The Strawman Illusion

[vanlose kid]

...

whatever man.

*

[Bruce Dazzling]

I understand, Bruce. But the development of the idea of the sovereign citizen as a movement in American culture springs directly from racist ideas, particularly Christian Identity and the writings and proselytizing of Colonel Willam Potter Gale.

One of Swift's associates was retired Col. William Potter Gale (1917–1988). Gale had apparently been an aide to General Douglas MacArthur, and had coordinated guerrilla resistance in the Philippines during World War II. Gale became a leading figure in the anti-tax and paramilitary movements of the 1970s and 80s, beginning with the California Rangers and the Posse Comitatus, and helping to found the militia movement. Numerous Christian Identity churches preach similar messages and some espouse more violent rhetoric than others, but all hold to the belief that Aryans are God's chosen race.

Gale introduced future Aryan Nations founder Richard Girnt Butler to Swift. Until then, Butler had admired George Lincoln Rockwell and Senator Joseph McCarthy, but had been relatively secular. Swift quickly converted him to Christian Identity.

For reference, here is an essay by Rev. Gale entitled "Racial and National Identity", in which many of the bases for the "sovereign citizen" probably find their source, at least in the US.

In the study of Law and Government, one finds that our country, the United States of America, is a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC. It is a union of separate, sovereign States formed into the UNION under a compact (contract) between themselves. The original contract was the Articles of Confederation. It is important to understand that the Articles came from the BIBLE and were adopted by the original States to be in effect forever. The actual word used was PERPETUAL, which means “forever.”

The smooth functioning of a so-called federal government was ineffective under the Articles of Confederation, because the States would not give sufficient powers to the agent created by the Articles. As a result, the Constitution of the United States was an effort to improve the situation. The preamble to the Constitution reads: “We the people, in order to form a MORE PERFECT Union..” Our question here is – more perfect that what? Obviously, more perfect that the union that had been formed to be in effect forever under the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution was lifted from the Articles of Confederation and the source of the Articles was the Holy Bible. In fact, all Anglo-Saxon and Christian Law stems from the Bible. We have heard the expression, “A Republic of is a government of LAW, not of MEN, nor of men’s opinions.” We know that God has given His Laws ONLY to His people Israel, who are the White peoples of the earth, and NOT the Jews; and God’s Laws are for nations and governments. It is a strange thing, when one mentions the Bible, most people immediately think of “Church” and “Religion.” In reality, the Bible says nothing about Church and Religion. But it DOES contain God’s Laws for nations and government. MEN may NOT give us LAW. Only our GOD can give us the LAW! If our leaders believe they can be in violation of God’s Laws and receive no punishment for such violation, then let the Supreme Court and the President and the entire Congress of the United States jump off the dome of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. They will receive their punishment when they hit the concrete below.

Because the Articles of Confederation had been adopted to be in effect “forever,” it as necessary to adopt all of those provisions, not picked up by the Constitution, as Statutes known a the United States Code. Along with the Constitution, these Statutes became know as the Organic Law of the United States. It is important to understand that the original States would not accept the Constitution until some matters of power were cleared up.

The Constitution is a CONTRACT between the STATES, and by this contract they were creating an agency known as the “federal government.” The States were not willing to give certain powers to this agent, therefore they did not put the contract into effect until the first tem Amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, were made a part of the original contract. A reading of the first ten Amendments makes it clear that the agency of the States (the federal government) has only those powers which are enumerated for it in the contract. All others remain with the STATES and the PEOPLE. In fact, the federal government has no “rights” whatsoever, only “powers,” and then only those powers which have been enumerated for it in the contract known as the Constitution.

We realize that the Constitution is a Divinely inspired document. This means that our GOD had something to do with it. If God had something to do with it, then the Biblical source is more awe inspiring than we can imagine. We would like to recall to your mind the story of the Identity of the tribes of Israel. Look and SEE THE LIGHT! JESUS CHRIST is the GOD of this Nation!

We conclude this booklet with the recollection of Jesus’ words before Pilate when he said, “DO this now, Pilate, but remember in that day (when I shall return ), MINE WILL FIGHT FOR ME and the Kingdom WILL NOT BE DELIVERED TO THE JEWS.”

