Monday, April 05, 2010

"Freemen" or "Free, at Large, from A Secure Hospital"?

In "another place", I found myself in discussion with yet another bunch of whackos - the so-called "Freemen".  During that discussion, those of us both with an appreciation for English law and its derivation from the common law had great difficulty in understanding where they drew their 'knowledge of the law' from.

Then one of them, by nym 'Barny' came up with a little list:
And In order to backup those principles we can employ the Maxims of law.

If every man did the same we would have the basis for self governence. No one entity would be in control hence the maxim - Equality before the law is paramount and mandatory.

However, as things are currently, when a freeman asks you for your oath, by maxim you are compelled to provide it. Please see below...

Court and Pleas

There can be no plea of that thing of which the dissolution is sought.
A false plea is the basest of all things.
There can be no plea against an action which entirely destroys the plea.
He who does not deny, admits. [A well-known rule of pleading]
No one is believed in court but upon his oath. [including judges.]
An infamous person is repelled or prevented from taking an oath.
In law none is credited unless he is sworn.
All the facts must, when established by witnesses, be under oath or affirmation.

...

Right - so, as far as 'Court and Pleas' we have a brief statement of the beliefs of the 'Freemen". Where did this come from? Well a little bit of diligent googling leads us to a fuller list here. Ecclesia.org is the home of the "Ecclesiastic Commonwealth Community" - an USian or, at least, North American bunch of Christian Young-Creationist whackos.  Their statements contain such gems as:

The atmosphere has less than 40,000 years worth of helium, based on just the production of helium from the decay of uranium and thorium. There is no known means by which large amounts of helium can escape from the atmosphere.

Erm, yes there is - where do kiddies' helium balloons go when they release them?  And that's carrying all that plastic and string!  Light gases in a warm atmosphere can achieve escape velocity.  Molecular He (a single atom molecule) has an weight slightly less than 4 x atomic H.  Very light.  Any way, back to the law.  I think I've found their source.

So, our immediate thought is to the credibility of Mr Charles A Weisman.  Well, given this purports to be a legal text, we would look for its publishing by one of the great legal publishers - Butterworths or Sweet and Maxwell (or their USian equivalents), or even one of the standard textbook publishers - the great University Presses, Pitman, Wiley, McGraw Hill etc.

Or ... wait for it ...

Publisher: Weisman Publications; 3 edition (February 1, 1995)

Nope, that's a simple strike for credibility. (Ed notes: if the maxims of the law are unchanging and unchangeable - why new editions rather than merely reprints?) Okay, we'll have another look - what about the author?  What else has Charles A Weisman written?  Scholarly books on the law?  Perhaps he is a scholar of medieval and church law?  Or, maybe, just maybe, he is a common or garden racist (anybody whose books are onsale at the Stormfront bookstore ain't going to be selling tranquility), anti-semitic1, nut-job?  Lets see:
# The Origin of Race and Civilization
# Essential Health Issues
# Antichrists In The Land
# Maxims of Law
# Is Universalism of God?: A theological study into the nature of God's…
# Jewish Identity- An Examination of the Jewish Issue Showing the Origin and…
# A Handbook of Bible Law
# America, free, white, & Christian: The foundations and principles in…
# Laws and Principles of Marriage, As Expounded Upon and Made Precedent…
# Life, Liberty & Property
# Who is Esau-Edom?: The Life, History, Genealogy, Prophecy, Predestination…
# The De Facto Government of the United States: A Discussion on the Unlawful…
# The Authority of Law
# A Treatise on Arrest and False Imprisonment
# The Right to Travel
# Facts and Fictions Regarding Noah's Flood

That doesn't reek of 'author credibility' to me.  So, lets have a look at a brief selection of these 'maxims' and their applicability to English law.

He who does not deny, admits. [A well-known rule of pleading]
Absolutely true.  In the USA.  US civil suit filings are full of the impact of this standard (example from Groklaw from the SCO vs IBM debacle):

1. States that it is without information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of the averments of paragraph 1, except admits that UNIX is a standard specification and a brand that characterizes certain computer operating systems.

