The newest Irish political party, DDI, has encountered its first controversy over claims that one of its candidates was involved with the international "Freeman" movement. From what I've read so far, this mainly seems to consist of individuals attempting to obstruct the legal process by styling themselves "sovereign citizens" and thus beyond the constraints of the judicial system. So is this all just the extreme fringe of the Tea Party/ Ron Paul libertarian brand of politics (the Freemen, that is to say)?
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The Freeman movement
The leading thinker of the movement, Hardy Willis, defined its main aim as sensible footwear at an affordable price. -
The Freeman movement
Oh God. Assuming for now that the Freemen are the same as "sovereign citizens" in the US, then they're very much the extreme fringe of libertarianism. They're properly nuts. They're obsessed with a weirdly naive sort of textualism whereby they think that if they just come up with the right form of words, the correctly prepared document, the entire nation state will just fall apart just like that. In practice, they're a bunch of tax dodgers, militia nuts and conspiracy theorists.Comment
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The Freeman movement
Yes, it's nutbaggery of the highest order. They're a mixed bag of exploitative shysters and people who can't distinguish the law from magic.Comment
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The Freeman movement
More on this nutjob: http://sinechara.blogspot.ie/2013/04/direct-democracy-ireland-who-are-they.html?m=1Comment
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The Freeman movement
That is a fascinating, and horrific, article, thanks GY. (One small thing; you've got the 'http://' bit of the link in there twice, so it doesn't work just from clicking on it.)Ginger Yellow wrote: Oh God. Assuming for now that the Freemen are the same as "sovereign citizens" in the US, then they're very much the extreme fringe of libertarianism. They're properly nuts. They're obsessed with a weirdly naive sort of textualism whereby they think that if they just come up with the right form of words, the correctly prepared document, the entire nation state will just fall apart just like that. In practice, they're a bunch of tax dodgers, militia nuts and conspiracy theorists.Comment
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The Freeman movement
A portion of the last Skepticality podcast addressed this issue (the earlier thread comments echo what the interviewee said).
There was one myth, if I remember correctly, whereby the proponents believed that a US flag with a gold fringe in a courtroom signified it was under the jurisdiction of maritime law.
When one nutjob announced this to the court, the judge replied: "Alright everyone, we're on a ship today," and carried on as normal.Comment
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The Freeman movement
A lot of the arguments (in the US context at least) are summed up and dispatched by the IRS in their useful guide 'The Truth about Frivolous Tax Arguments'.
Some of them are really quite amazing, but my favourite is probably the simple 'paying taxes is voluntary' gambit.Comment
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Reminds me of that bit in Better Call Saul where Jimmy is all set to start acting for one of those nutters for a huge fee when it turns out the nutter meant a huge fee in his own new money.Comment
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Oh goody. Alphaville has just discovered Sovereign Citizens. I expect many amusing articles in the year ahead.Comment
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