Posted on
September 21, 2011 in
Bernard Weckmann (“Bernard: WeckMann”) posted this comment to my post on Redemption Theory vs. Reality:
Sovereignty is a fact! It does work!!!
My wife and I have closed down the local court FOUR times. Visit my site and above all click on the link to listen to the audio recording of her court appearance.
https://runnymede1215.
wordpress.com I have not got my car back but without my consent there is no jurisdiction and without jurisdiction they are check-mated!
They only got themselves deeply into shit.
Cheers
Bernard
And then have the chutzpah to tell me you know anything about the law!
Bernard
Here’s the audio recording to which Weckmann refers:
“I am called Edith! I am called Edith!”
By “closing down the court” Mr. Weckmann apparently means that they walked out without the court doing anything to them.
It’s unfortunate that we can’t hear how the court is responding to Edith. Unless the authorities decided that the charge wasn’t worth the hassle of dealing with the Weckmanns (a decision that would be in keeping with the rules for dealing with crazy), there is still a pending criminal charge against her.
Mr. Weckmann contends that “everything applies equally in other countries that have Common Law jurisdiction.” I don’t know how Australia operates, but in Texas if someone walks out of court before her case is resolved or reset and does not come back, the judge will issue a capias for her arrest. The next time she has contact with the police, she gets taken into custody. If that were to happen to Edith, Mr. Weckmann might have to choose between letting his wife sit in jail and making bail. If he makes bail, is he consenting to the jurisdiction of the court? Since his theory is that “carrying out any orders they may give” confers jurisdiction on the court, voluntarily making bail must do likewise. (Did he make bail when she was first charged? Did she sign to acknowledge receipt of a citation?)
In short, there’s no indication that Edith’s case is over. Mr. Weckmann’s contacts with the Australian judicial system seem to have begun last November; it’s too early to say whether he is succeeding or not. Maybe Edith has no further contact with the police, and lives the rest of her life without hearing anything else about it. Or maybe she has contact with some government official who for some reason checks her for warrants, and she winds up in jail, then back in court. She tries the same thing again. Perhaps she gets held in contempt this time, or perhaps she successfully walks out again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Mr. Weckmann may see it as some sort of victory, but he’s not the one going to jail for a chickenshit petty charge that, with competent counsel, could have been dismissed last February.
And, seven months later (the magistrate wanted to impound it for three, but Mr. Weckmann “denied him jurisdiction and again walked out”) he still doesn’t have his car back.
While it is true that the thieves have not yet returned our property it is also true that they did NOT achieve what they were after – to fine and/or imprison us, to forfeit the car to the government, and to make this dog-and-pony show look like justice is being done! Without our consent they do not have jurisdiction and without jurisdiction they cannot lawfully take away our property. We are still the rightful owners of the vehicle. They are nothing but frigging thieves!
Mr. Weckmann sees it as a victory that the magistrate was not able to impound his car for three months, but as a result of Mr. Weckmann’s handling of the case he has now been without it for seven. Nobody will ever punish the “frigging thieves,” nor compensate Mr. Weckmann for the lost use. This is a strange sort of victory.
Never fear, though: Mr. Weckmann has filed commercial liens against
The officer who carried out the unlawful arrest, one Robert Edwards of the Toowoomba Police … for his criminal conduct, to wit: ASSAULT occasioning bodily harm[; t]he other officer, one Jason McLeod Burrows also of the Toowoomba Police … for his criminal activity, to wit: ROBBERY (i.e. theft accompanied by threats of violence to people and property!)…[;] one H Stjernquist of the Toowoomba Magistrates Court, and … the thugs in high places that are aiding and abetting his crime: The Dishonourable Paul Lucas MP, QLD Attorney-General and Deputy Premier and The Dishonourable Neil Roberts MP, QLD Minister for Police.
Again, IANAAL, but in Texas this would be little more than a hassle for the officers and magistrates: they could, without notice to the false creditor, get a judge to review the lien and remove it, or they could demand that the false creditor remove the liens; his failure to do so within twenty-one days would be a class A misdemeanor under Section 32.49 of the Texas Penal Code. The false creditor could have greater problems than a Class A misdemeanor, though: he can be prosecuted for felony retaliation under Section 36.06 of the Texas Penal Code.
Once a redemption theorist is in felony territory, it’s much less likely that the authorities will think of him as a harmless crank and pay him no mind.
Folks like Mr. Weckmann think they’ve swallowed the red pill and discovered some mystical source (“common law,” Magna Carta, UCC) of the law that really governs us, despite what the judges and the police and the legislators say. (They are inconsistent on whether they think that the lawyers and the judges know about the law that really governs us—”the lower levels of the judiciary do not necessarily know the law”. Fnord.)
But political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. This is not a statement about how the world should be, but of how the world is. The police have the guns, and they enforce the laws that the legislators make unless the judges tell them otherwise. Juries have great power: they can disregard the law, and should when the law is wrong, but Personal-Sovereignty arguments don’t create a whole lot of sympathy in people who haven’t drunk the same kool-aid, and people who have drunk that kool-aid are not likely to be allowed on a jury by prosecutors and judges.