Read the whole thing for the full effect.

I'm not saying one can't be interested in these ideas without being a racist, just trying to point out the lineage of these tropes can be sketchy.

Barracuda, I read the essay and some of it is certainly sketchy, but the lineage of just about any trope can be sketchy, depending on where you shine your light.

But back to my main point:

Bruce Dazzling:

I'm simply putting forth the proposition that there are most likely loads of people who are interested in personal sovereignty who are NOT "post-bellum racists attempting to distance themselves from laws which equate their citizenship with that of the freed slaves, or any other individual of their disdain."

That's why I specifically quoted that in my original response.

Of course most of this interpretation exists in order to allow post-bellum racists to distance themselves from laws which equate their citizenship with that of the freed slaves, or any other individual of their disdain. These days that would include illegal immigrants, a crucial issue in Arizona, as we know. In a similar way, the strawman illusion allows one to supersede the manumission on dubious precedents, for dubious purposes.

Further, I'm saying that the above quote is a strawman argument, designed to lump together anyone interested in personal sovereignty, and discredit them as racist.

Now, how many "post-bellum racists attempting to distance themselves from laws which equate their citizenship with that of the freed slaves, or any other individual of their disdain." do you think have read Rev. Gale's "Racial and National Identity," and would cite it as the reason they are fighting the man?

I can tell you for certain that I've looked into the sovereign person movement, and I had never even heard of Rev. Gale, or his essay. I looked into it because I was trying to figure out a way to distance myself from the murderous deeds of the government that uses my tax dollars to dismember brown babies with flying robots, and although I can't prove this, I suspect that many others who get involved with the sovereign person movement do so for similar reasons, again, having absolutely nothing to do with "equating their citizenship with that of the freed slaves, or any other individual of their disdain. "

And again, the sort of broad implication of this quote...

Of course most of this interpretation exists in order to allow post-bellum racists to distance themselves from laws which equate their citizenship with that of the freed slaves, or any other individual of their disdain. These days that would include illegal immigrants, a crucial issue in Arizona, as we know. In a similar way, the strawman illusion allows one to supersede the manumission on dubious precedents, for dubious purposes.

...strikes me as a strawman argument, designed to lump together anyone interested in personal sovereignty, and discredit them as racist.

[JackRiddler]

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This manner of rejecting federal law did originate as a racist revanchism to Reconstruction, but okay, that needn't be the motivation for people taking it up today. The problem is, the idea that current laws don't apply because YOUR NAME is not Your Name still appears to be complete bullshit, a fabricated and confusionist history. If you think simply that the state is illegitimate and its laws don't apply, that's something you can try to defend, you can try to organize a social movement for change around that. But if you want to argue the law doesn't exist and you can render it moot in court because its implementation 140 years ago was somehow illegal or based on a secret doctrine, you're really only fooling yourself and choosing powerlessness -- or else, choosing to be exploited by ideological snake-oil salesmen, many of whom are fascists in the classical sense.

I return to my question because no one's taken it on (except exojuridijk, who has made it clear that they don't teach Strawman doctrine in law school and it has no history of rulings to back it).

As for the Strawman stuff, what I find most problematic in the theory is that its execution requires a highly implausible multi-generational conspiracy, or else a quasi-magical act of mass hypnosis that's lasted for centuries.

Do they teach this stuff in law school? If not, how and when do the judges and other perpetrators of this massive and universal fraud pick up on its existence? Where do they learn that Your Name is not YOUR NAME? When do they join in the fun of fooling everyone else? If there's no institution performing this function, then I must argue as you do, wombaticus, that the theory whatever its basis amounts to useless bullshit. Whatever's being interpreted into the history of Admiralty and Crown law, it doesn't matter without a history, a body of enforcement, court rulings and institutions that actually back any of it. Without those it would be little more than a curiousity of forgotten and therefore powerless language. (On the other hand, if there is an institution carrying this conspiracy, then here's a big WOW for them, because whoever and whatever they are, they make the visions heretofore of the Zion Elders and the Illuminati and the Lizard-Overlords look like pikers.)

