My Adventures with a Freeman

[ArthurWankspittle]

I could PM ONE of you disbelievers

As far as the board is concerned, you're under no obligation to do this. If you want to for your own reasons, I suggest ArthurWankspittle. Arthur is the only member who is both a mod and British.

Arthur?

As Wserra has already pointed out, we are talking about one person's own story. Even if I were given some personal details I might not be in a position to check them out and connect them to the writer. We are not talking specifics here like Mr A got stopped for driving with no insurance, we are reading a general narrative about an attitude as a whole. While examples of specific events may help fill out the narrative they also serve to identify the writer. Where the story goes from here only time will tell. If it comes to specifics, the usual Quatloos standards will apply. If the subject starts some blatant SovCittery I would expect them to appear elsewhere in our forum, however, I would not like to see a connection to this thread without very good reason.

[sue858]

I PM'd ArthurWankspittle Ash's info. Since it's the summer holidays and the kid's off school, I don't have much time to write for now. But I'm working on a full version of 'Ash's second car'.

[Skeptic]

This post made me register, as I am an Israeli Jew and can add some info about Ash's view.

1). The word "tyrant" -- Aritz, pl. Aritzim -- is very rare in the Hebrew Bible, appearing about 20 times altogether, mostly in poetry (i.e., the Psalms). The KJV also hardly uses the word, but a comparative serach found that it sometimes translates other words, such as "duke" (Rozen) or "prince" (Nasich) as "tyrant". It is possible the latter words also had the meaning, or rather a meaning, of "tyrant" in Biblical (as opposed to modern) Hebrew, but it doesn't seem likely in this case.

2). As for anti-semitism and anti-zionism, once and for all: no, not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists Jews. No, not all anti-Zionists are antisemites and not all anti-semites anti-Zionists. E.g., Isaac Asimov and Richard Dawkins, neither of them are remotely antisemitic, are anti-Zionist, both on record doubting whether Zionism -- the establishment of a Jewish nation-state -- was a good idea. This is not a political board and I will am going to say NOTHING about whether Zionism is good, or bad, or neither. I am just clarifying the legitimate use of both terms.

However, when it comes to extreme anti-zionism, as in "Israel must be destroyed and all the Jews there expelled or killed" or the perennial favorite "the zionists control the world and have all the money", this is (almost) invariably simply extreme anti-semitism. This is particularly the case with "sovereigns" who are against the "zionists". They are not even "anti-zionists" since they do not even know what zionism IS. They simply replace the word "Jews" with "Zionists" and regurgirate the same old antisemitic myths with new words, in much the same way some people replace "blacks" with "the criminal element" or "primitive people", thinking this somehow makes their views less antisemitic or racist.

[wserra]

This post made me re-register

FIFY.

SKEPTIC!!

[Skeptic]

Yes, I admit it. I prefer usually not to post here, only lurk, NOT because I have anything against the forum (duh) but because I am afraid I might become re-addicted to it... So, yes, I HAVE been following this board since -- I think -- 2002 or so. I am afraid to think how long ago that was. Time's fun when you're having flies, as a frog would say.

One last point about the very interesting post of the original poster. She apparently is a member of the JREF -- the "James Randi Educational Foundation" -- board, or the "International Skeptic's forum" (or something very similar) as it has been known since 2010 or so. I was a member for, again, many years, and many years ago. To the uninitiated, the Skeptical community in the Anglosphere is rather small, concentrated around a few major "hubs" -- the JREF, Skeptic magazine's forum and conferences, various "Skeptics in the pub" meetings in the UK, and a few others. There is significant cross-fertilization.

So, not only does the freeman she was involved with sounds like a genuine freeman, her own reaction and even vocabulary sounds like a genuine skeptical girl's one. E.g., her use of the term "Gish Gallop" -- meaning the method of dumping tons of false and misleading "facts" all at once on a debate opponent, leaving him no time to refute them one by one. It is named after creationist debater and "scientist" Duane Gish. He can say "since we established tomatoes are conscious and 2+2=17, the fact that the moon is made out of green cheese proves creationism is right" -- and then moves on to the next "proof". It's pure smoke and mirrors, but it sometimes works.

That said, I agree with the poster that said that it sounds like a story that it does sound like a story. But she openly admitted from the start that she IS writing a story: emphasizing the important, dropping what is not important, and having a clear and interesting theme for every post. But she is writing a TRUE story, a description of an important event in her life. That the writing is clear and interesting doesn't mean the events didn't occur.


So please excuse me if I go back to lurking, under the idea that this forum's crystal meth's like addictive effect on me would not be good to indulge in too often.

P.S.

