Republic for the united States (RuSA) Fruitcake Extravaganza

[Prof]

I am not sure where these fruitcakes fit into the great spectrum of pastries, much less the "sovereign" movement.

First, the mythology here is that there is an illigitmate government -- the current national government-- and a legitimate replacement, RuSA. Once RuSA is "restored," legitimate forms of government, say courts meeting at Denny's using the common law, will be restored and all will be well.

However, the underlying theory is that a legitimate government can be formed, which will have jurisdiction over citizens, and can order them to do things.

Sovereigns, on the otherhand, as I am going to argue at length elsewhere if I can ever get my own act together, believe that there is no legitimate governmental form other than, perhaps, the family or tribe or some sort of "communitarianism."

To me, then, the RuSA folks are the "government in waiting" or the "shadow government" or the "government in exile."

This fits with the quasi-religious or "millinarian" streak -- at any minute, the star folks, or secrect societies, or whatever are going to appear and gather us all to glory.

Comments?

[notorial dissent]

Prof, I think you have a valid point, but I also think that if you scratch this bunch deeply enough, I still think most of them would come up as true sovrun types. This bunch is more closely related to the ones who want to do courts and things like that, as there are sovrun types who want to run things. My feeling is that they are a very small subset of the bigger spectrum of pastries, as you so aptly put it, as witness the fact that they could find so few to fill their national and state offices. The fact that they ultimately can't/couldn't get along with each other just comes back to them being sovruns.

[LightinDarkness]

I would actually classify them as a subset of the sovereign citizen "movement." In my opinion, the underlying mythology that unites all sovereign citizens is this notion of "common law." Back here in reality we understand common law to be a system of judicial precedent, but among the fruitcakes the term seems to be universally understood to REALLY be a synonym for natural law. This is the foundation in my opinion of soverign citizen mythology, that the "common law" (again, really they mean natural law) is somehow some giant supranational Truth which all people in power have no choice but to obey and bow to UNLESS they "trick" you via their massive legal conspiracy to entering into admiralty law. That is, the fruitcakes believe, the current system: all courts are ran in secret via admiralty law and they will only hold you to the super secret truth of "common law" if you do the correct sovereign ritual.

RuSA fruitcakes believe all this. They believe it is their DIVINE DUTY to restore "common law" and as part of doing that they invented the founding mythology about the de jure vs de facto government. The de facto real (but fake to them) government is simply the giant conspiracy made up to get you into admiralty. RuSA then is the de jure fake (but real to them) government where they will finally get to live the sovereign fantasy of being able to do whatever they want and yet still enjoy the conveniences of modern society.

[LPC]

As phrases go, the "great spectrum of pastries" is a keeper.

[Prof]

A compliment from Dan is always appreciated. Please feel free to steal without attribution.

As quickly as I can get caught up I'll try to sketch out why I think the "sovereign movement" is anarchistic, and compare the sovereigns with the joiners -- from RuSA to third parties, special interest lobbies, etc. However, I don't want to delve into current political groups but will stick with historical examples.

For those of you who are interested in legal issues, I have been tied up in a mediation, as mediator, and we had the second attempt Friday. Looming over our collective heads was a pending ruling on a motion for summary judgment.

After we broke up, at an impasse, on Friday, the judge released his opinion, effectively pouring out one side. In otherwords, any settlement I had helped to structure would have left the fellow who prevailed very unhappy with his lawyers and the mediator.

[Chados]

I'll be interested to read that, Prof. It's always interesting to see everyone's take on the movement, because it helps me to understand it better myself.

[Judge Roy Bean]

I am not sure where these fruitcakes fit into the great spectrum of pastries, much less the "sovereign" movement.

Is there a pastry that represents disaffected cranks? One topped with hubris and offered with a cup of magical thinking?

The various groups may have political differences, but I would venture to say they share that same breakfast.

[grixit]

How about unfilled popovers? Big and attractive on the outside, nothing but hot air inside. And the next day, collapsed into a gooey mess.

[fortinbras]

The trial of Tim Turner has been assigned to the federal courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama, which is especially secure ....
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/20 ... 04538.html

The reason for the security precautions is, quite frankly, some of the RuSA people are (and have long been) talking up "Second Amendment Remedies".

I remember a few daring courthouse breaks by Weatherman types during the 1970s.

Back in the mid-1990s, when the Montana Freemen were brought in for trial, after the first day the defendants would start every trial day throwing tantrums and getting hustled out to a cell with a closed circuit view of the courtroom. One of the people I met while with Militia Watchdog was one of the LEOs responsible for arresting them. He bothered to notice that (1) this cell where the Freemen defendants were being kept was at ground level and against an exterior wall of the courthouse and was directly across the street from a public park .... where some men in army surplus gear seemed to be setting up some equipment. He realized that a jailbreak was probably being planned and the defendants found themselves being "timed out" in a much less vulnerable part of the building (also, police and others started patrolling the park).

[Famspear]

The trial of Tim Turner has been assigned to the federal courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama, which is especially secure ....

Specifically, jury selection set for March 18, 2013, in Dothan, Alabama, but with the trial to be held in Montgomery.

If the trial is held at the currently scheduled time and the feds get a conviction, the government's news release will probably come out near the height of Tax Season.

[fortinbras]

Evidently, the RuSA has suggested "disbanding" -- although this notion seems to have been publicized only by one video of a RuSA sympathizer soliloquizing with very bad speech habits. It is improbable that the leadership thought that entire movement should disband; I suspect it wanted perhaps local "governments" or its own "congress" to disband. I have seen oblique hints that not everything is smoothly running inside RuSA; apparently some parts of it disagree with other parts.

[notorial dissent]

.... apparently some parts of it disagree with other parts.