2. Denies the averments of paragraph 2 as they relate to IBM, except refers to the referenced licenses for their contents and states that IBM is without information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of the averments as they relate to any other person or entity.
You'll notice that they have to be very specific about what they are accepting, have not got enough information to accept or deny, or denying - paragraph by paragraph from the original complaint:

1. UNIX is a computer operating system program and related software originally developed by AT&T Bell Laboratories (“AT&T”). SCO/UNIX is a modification of UNIX and related software developed by SCO and its predecessors. UNIX and SCO/UNIX are widely used in the corporate, or “enterprise,” computing environment.

2. As a result of its acquisition of the rights to UNIX from AT&T and its own development of UNIX and SCO/UNIX, SCO is the present owner of both UNIX and SCO/UNIX software. UNIX and SCO/UNIX are valuable software programs and SCO and its predecessors have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in their development and enhancement. SCO (which, as used herein, includes its predecessor) has licensed UNIX and SCO/UNIX both to software vendors such as IBM and computer end-users such as McDonald’s. The UNIX and SCO/UNIX licenses granted to software vendors and end-users are limited licenses, which impose restrictions and obligations on the licensees designed to protect the economic value of UNIX and SCO/UNIX.

Burden of proof is a much more difficult concept in the UK.  Under UK law, para 1 is both true and, essentially, harmless.  Para 2 is more interesting but is, in essence, also true - the question was not the ownership of the software, it was the ownership of the copyrights - which are a much more formally bound thing under US law.

Consent makes the law: the terms of a contract, lawful in its purpose, constitute the law as between the parties.

I'm not even sure if this is true in the USA - in the UK, the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977,  the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, various employment law provisions all regulate the law of contract - as do common law ideas such as force majeure and duress.

He who consents cannot receive an injury.

Used to be considered to be true - although it had never been tested to the limit.  Clearly now superseded in common law by R v Donovan (1934), R v Brown and others (1992), and probably HRA98 Article 3 (although the Spanner Trust disagreed.)  True, the consensual application of torture is a limiting case but hey, all of these arguments have to be assembled through limiting cases.

An act does not make a man a criminal, unless his intention be criminal.

Strict liability offences - possession of kiddy porn, a sawn-off shotgun, carrying a blade in public without a lawful excuse (except a folding knife of less than 3" etc, etc).  B0llocks.  Sorry, these people have no clue.

That which is against Divine Law is repugnant to society and is void.

I like this one.  Whose "Divine Law"?  Iran, Saudi, Harris, Ireland, Israel (no, not actually a theocracy but they do have a startlingly large number of legal exemptions for the more weirdly Orthodox) etc, etc.  Stand back and let the battle commence. :)


1.
Although the Jews have appeared in the histories of other nations throughout the centuries, they were never able or willing to establish a nation of their own. They remain forever desolate in this regard. The only way the Jews got possession of Palestine was by using other people to steal it from the Turks and Arabs for them. The so-called 'Israeli' state is
nothing but a parasitic state, since it is occupied by parasites. The Jews get billions of dollars from Germany as 'reparations' and 'restitution payments' for its alleged 'war crimes' against Jews. They get billions more every year from the United States. It (Israel) has to steal or buy technology from Western nations as the Jews have not the creativity to develop their own. The Jewish state of Israel would collapse in a minute without the continued support, protection and assistance from Jacob/Israel (The White Nations of Christendom). It is not, never has been, and never will be a self-sustaining nation.
(Charles A. Weisman, Who is Esau-Edom?, pp. 27-28).  And he's very wrong about Israel and technology (okay, they still get a lot of their military kit from the States but just look at the number of Israeli computer security companies!)

1 comment:

Marie1797 said...

You said "Just look at the amount of Israeli computer security companies there are. Well yes that's because they're paranoid and constantly spying on everyone. It doesn't help that they bomb others out of their hysterical fears either.

 
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