Forgot to add about Ash: being an "Eid Muslim" means literally being a "holiday Muslim" -- "Eid" means "holiday" in Arabic. Rather common, perhaps even a majority, among more-or-less secularized Muslims, especially those living in the West. As for his antisemitism, sadly, as she says, it's rather common in certain sections of the left -- and, I would add, of the right a well ("And everybody hates the Jews" -- Tom Lehrer, "National Brotherhood Week"). Most antisemites aren't freemen, as she says, but, of course, once you go freemen, antisemitism is almost a logical requirement. One could hardly be expected to believe something like, "there is a vast international conspiracy to enslave us all by shadowy billionaires, but it has nothing to do with the Jews".

[morrand]

The grow room project was also why Ash felt the need to fiddle his meter and research SSFEMs. He was worried that if he didn't, the leccy company would detect his unusually high usage and tip off those nefarious power-abusing cops.

Vancouver has an extremely high number of home grow-ops, apart from vandalism and non-payment they are the biggest problem landlords have. Electricity is the most vulnerable area for detection. The authorities and the B.C. Hydro have (or had, I haven't kept up) an agreement where very high electrical volume residential units (homes, condos, rental apartments) are reported to the police.

Returning to this branch of the topic briefly—since I can't fathom why it matters in this context whether the story is true or not—there was a US court decision released this week on the subject of electric metering and its relation to police searches. Verdict: using interval metering (15-minute meter reads in this case) is a search under the 4th Amendment, but it's an acceptable one. Naperville Smart Meter Awareness v. City of Naperville, No. 16-3766, slip op. (7th Circuit USCA, Aug. 16, 2018). The opinion is especially relevant here since it specifically discusses detection of grow ops (at 6-8).

This, of course, has nothing to do directly with either BC Hydro or Ash's local electric company. But it's an interesting point of comparison, anyway.

[letissier14]

You are missing the point. On more than one occasion on this forum I have been told off for posting something that I couldn't factually confirm at the time of posting

Obvious difference: you were posting about someone else (Crawford?), while sue is posting about herself. She wishes to remain anonymous, and posting the details could well identify her.

One of the reasons I have stopped posting information on here so much

Not to mention the times you swore you were leaving.

Everything that most people post on here is about someone else. See what I mean about being ok for some and not others, very similar to how the fmotl run their forums

So we can all post a load of nonsense then, just as long as it is about ourselves?

[longdog]

You are missing the point. On more than one occasion on this forum I have been told off for posting something that I couldn't factually confirm at the time of posting

Obvious difference: you were posting about someone else (Crawford?), while sue is posting about herself. She wishes to remain anonymous, and posting the details could well identify her.

One of the reasons I have stopped posting information on here so much

Not to mention the times you swore you were leaving.

Everything that most people post on here is about someone else. See what I mean about being ok for some and not others, very similar to how the fmotl run their forums

So we can all post a load of nonsense then, just as long as it is about ourselves?

Seriously... You think that's what this is all about?

People get asked for evidence when it's something vaguely important like a court case where 'citation needed' is a valid response so we can all read a judgement, or even a news story, and come to our own conclusions about its meaning, relevance and importance. When it's trivia, anecdote or long yarn about our private lives asking for 'evidence' is neither appropriate or necessary.

When push comes to shove this is just another internet forum we take part in for the entertainment value. If something is not 100% or even 1% accurate it doesn't matter unless we are talking about a court case or a named (and therefore legally defamable) individual. As we used to say on forums when the internet was young and all this round here were fields... Words on a screen.

[sue858]

@ Morrand and Skeptic: thanks for your points, they were very interesting and make Ash's views make a lot more sense (well, as far as such views can ever 'make sense'). I never knew about #1, but it's a possible explanation for the origin of this particular conspiracy theory. I am also aware the Anti-Zionism =/= Anti-Semitism, but there are a lot of Anti-Semites out there who call themselves Anti-Zionists and use codewords like 'international bankers', 'the real world leaders' etc which basically translate to 'Teh Jooooos'; Ash happened to be one such person.

Second Car

So, as I mentioned, Ash decided to buy a less conspicuous car to use whenever we were buying grow equipment or wanted to stay under the radar for whatever reason. Ash found a cheap car on the internet (Autotrader or Gumtree or something, can't remember now). He considered driving up in his yellow car with me as a passenger, then having me follow him back down in his newly-bought car. However, it had been a year since I'd passed my driving test and I hadn't driven at all during that time, so didn't feel confident suddenly driving on my own for a long, unfamiliar journey on the motorway. Especially since the mechanical condition of this 'new' car was dubious at best. In the end, Ash managed to conscript a friend of his to come along and drive the second car back. His friend had insurance which meant he was covered for this, since Ash phoned his insurance company as soon as he'd bought the car to add it on to his policy and his friend was already fully comp insured on his own car. I came along for the journey, but only because I had nothing better to do - with Ash's friend conscripted, I wasn't really needed.