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[barracuda]

@ Bruce: Ideas with racist or otherwise disreputable provenance merge into the common vernacular all the time. Unawareness of that provenance doesn't really divorce the impact of the ideas from their roots, though.

A strain of the sovereign citizen movement can be traced from Gale through folks involved in Posse Comitatus (such as Gordon Kahl) to Patriot militia groups such as the Montana Freemen, to the Ron Paul-sponsored Liberty Amendment, up to the present day Strawman Illusionists.

It seems likely that you fit into a different history of tax protesters in America, which we might call anti-war tax protesters - people, like you, who don't want their money used to kill. This line of protest began after the Vietnam War, and continues to this day. But I'd be wary of confusing the history or the aims and motivations of these two groups. Remember, the sovereign citizen defense for tax evasion has never been successful in a US court.

[Joe Hillshoist]

I've spent most of my life in it. As a result I don't own property, never buy new anything and am probably considered part of the underclass.

So fucking what!!!

If I were you I'd want to live like that too, cos it ain't always easy but I have a great life.

It was kind of a flippant comment with the attendant irony of wishing for less, although I do know some wealthy people who'll say stuff like that without realizing what it means.

FWIW, although I've made what some might call a decent salary, due to various circumstances I won't bore you with, at age 47, I own no property, have no savings or pension, and my two most expensive assets are a pretty nice computer and a 12 year old jeep. I'm about 15K in debt and I live in a crappy one room apartment, although it's a short walk from the beach and a bunch of movie theaters. As such I'm planning on taking the Ernest Hemingway retirement plan in maybe another decade. Woo Hoo!!!

Well if you ever get jack of it all that there is a spot on the couch or the spare room if no one's using it.

I didn't mean to have a go, but a for significant part of my life I realised I'd been listening to music about living on the outside, not being part of our western lifestyle as most people claim it.

i love living in the west cos I'm free. I work whenever there is work around, if not, I bludge off the dole. I am involved with at least 3 "community organisations" at any one time, tho how much effort I put in depends what else is going on in my life.

If my computer fucks out I'll usually have a new one within a week if I want it for free by just saying "Oh shit I need a computer" to a few friends.

By the same token if some people ring up needing help I don't mind going and working my guts out - the sort of thing I'd charge 25 buck an hour for, and thats just labour not using my brain - for a day not expecting payment. But I would expect a feed and a couple of beers afterward.

I guess I'm lucky.

[IanEye]

It seems likely that you fit into a different history of tax protesters in America, which we might call anti-war tax protesters - people, like you, who don't want their money used to kill. This line of protest began after the Vietnam War, and continues to this day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Act_of_Conscience

[DrVolin]

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But if you want to argue the law doesn't exist and you can render it moot in court because its implementation 140 years ago was somehow illegal or based on a secret doctrine, you're really only fooling yourself and choosing powerlessness -- or else, choosing to be exploited by ideological snake-oil salesmen, many of whom are fascists in the classical sense.

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That's always been my impression of tax protestors. If I was going to be a tax protestor, I would make sure that I've paid the IRS in full, and then I would go to court and argue that they're not allowed to take it in the first place. Otherwise, you're just making sure that the court's attention is on your actions and not theirs.

[nathan28]

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But if you want to argue the law doesn't exist and you can render it moot in court because its implementation 140 years ago was somehow illegal or based on a secret doctrine, you're really only fooling yourself and choosing powerlessness -- or else, choosing to be exploited by ideological snake-oil salesmen, many of whom are fascists in the classical sense.

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That's always been my impression of tax protestors. If I was going to be a tax protestor, I would make sure that I've paid the IRS in full, and then I would go to court and argue that they're not allowed to take it in the first place. Otherwise, you're just making sure that the court's attention is on your actions and not theirs.

Well said. I promise to get to the thing about the Freemen this evening.

[nathan28]

As promised and broken, with a special appearance by Hugh Manatee Wins's favorite LaRouchite Scientologist Ku Klux Klan sympathizer, Bo Gritz!