No, say it ain't so?? Trouble in Fanti-paradise, who'd a thought?

Seriously, I rather suspect that trying to play nice with each other for this extended length of time has been a considerable strain on the players and that the cracks are really beginning to show at this point. Particularly considering that I don't think most of them could be in the same room with each other for any length of time without coming to blows.

[grixit]

They might as well. Even the neo nazi concept of "leaderless resistance" is more organized than this.

[LightinDarkness]

RuSA is my pet hobby in terms of watching the crazies. I've probably been observing them since they sent out the letter threatening all 50 governors (in 2009 or 2010, can't remember). I like to listen to their conference calls for comedy while cleaning my apartment once a week.

Turners arrest started a domino effect, but there has long been dissention in the ranks of RuSA. There are various factions that are barely civil with each other, each with their own distinct crackpot agenda. I have identified at least three groups that have been fighting each other internally:

(1) The Theocracy Evangelicals Fruitcakes - This is probably the largest and most vocal group among the "leaders" in fake national office positions. They are all hysterically right wing Christians who basically want to make RuSA and what they believe therefore to be the "true" government to be a theocracy with the veneer of a republic. They are the ones responsible for all the preaching on the conference calls, passing "legislation" in the Fake RuSA Congress stating that the bible is the foundation of the law, etc.

(2) The Non-Christian "Common Law" Sovereigns - This group was headed by former fake Chief Justice Nathan Peachy. They wanted a true sovereign citizen (although they would never use that term) overthrow of the government and replacing it with the sovereign warped notion of common law (not real common law, but as we know sovereign citizens think common law means natural law). They were constantly trying to take the religious elements out of it and push towards setting up "common law courts". This group is marginalized since Nathan Peachy resigned from being fake Chief Justice.

(3) The "I Want An Easy Way Out Of My Debts/Mortgage" Crowd - This is probably the BIGGEST single group in the membership, but it isn't very vocal because most of the people joined looking for a way to get out of their mortgage/loans/credit cards without having to pay them back or using legitimate discharge methods (like bankruptcy). You often hear them on the round table calls, calling up asking when the "common law courts" will be set up because they are losing their house/car/cant pay their bills and want to stick it to the evil creditors.

Nearest I can tell, after Turner got arrested something spooked Group 1 who then attempted to shut down the entire operation a month after his arrest. But then Nathan Peachy and members of Group 2 came up with the whole "Security Network" mythology, based on the idea that an ancient group of shadowy white knights would fund them if they would just listen to their orders (AKA Nathan Peachy's orders, since he made the whole thing up). After it became obvious to Nathan that most of Group 1 and 3 were paranoid of his whole "Security Network" mythology (although not because they didn't believe it - they did, they just thought it was the Illuminati/some other evil shadowy group), they resigned. I'd say about 40% of Group 1 and 2 then resigned, leaving lots of fake offices open, which has results in utter chaos in the fake Congress.

What remains now are those who are REALLY egomaniacs who REALLY want to hold on the illusion of having power, and there are enough in the fake Congress to continue on. The amount of people on the conference calls are kind of light right now, but I suspect thats due to the holidays, RuSA is not dead. Although I STILL am wondering if it was Turner's arrest that spooked Group 1 into resigning their fake offices en masse...if it was they waited until weeks after his arrest to actually try to shut it all down.

[LightinDarkness]

By the way, all the Republic websites are down, so someone forgot to pay the bills...wonder if they are still holding conference calls? Anyone have the conference numbers/playback codes?

[webhick]

By the way, all the Republic websites are down

Not true. Dennys.com is still up and running.

so someone forgot to pay the bills

Not necessarily. republicoftheunitedstates.org says it's down for maintenance. Usually if you don't pay the bills it says it's been suspended. Unless their host believes in helping their deadbeats save face.

[notorial dissent]

Well, we know that all three groups are, to put it lightly-tongue planted firmly in cheek, more than just a wee bit paranoid. Of the three, the last group is the least organized and least subject to communication or contact. The first group is probably considerably better organized than the third, but is mostly likely as splintered within as the whole RUSA was as a whole as I have yet to see any group Theocratic Evangelicals that could agree on the form of an opening prayer let alone anything else unless they were all from exactly the same splinter sect, and even then someone wouldn't like the way someone else did something and they would be fighting, so getting them to agree on much of anything, let alone stay in communication with each other, is going to be a pretty major undertaking. Leaving the second group as the more likely point of entry. The Common Law group is likely to be a bit better/more organized, and a bit less likely to intramural squabbles than the first group. If they are going to do a court system, they have to have some internal communication, so I am betting that someone could have started feeding them something, and from there, their natural paranoia would have taken over and the rats would have been running for their nearest rock.

[grixit]

So they're like the latter days of the New Model Army. Fortunately, there's no one on the horizon who can get the muskets all pointing in the same direction.

[Chados]

So "Judge" Peachey's bailed on the group, eh? I didn't know that. It's often not easy to find info on these guys, you have to know where to look.

I'm not surprised that RuSA's crashing and burning since Tim Turner landed in jail. I've seen the pattern before. You pressure them enough and they fold. A surprising number of adherents of the sovereign groups don't have a lot of staying power once people start getting arrested by the de facto authorities, hauled in front of de facto judges, and forthwith having their de facto butts tossed into the de facto county jail. It's when they are not in jail that they have hope and resort to an avalanche of pointless pseudolegal garbage. A little chain-link therapy is just what they need to become productive members of society again.

[notorial dissent]

Chados, I think what you are trying to say is that they are true believers and true to the cause right up to the point where they actually have to something themselves, and then they cut and run, as certainly seems to be the case here. They may claim the are the real gov't, but the de facto one has the jails and means to put them therein, and that does seem to trump everything else they can claim. I'll take de facto over de fantasia any day.