Some time after, Ash thought about insuring me as a named driver on one or both of his cars. The plan was for him to give me a couple of driving lessons to raise my confidence enough that I felt I could drive on my own, then he'd be able to send me off on errands or whatever. But I was only 20 or 21 at the time; the insurance company point-blank refused to add me on for his sporty yellow car, and the quote for the normal car was extortionate.

Where Freemanism comes in is while Ash was on the phone, I can't remember whether it was when he was trying to add me as a named driver or when he was adding a second car or maybe he was shopping around for a better quote. But Ash showed me that he could call himself either a 'Company Director' or an 'IT Consultant'. Both of these descriptions are true, but there was a significant price difference. I can't remember which one was cheaper now, but I was surprised at this. Ash then described me variously as a 'Retail worker', ' Chef', 'Cleaner', 'Secretary' etc. All were true descriptions - from a certain point of view - but again, significant price differences. Alas, even the cheapest quote to add me on was too high. But Ash presented the price differences as proof that the whole car insurance thing is a big scam, one which the government forces 'travellers' to take part in. Of course, looking back, I can see that the existence of incongruities in how insurers calculate risk levels does not invalidate the insurance market as a whole nor mean that one's legal obligation to have insurance disappears.

[longdog]

"But Ash presented the price differences as proof that the whole car insurance thing is a big scam"

On that I largely agree with him.

When I first started free-range driving in 1983 it cost me about a week's wages as an unskilled labourer, about £70, to insure a 2 litre Cortina TPF&T and even in the late eighties I was insuring a V8 Rover SD1 for just over £100. These days as a new driver you'd be lucky to find any car, even the most appalling underpowered Noddy car that you could insure for less than £2000 third party only.

I suspect a lot of it is the fact that insurance companies own the repairers, the car hire firms and everything else so they can basically bill themselves for whatever they like and claim it's all down to the 'costs' of an accident.

[AnOwlCalledSage]

"But Ash presented the price differences as proof that the whole car insurance thing is a big scam"

It is but I'm not sure this is FOTLer territory. I moved home and found I had access to a key controlled restricted entry off street garage and was quoted a higher price so I told them I'd continue to park it on the street so my premiums remained the same (go figure!!!)

If he went for lawful self-insurance ("my word is my bond") angle, I'd be willing to accept it, but this is just gaming the system. Not Freeman woo required.

[ArthurWankspittle]

It is but I'm not sure this is FOTLer territory. I moved home and found I had access to a key controlled restricted entry off street garage and was quoted a higher price so I told them I'd continue to park it on the street so my premiums remained the same (go figure!!!)

It's a statistical thing derived from usage and claims I suspect. If you leave it on the road you can't be that bothered about it, but your new £50k car you don't want anyone near so you keep it in a locked garage. Also, thieves know where to find it and the keys. Result - posh cars kept in locked garages suffer expensive total losses.

If he went for lawful self-insurance ("my word is my bond") angle, I'd be willing to accept it, but this is just gaming the system. Not Freeman woo required.

Money needed on deposit used to be at least half a million and that was years ago.

[Tevildo]

Money needed on deposit used to be at least half a million and that was years ago.

It still is £500,000, but they're planning on removing the "deposit" option. See this page if you'd like to express your views.

[sue858]

To clarify: Ash did use the "Car insurance is a scam" as a jumping off point to "Therefore, it's not a legal requirement". Just another example of the is/ought fallacy Freeman often commit. If purchasing insurance is legally mandated for all drivers, then insurance ought to be affordable for all competent drivers, but it isn't, therefore purchasing insurance can't be mandatory. Plus, these legally-mandated insurance companies are clearly making it up as they go along, so therefore so too is the government/law enforcement.

[sue858]

Apologies for the delay. There's been a lot of stuff going on IRL for me. Today: Mortgages

Ash was stressing about the paperwork for an upcoming court case. I don't possess a creative bone in my body, so writing stuff from scratch isn't my strong suit. But I'm quite good at giving stuff other people have written the once-over for spelling mistakes, re-wording to make a document's tone fit its purpose better, stuff like that. So I offered to have a look at Ash's court case documents. I noticed that a word which should be capitalised (can't remember what that word was now, I think it was a name but I'm not sure). I pointed this out. Ash said, "Ah, but there's a reason it's not capitalised!" And off he went on how Legalese is a language which looks similar to but is entirely different from English. To capitalise this particular word would somehow mean that Ash was submitting to the court or admiralty law or something. It MUST NOT be capitalised. "But what about here, where that word is the start of a new sentence? In that case, you're not capitalising because you're accepting joinder with your strawman (or whatever woo issue was at stake in this case), you've capitalising because basic grammar says that ANY word starting a new sentence should be capitalised." I asked. There was some debate on this point, with Ash eventually deciding to keep the word uncapitalised - can't take any chances when it comes to accepting admiralty law!