My contention here is that the "sovereign individual" crap as manifested in the Strawman theory derives directly from "Common Law" as practiced and understood by the Patriot movement (as opposed to actual common law). Simply put, you cannot invoke any of this stuff without turning the first corner and finding their ugly shit, and my intuition is that this is intentional. There's a reason why people are passing around the Strawman Illusion and not links to anarchosyndicalist films.

@ Bruce: Ideas with racist or otherwise disreputable provenance merge into the common vernacular all the time. Unawareness of that provenance doesn't really divorce the impact of the ideas from their roots, though.

A strain of the sovereign citizen movement can be traced from Gale through folks involved in Posse Comitatus (such as Gordon Kahl) to Patriot militia groups such as the Montana Freemen, to the Ron Paul-sponsored Liberty Amendment, up to the present day Strawman Illusionists.

It seems likely that you fit into a different history of tax protesters in America, which we might call anti-war tax protesters - people, like you, who don't want their money used to kill.

Posse Comitatus was founded in 1969 by Mike Beach (Henry L. Beach) alongside Gale. Beach was in the Silver Shirts, a group of paramilitary (they weren't very good at it, though, usually ending up on the receiving end of blows) Nazi sympathizers during the 1930s and 1940s. Beach wrote Posse Comitatus's Blue Book (presumably a reference to the Blue Book, a canonical legal style manual), a guide to establishing sovereign "townships" through the "Common Law" of the "organic Constitution". The "organic Constitution" is the terminology of the Christian Constitutionalists for the U.S. Const. prior to the 13th Amendment; the Xian Const'lists held that the "organic Constitution" was divinely inspired and therefore had to be interpreted via Biblical law. Obviously, if everything after the 13th Amend. isn't valid, neither is the 18th, so for Posse Comitatus, taxes were unconstitutional.

Did you catch that? The 13th Amend., you know, THE ONE THAT OUTLAWS SLAVERY, is illegal according to your Common Law Constitutional Heroes. Ask yourself if you really want to draw on these people's legal theories. As far as the Biblical think, I don't think many of them call for pork to be outlawed or even understand WTF it means that a woman who gave birth is "unclean" for so many days, but I could be wrong.

At the same time, during the Montana Freemen trials, when the sovereign individual Dana Dudley Landers was present in court: As "a Christian woman," under Common Law, she was forbidden to speak so her husband would have to speak for her. Likewise, the Montana Freemen only held that "non-14th Amendment citizens" are valid "citizens" or sovereign individuals under Common Law. In case you didn't realize it, that means "white males". Those a canonical interpretation in "Common Law". Again, ask yourself if you really want to be drawing on this species of archaic, deprecated 'legal' theory.

In any event, Posse Comitatus's interpretations became popular in the late 1970s and 1980s among farmers, because many of them were facing foreclosure, loans, unmeetable tax burdens, etc., largely because of the de facto austerity programming of Paul Volker's Federal Reserve. What's a good way to avoid getting the farm foreclosed on? Declare it a "sovereign township", better yet, declare that the courts filed suit against an imaginary entity that does not exist in reality and therefore cannot enforce orders or rulings against that entity.

This was the period where suicides among farmers began to increase dramatically in the US. The media largely ignored the phenomenon. Corporations replaced smaller operations, essentially displacing almost an entire class of skilled people who now had no outlet for their professional training and skills. They went from managing farms to working as security guards at Kmart, if they work at all. So you have a lot of people who have a lot of reasons to be suspicious towards both "globalists" in the form of multinational corporations as well as the Federal Reserve.

Anyway, who runs the Fed, which had just bankrupted rural America to the benefit of globe-spanning corporations? Bankers, OMG, internationalist bankers... which sounds a lot like "International Jew", something no one on the Xian Patriot right really attempts to hide. So now the pressure is really on the Freemen to assert Common Law by the Bible, and pre-Civil War Constitution, and the Bible again just to be sure, against the forces of Gog and Magog, or whatever.