So if someone follows Mr. Weckmann’s advice, files fraudulent liens against cops, and then acts like the criminal court has no jurisdiction over him, he is likely to wind up pro se facing a jury that thinks he broke a law that is not wrong, and the jury will convict him. Then the jury will have no choice but to sentence him to prison (because he will not, on the theory that it would confer jurisdiction, have filed a motion for probation). If he continues behaving as though the criminal court has no jurisdiction over him, he will be taken to prison. If, in the spirit of self-help, he tries to escape, he may be killed.
The judges don’t have guns (well, not officially), but they can give orders to the guys with guns. Mr. Weckmann says, “We do NOT shy away from interupting – rudely if it must be[;] We raise our voice – if necessary to shout the magistrate/judge down“; a judge has the power to hold him in contempt for this, and to have the police jail him. Again, if he tries to escape the men with guns may kill him.
This is the practical truth of the matter: aside from jury nullification, the law is what the government says it is. For all practical purposes, if shouting down a judge is likely to get you thrown in jail, then shouting down a judge is against the law. We may not like it; we may not recognize it as legitimate; but if we’re going to have any interactions with the government, we have to recognize it.
“Personal sovereignty” and “redemption theory” would work great if you could avoid having anything to do with the government. Avoiding interaction with the government is challenging; few of us are equipped to go off the grid. Even Mr. Weckmann, when he was wronged by the police, complained to the authorities.
So why do I even bother to respond to the obvious loons? Mr. Weckmann is free to make costly mistakes in dealing with the government. If he loses his car or Edith goes to jail or he goes to prison, that’s not my problem. He has clearly made up his mind.
But people say things, and people who haven’t made up their minds listen, and then act. When people follow the advice of people like Mr. Weckmann, they harm themselves and their families. Occasionally someone will contact me to tell me that they have come to Defending People because of a search for CPNs, or redemption theory, or personal sovereignty, and that I have saved them from a costly mistake.
It’s not for Mr. Weckmann, but for those who haven’t made up their minds that I bother to respond.
> But political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. This is not a statement about how the world should be, but of how the world is. The police have the guns, and they enforce the laws that the legislators make unless the judges tell them otherwise.
This is the key bit.
I love to talk about what the Constitution REALLY says, and how this or that law violates this or that procedure.
…but at the end of the day, if you do X, folks with guns will make Y happen. Now, we may hate this and speak against it, but it’s deeply stupid to not at least UNDERSTAND that.
This is a point I’ve never successfully made with these folks: “In your own mind you’re ‘right’…but do you think that that’s going to help you avoid jail time if you don’t pay your taxes?”.
The reply is inevitably “yeah, but, the as a sovereign citizen…”.
I’ve never been clear if they think that they’re going to avoid the actual display of force, if if they sort of welcome it.
Perhaps they think that the source of their law will protect them from the government’s unlawful (in their worldview) use of force.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for your lengthy response but you are dead wrong in virtually everything you write! I do understand that you cannot say anything else because that’d be letting the cat out of the bag and your masters wouldn’t let you do that!
I do not have the time to respond to everything you said but just a few items shall suffice:
a)
“The next time she has contact with the police, she gets taken into custody.”
Does she now? Actually, after her court appearance on the 28th Feb, 2011 she was in court again with me as co-respondent, on the 15th of March. We both used the same strategy and we BOTH walked away. The police prosecutor (that’s actually not even legal unless he is a member of the BAR which he wasn’t) did exactly nothing. The magistrate threatened us with arrest and then backed away! Why?
b)
“This is a strange sort of victory”
Yes, my friend it is not a victory and tell me, please, exactyly where I claimed it is one.
It is a stand-off! But the very fact that months later we still have not been arrested should tell you something.
c)
I have no doubt that monetization of the liens will be extremely difficult if not actually impossible but that does not mean that the liens are fraudulent as you claim. Inform yourself!
d)
I placed liens on cops, I placed liens on a magistrate, I placed liens on the minister for police and the attorney-general of my home state, accusing these guys of crimes PUBLICLY. If my claims and statements were baseless that’d be slander/libel/defamation (whatever you want to call it) of some highly-placed people – a serious crime! And every single one of them is quiet about it?
e)
“…a decision that would be in keeping with the rules for dealing with crazy…”
Here you reveal your true colours. When running out of genuine arguments (and, of course, you know that you have nothing to offer but lies) then the last resort of scroundrels is to declare somebody crazy and you feel you have won!
Dream on, my friend!
Bernard
Mr. Weckmann,
You boast of how you “closed down the court” four times; one of those resulted in your losing your car for at least four months longer than you would have had you played the game that the people with guns wanted you to play. As I say, a strange sort of victory.
I don’t know about defamation being a crime; IANAAL, but here it’s not, and public figures almost never bother to sue people who say mean things about them.
That you haven’t been arrested isn’t proof that you’re right; it might be a matter of your state’s criminal procedure, or it might mean that the authorities consider you harmless now that they have your car. They’d be right, of course. Try executing on one of those liens, and let me know what happens.
