a lawyer, I studiously avoid anyone who features this appendage.

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I was just about to tell you the nutty details of how they run some of that shit here (there’s a written and relatively recent constitution so it should be pretty straightforward to debunk bullshit) but I’m going to save you all. Nobody needs to actually have their bullshit debunked.

Well I did know a couple of people that started saying precursor stuff to it rather than being fully fledged. I answered every single thing they said with a “no” and then an affirmation of what the law actually was. Either it worked or they just don’t say anything to me any more.

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Oh, please give details. I’m fascinated about how it would work without wandering into Tom Maguire-style republican legitimism, faux nostalgia for the union with Britain, or some kind of High-King monarchism.

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Well there are several flavours (which of course you can spout at the same time even if they’re inconsistent) ranging from the 1916 declaration of a republic is the legitimate state, all that legal person shit which makes literally no sense here at all, and “sheriffs or bailiffs or barristers” aren’t in the constitution so they have no legal authority /existence. You can make that argument about anything you don’t like as constitutions aren’t big on detail in general. Usually my complaint about any amdenent we make is that there are too many words, stop early, don’t provide details. In this case a tiny glance at Article 37 (which is iirc the same text as in the previous constitution so if that’s you magic woo state that’s the real one it still holds) would show that there is a provision for laws for all the offices not mentioned. I guess there are some weirdos into the commonwealth or something but I think most of them here are knuckle dragging nationalists.

As an aside I’m a pretty strong proponent of removing a LOT of the constitution. Far too may words, most of those relating to God bothering. Also property rights need to be amended, right to housing added.

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It also means that you can’t trust anyone who practices law to tell you what the law actually means, which fits nicely into their batshit worldview.

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This is fairly nuanced in the American legal community. In some jurisdictions it’s commonplace for lawyers to refer to themselves and others as “Esq.” In others it’s considered pretentious and scoffed at, and in still others it’s considered a rule that you apply it as an honorific when referring to other lawyers in correspondence, but never to yourself (kind of like “the honorable”).

Some lawyers in those regions parse even further, applying it but only in contexts where it is not otherwise immediately obvious that you are referring to a lawyer (so never in e.g. settlement negotiation, but maybe in general correspondence).

In my mind it’s representative of the unfortunate tension between those who see legal practice as one of formality in the names of both precision and veneration of systems of justice, vs. those who feel anything that smacks of “Law French” is unnecessary, self-aggrandizing gatekeeping.

Personally I like the anachronism and its ties to these old concepts of civility and serving as officers of the court bound to uphold the principles of our society, but with so many lawyers inexplicably preferring to see themselves less like secular clergy and more like culture mechanics, it’s rarely an argument worth having.

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Not a lawyer, and I’ve often enjoyed using the term “Esquire”, once I found out via dictionary that it literally means nothing.

It makes perfect sense that lawyers would adopt it, just from the even necessary professional view that if there is no law forbidding it there’s no reason not to take advantage of it.

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I assume David Dodge also found the evidence of three quarters of the states voting to enact this amendment? Certainly he could cross reference the state legislative records of that era to prove his case… I don’t know why he might be reluctant to pursue that line of investigation.

Constitutional amendments aren’t something you can just slip in at the last minute unnoticed.

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That’s a nice perspective. In my neck of the woods, it is used exclusively as something for a lawyer to tack onto their name to boost their prestige or something like that, and not informative or necessary in any way where ‘attorney at law’ can always be appended when clarification is necessary.

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I do wonder how the hell that got into that book. Presuming it actually was in that book of course, and he didn’t just make it up and then “lost” the book.

Edit: article answers, which is also fascinating to know about history:

the amendment was never ratified by enough of the states to be enacted. It was printed in some legal texts as though it had been ratified, but Silversmith writes that, due to a chaotic government (dealing with both new states and new wars) and poor communication infrastructure, there were frequent misprintings and uncertainty about what exactly was and was not in the Constitution.

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The fringe flag is almost the low bar of their … unique interpretation of the law. They have all kinds of ideas about grammar and capitalization providing immunity or grants of free money. It gets wild.

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Loved that link. When judges get snarky its extra delicious:

“…Unfortunately for Defendant Greenstreet, decor is not a determinant for jurisdiction.”

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Even if it was a title of nobility. It wouldn’t have been one bestowed by a foreign government. :man_shrugging:

We shouldn’t wrestle too much trying to make sense of the unsound logic of crackpots. But what’s impressive is that they always seemed to sell lots of books. People are hungry for some secret knowledge that overturns mainstream assumptions.

It’s a way for them to feel like they’ve had a reverse of status. Low status individuals who are perpetually looking up to the top, suddenly feel empowered by hidden knowledge that proves they’re really one of the chosen ones and deserve to be in charge. It’s all fun an games until they use violence to actually take charge.

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OT, but this reminds me of my FIL’s favorite joke: Someone would ask, “What’s for dessert?” and he’d say, "Desert the table! Isn’t that a good dessert? WELL ISN’T IT?

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So what does that mean for self-titled William S. Preston, Esquire?

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Me on the other hand? This dude is my bro:

image

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