British Israelitism shows up here, and being that it's a heterodox archaeological/historical theory, I imagine some people here might want to defend it: there was a movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries that held that the Anglo-Saxons and/or Scandinavians were actually descended from the Israelites. In the US this got twisted around so that the "real" Jews were actually the Americans and the Jews were imposters who killed JC and made challah out of gentile babies' blood, as part of their evil plan to rule the world with banking, communism and monopoly power, or whatever. Make no mistake, this contention has been present in the Patriot movement in no small way for a length of time. One of the sovereignty arguments that's shown up has been that since the Freemen or Patriots or whoever are descended from Israelites, God promised them the land, therefore, it's sovereign.

The strawmen have an ally with the conservative federalists and corporate defense attorneys. They too wish to limit the jurisdictions of the courts and question the legitimacy of causes of action found in the law. The best defense to corporate malfeasance is a lack of jurisdiction by the courts. Additionally, most dockets in the federal courts are woefully burdened with caseloads. It can take years before plaintiffs have an opportunity to have their case tried.

Like I said earlier, there's a reason that this Strawman crap is so rife with Patriotardism and Xian Identity bullshit, rather than, say, anarchist thought.

During the Montana Freemen standoff, there's two things worth noting. First, Bo Gritz and Jack McLamb (along with Randy Weaver, who was rejected) volunteered services as negotiators. After two days at their "township," Gritz said that they would "walk out--everyone of them--right now if the US government can prove the documents are not law". Gritz and McLamb stopped negotiations after a few more days. Gritz said that the Freemen had affirmed to god (i.e., wrote a pleading and mailed it to god?) they'd only leave if they got juries of non-14th Amend. citizens who were debt-free. It's kinda funny that he's got his hand in this cookie bowl, too?

The enemy of your enemy is probably not your friend, and even less likely to be your useful idiot (unless you're running the show).

This is low-hanging fruit. Have more respect for yourself.

[JackRiddler]

Jack, I'd appreciate any pointers you could offer towards re-reading post-Revolutionary French history, thank you for challenging me on that.

Okay! The waaaaaaaaay belated response...

Is it too embarrassing to recommend a 20th century novel? Because my history readings on 1789 and all that are in a distant past, almost another life, although early enough that they stuck with me. But the most recent really moved me. It comes from a writer of special genius, Marge Piercy, whom I trust to have been utterly meticulous in her research (and faithful in spirit to the truth in her fictionalizations), and whose two SF books, "Woman on the Edge of Time" and "He, She and It," were both gifts in my life.

CITY OF DARKNESS, CITY OF LIGHT
http://www.margepiercy.com/sampling/city.htm

Personally, while I want to see Obama and Bush both taken to account for their actions, if we came down to public executions I would feel that I had only participated in further crimes against humanity.

The justification that we had to do this is exactly what our Enemies invoke, and it is precisely this that makes them Enemies of the common people. I strongly subscribe to the philosophy that this is fundamentally a rescue mission, not a war, and there are no Enemies worth killing.

It would have been a lot to expect this of the French or other Europeans at the time. Remember that Dr. Guillotine initially intended his invention as a humane alternative to what they were doing anyway. That bloodletting either had to be, or was never going to be avoided. The situation today in the industrial states is not comparable; bloodletting would be evidence that a revolution has failed despite victory, or is about to be defeated militarily by its enemies.

(What's happening in Libya is dangerously close, but has not yet reached that stage of civil war; it's still a revolt of armed elements against a state that ordered mass killing of the people. However, what's happening in Libya couldn't have been foreseen in full detail even two weeks ago, and even then, do you tell people not to rise up against a 42-year dictatorship that robs and oppresses them?!)

But I absolutely do not disagree with any of what you write. Remember the violence/non-violence thread? Your statements kind of assume there has been a revolution. I would never want to see executions, but humane sequestering, in fact with better conditions than in the prisons these monsters see fit for any human being. They should receive substantial privileges in the way of recreational activities entirely on the basis to which they cooperate with interrogators in providing confirmable testimony for the historical record. Recovering our history is infinitely more important than carrying out exemplary punishments on the perpetrators -- once they have, in fact, been neutralized.

Now I'm going to post a set of notes on the French Revolution (new thread).

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[Bruce Dazzling]

I was browsing Red Ice Radio and ran across some more grist for this old mill.