The court case in question was Ash's creditor basically saying, "Either start paying your mortgage or we'll repossess your house." In one of the documents Ash got from his creditor, there was a statement somewhere saying "Ash paid £5,000 on this date." or something like that. Ash said he'd never made such a payment, or he'd only paid £500 rather than £5,000, or something. So in his response to that document, Ash made sure to slip into 'humble submissive legalese' and say, "I humbly accept the plaintiff's statement that I made a payment of £5,000 on this date." The response from the other side was "We made an error when we said that Ash paid £5,000." This gave Ash loads of ideas - when he got to court, he would say, "They were in error on that, what else are they in error on?" There was talk of trying to get them done for perjury. I didn't stick around long enough to find out what came of that.

Ash's documents to the court were also full of stuff about "Where's my wet signature?" and "Where did the money you lent me come from? It's all just numbers on a screen!" The first court date was approaching not long before I left, and Ash talked about how this was going to be the biggest moment of his life - he had to get everything perfect, because one little slip on his part and they'd crucify him. He seemed to feel like this court case was the end-of-year exam to test his knowledge of Freemanism; if he failed, it was his fault for not studying enough.

Ash subscribed to the belief that a summons to appear at court was really an invitation to a place of business to discuss the matter at hand. He saw courts as mediators: under normal circumstances, people should just resolve disputes amongst themselves. The courts were there for 'children' who couldn't sort this stuff out themselves - once you got to court, it would be a case of, "OK, you two are behaving like children, so we're going to treat you like children." Going to court was like feuding siblings running to mummy and daddy. Which, now I look back, makes me wonder why he planned to go to court at all. If he was under no obligation to do so, and if he wasn't wholly confident in his Freeman abilities, wouldn't the safer option have been to ignore such 'invitations'?

On the 'cargo cult' side, there were a few times when Ash had me call up the mortgage company to discuss some matter or other, and he told me to introduce myself as his secretary. Because Ash never got to speak to the owner of the mortgage company, only its underlings, so he should do likewise and make the mortgage company speak to his underlings. THAT would show them who's boss!

[longdog]

"Where did the money you lent me come from?"

That's a question that often gets asked in the pub when it's somebody's round and they're to lazy to walk the 50m to the hole in the wall for sufficient beer tokens.

Sorry... Did I say 'often'... I meant 'never'

[mufc1959]

On the 'cargo cult' side, there were a few times when Ash had me call up the mortgage company to discuss some matter or other, and he told me to introduce myself as his secretary. Because Ash never got to speak to the owner of the mortgage company, only its underlings, so he should do likewise and make the mortgage company speak to his underlings. THAT would show them who's boss!

Okay, I've read what you've said. Except no lender will speak to a third party without there being written third party authority from the account holder registered on the account. So I doubt you'd have got any further than "I'm sorry we can't discuss this with you for Data Protection reasons as you're not the account holder".

[sue858]

To be honest, I can't remember if I did the 'Call as Ash's secretary' thing more than once or twice. I can't even remember what I called for, so it might have been something so mundane that data protection didn't prevent them from discussing it with me. The response might well have been "Sorry, can't discuss it with you." I honestly can't remember. Or Ash might not have been after a response at all; in keeping with the Freeman "If they don't respond to your Foisted Unilateral Contract within X Days then they've accepted it automatically" theme, Ash might have received a letter demanding payment or something from them and asked me to call them and say something like:

"Hello, I'm Ash's Secretary. I'm just calling to confirm that Ash has received your letter demanding payment, and he does not accept your terms, nor does he consent to enter in to any contracts with you. Blah blah blah Ash is not his strawman etc."

Then it wouldn't have mattered what the answer was - even if it was, "Sorry, I can only discuss this matter with Ash himself," in Ash's mind, he's given his "I don't accept your terms" response so they can't later pull a Freemanesque "You didn't reply within 10 days so we win!" on him.

[mufc1959]

To be honest, I can't remember

I see what you did there.

[AndyPandy]

On the 'cargo cult' side, there were a few times when Ash had me call up the mortgage company to discuss some matter or other, and he told me to introduce myself as his secretary. Because Ash never got to speak to the owner of the mortgage company, only its underlings, so he should do likewise and make the mortgage company speak to his underlings. THAT would show them who's boss!

Okay, I've read what you've said. Except no lender will speak to a third party without there being written third party authority from the account holder registered on the account. So I doubt you'd have got any further than "I'm sorry we can't discuss this with you for Data Protection reasons as you're not the account holder".

Couldn't agree more, there's no way any mortgage company would speak to any third party about any aspect of another persons mortgage, you simply would not pass the security questions.