Your theory doesn’t match the way that human beings work. If your grand conspiracy theory were correct, some lawyer, retired lawyer, mad lawyer, or disbarred lawyer would have let the cat out of the bag at some point in the last 800 years.
If every lawyer knew what you claim is true, no lawyer would ever go to prison because lawyers in trouble would step outside the system. Yet lawyers go to prison, get disbarred, and die in poverty. If your theory were correct, some poor lawyer would have made a fortune by spilling the beans. If lawyers had “masters,” someone in the last 800 years would have rebelled.
But I’m not going to convince you. That’s okay. You’ve already talked yourself out of a car; talk yourself into prison for all I care—I’ve seen it many times, people with your beliefs winding up behind bars, including (in Texas) for filing liens that are not recognized as valid by the judges and the guys with guns. If you ask those former adherents of personal sovereignty, they’ll tell you that those prison walls are real, and not just a figment of lawyers’ limited imagination.
You, with your petty legal conflicts, do a disservice to those in real trouble to whom hiring a great lawyer might make the difference between life and death, freedom and servitude, or affluence and penury.
I recognize that lunatics often don’t recognize that they’re insane, but, sir, you’ll keep a civil tongue about you when you’re in my house or you’ll remain outside.
I need to add this: Your choice to believe that the law is something other than the people with guns say it is led to the seizure of your car (and, I gather, to Edith’s arrest) in the first place.
So until you have your car back, your belief in personal sovereignty has you operating at a deficit. If you had kept your car registered, Edith wouldn’t have been assaulted and arrested, you wouldn’t have had to go to court four times, and you’d be driving instead of walking.
That’s not a stand-off, that’s a loss.
Until you catch back up to where you were before you declared yourself free—get your car back and get compensated for your wasted time—you’ve got no business pretending that it works.
He’s in the matrix and can’t see reality just yet
And yet I have a car to drive, and am not wasting time in court without being paid. ¯\_(?)_/¯
“I am called Antonin, I am called Antonin, I will not consent to your jurisdiction!”
I once saw a guy making a personal sovereignty argument win (in traffic court). The judge clearly stated it was because the government failed to prove its case, not because of any arguments about sovereignty or jurisdiction. The police officer testified that he saw a car run a red light; the government failed to prove, according to the judge, that it was the defendants car.
I talked to the guy afterwards, and he was convinced his legal theory that carried the day, despite the judge specifically otherwise. For all I know, he’s now on the internet somewhere, explaining how he used personally sovereignty to beat the courts.
Please tell me you’re in Canberra. Even if you have to pretend.
Very interesting discussion. For the sake of fairness I visited the site of Mr Weckman. He has published a response there to what you say about him and about the subject.
I have left a comment on his blog but it has’nt been approved, at least not yet.
Can you clarify something for me? He claims that courts are corporations which must mean they are like businesses which means they are in it to make money. Is that correct? I live in Australia myself and I have chequed the references to the Australian Business Numbers and it all cheques out ok. So is he right then with some of the things he says?
Not sure what to make of all this.
Robert
I am not an Australian lawyer, but U.S. courts (redemption theory began in the U.S., where we don’t even have the Queen on our stamps) are not corporations. I suspect that Australian courts are not either, but that they have ABNs so that they can buy things—paper for the printers, black dresses for the judges—without paying sales taxes.
(This is not to say that courts aren’t in it to make money for the government. Take, for example, traffic courts, which municipalities use as a revenue source. But that doesn’t make courts any less powerful, nor, in itself, any less legitimate.)
Here is redemption theory in a nutshell:
See Mr. Weckmann.
See Mr. Weckmann’s a car.
Mr. Weckmann wants to drive his car.
Mr. Weckmann stops registering his car.
Men with guns take Mr. Weckmann’s car away.
The end.
If Mr. Weckmann had been falsely accused of a felony, instead of wanting not to register his car, his sovereignty theory would have landed him in prison.
Mr. Weckmann may accidentally say some things that are correct (even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then), but it’s nothing that anyone can rely on in his own affairs. Mr. Weckmann is playing with very small stakes—his car, his wife’s freedom from incarceration (!). People playing with higher stakes have lost everything and gone to prison for playing the same sort of games.
I’m no fan of government, nor of the courts or the judicial system. But there’s no grand conspiracy to conceal from the people the true nature of the system. The People have two choices: work within the system to improve it; or take up arms against it. Mr. Weckmann is taking half-measures, pretending that the system doesn’t apply to him without being willing to defend his loved ones’ freedom by spilling blood. Because, at the end of the day, government power is based on deadly force, and if Mr. Weckmann is willing to let the government have that monopoly, he’ll always be a subject.
They call the retaliatory filing of liens against public officials “paper terrorism”; while that’s overblown, it’s a good measure of how seriously the men with guns and badges treat the practice.
I’ve engaged with Mr. Weckmann enough. I suspect that he’s a monomaniacal conspiracy theorist who doesn’t respond to inexorable logic. If, like him, you think it’s a mark of the success of his theories that he’s walking instead of driving, then godspeed.