Red Ice
Dean Clifford - Hour 1 - The Sovereign Citizen
May 29, 2012
From Canada, Dean Clifford gives his opinion on government, law, freedom and the legal system, which we are forcefully born into. Dean has been providing resources and opinion to help guide the Freeman on the Land movement for a few years. His material and videos, primarily uploaded and featured on Youtube, have been well received and spread far and wide on the internet. The material has been an aid to many who want to come to a better understanding of a very complex and difficult law system. He has also proven to be helpful for the already existing and spontaneous Lawful Rebellion Revolution that is ongoing around the world. Clifford shares with us parts from his own journey, how he's grown, awakened and come to a better understanding of the system around us.

[JackRiddler]

Fascinating stuff. I'd respect this declaration more if it was just on the basis that the government is illegitimate, i.e., if she dropped the 1787 worship and the historical justifications. Interesting that the 1776 signatories didn't feel a need for some obscure legal precedent that magically justified their declaration - ending injustice was enough of a cause. Rather than consider themselves sovereign, these people prefer to worship a form of divine rule. WWWD? (What Would Washington Do? Never mind, what would modern-day "republic" ideology think he would have done?)

http://thegazette.com/2012/07/13/state- ... ernment-2/

Updated: 13 July 2012 | 2:45 pm in Elections, Statehouse, Statewide News

State senate candidate drops out, says she’ll be part of alternate government

Republic for Iowa believes America's original form of government was usurped



Randi Shannon (image from Randi Shannon's official Facebook page)


UPDATE: Iowa Republicans plan to choose another candidate to run in Senate District 34 against Democrat Liz Mathis, after Randi Shannon bailed on the race to pursue leadership in an alternate form of government.

Shannon, who describes herself as an entrepreneur and homeschooling mom, released a four-page message Friday saying she is now the senator of the Republic of the United States of America and the Republic for Iowa.

The group believes that America’s original form of government, a collection of republics, was usurped in 1871 by a corporation called the United States Corporation, according to the group’s website.

“Now, knowing this, and with the best interests of the people of Iowa District 34 uppermost in my heart and out of respect for my own conscience, I am here to announce that I am ending my campaign as of July 4,” Shannon wrote in her statement. “My level of service to the good people of Iowa who has been so supportive of me and my campaign will be greatly increased.”

LETTER FROM RANDI SHANNON (Scribd document)
http://www.scribd.com/document_download ... from=embed
Randi Shannon State Senate Resignation Letter 2012


Shannon told The Gazette she knows some people may question her decision.

“If people think it’s crazy to want to have a constitutional government back in place, then so be it,” she said.

Shannon, 39, considered joining the Republic of the United States of America this spring after talking with Iowans disgusted by the lack of action in state and federal government.

“Every year we have these elections and every year more people get discouraged,” Shannon said. “Nothing ever really seems to change.”

She met with other leaders in the Republic of the United States of America and was appointed senator by the group’s Iowa delegation, which includes four house members, treasurer, judge and governor.

The Iowa group’s speaker of the house, George “Rowdy” Templer, of Davenport, said the group believes citizens have been burdened by the cost of the current government. The Republic of the United States of America would abolish federal taxes and require citizens to approve all state and local taxes.

“There are a lot of ways the people are being preyed upon by the current government,” Templer said. “In the near term, our main efforts are to help people be aware there is a choice.”

Linn County Republicans will hold a nominating convention in the next few weeks to select Shannon’s replacement, said Don McDowell, spokesman for the office of the Iowa Senate Republican Leader.

“Randi made her decision. We’re moving forward,” he said. “We’re quite confident the Linn County Republicans will find a suitable candidate to go toe-to-toe with Sen. Mathis.”

McDowell doesn’t think Shannon’s shift to a more libertarian viewpoint reflects the direction of the Republican Party as a whole. “Absolutely not. This is a personal decision she made,” he said.

Shannon had not yet filed her withdrawal with the Iowa Secretary of State’s office as of Friday afternoon. The deadline for withdrawing from the election is Aug. 9. To select a new candidate, Linn County Republicans must hold a nominating convention and have their candidate file nomination papers by Aug. 17.

District 34 includes Marion, Hiawatha, Robins and Linn County east of Cedar Rapids.