A minor addition to the material in this thread. Amy has a Facebook page (
https://www.facebook.com/amy.smart.5249). Whatta surprise. Her friends include many of our favorite people from the Canadian Freeman-on-the-Land movement. I think she has a particular soft spot for Dean Clifford and his Muscular Freemanism.
And who wouldn't.
LightinDarkness wrote:... It does make me wonder though: I think people like Steve Finney may be charting new waters (OMG ADMIRALTY LAW TERM?!) when it comes to how we classify people as being of sound mind.
What I mean by that is although freeman on the land and their US originators (soverign citizens) believe in patently false things, I can if I stretch my mind to its limits at least see how they came to believe a lot of it. ... And, in that child-like mindset, people who are already predisposed to want to believe in this stuff will easily fall for soverign myths like the magical "right to travel" and the "real common law."
But at some point, you would think there would be a line. But for many of these people, like Steve Finney and his wife, they believe it all. ... And yet with this guy in particular, watching some of his stuff, I just don't think he really is of sound mind because hes in so deep - its somewhat of an enigma.
At what point does the line become crossed from "kooky believer in soverign mythology" to "completely disconnected from reality"? Finney is so far over the line he can't even see the line anymore.
I am going to make a suggestion here - a perhaps more useful approach is to not examine behaviour by so much its kookiness as its motivation. Put another way, to what degree does Sovereign Citizen / Freeman-on-the-Land belief attach to the core objectives of a particular person.
I agree that Sovran / Freeman beliefs necessarily will involve some degree of cognitive dissonance. You just can't escape it. I think the same can be said for pretty much any conspiratorial belief or perspective. But for some persons this is just a quirk in their lives - sure, they think David Icke is probably right and Willy Nelson is a shape-shifting human-eating subterranean reptile overlord. But big deal - what are they going to do? Probably not buy his music. It might even be possible to convince this Ickian that he is wrong. It's just not a core belief.
Then you have persons for whom an unusual belief is a key element in a broader part of their lives - even a core element of their identity. I particularly see this in Freeman-on-the-Land family law litigation, or where an OPCA litigant is about to lose a home - such as the customers of privatesectoract.com. This threat or disruption is something big - critical to the person. They will hold on to obviously false belief, to the most absurd degree, in the face of what must be agonizing cognitive dissonance, because the alternative is worse. The alternative is to face up to things such as the Sovran / Freeman was an idiot and blew their family finances. That they are the bad parent. Most people will shy away from those results, and if you season the mix with a little Dunning-Kruger, we plunge straight into the abyss.
It's hard at the moment to judge what ultimately will happen to a lot of Canada's Freemen - but the older, Detaxer movement has pretty much played itself out and so we can use that population as a model. There was a ton of litigation - actually far more than I had originally imagined (the basis for that discovery is something I will hopefully report fairly soon - a really neat find!) - and the overwhelming majority of participants just let things go. Most have returned to society, some even have owned up to their being twits. Gordon S. Wilson (
viewtopic.php?f=46&t=9477) is a good example - he was as hard a case as any I have identified. And he got over it.
The Detaxer diehards are interesting - there are two in particular that come to mind. One is Eva Sydel, and in her case she gambled a large business and lost. The second is David-Kevin: Lindsay, who to this day continues to persist even though he is now all but a pariah in the OPCA community. For him, I think it is the degree of his commitment and the adulation he at one time commanded. Sprinkle on some Dunning/Kruger, and these guys simply cannot let go because of the profoundly fundamental link between their ridiculous beliefs and their identity.
I have not dug into the background for Finney but I suspect there's a child seizure in play. That explains his nuttiness.
If this model is correct, and strength of irrational belief flows from the need for the consequences of that irrational belief, then we may even, possibly, have an explanation for why Robert-Arthur: Menard has engaged in his decade long push to be The King of the Freemen. He doesn't mention it often any more but if you dig back to Menard's foundation you find this very peculiar website:
It's a charming and nostalgic example of an Internet long past. I don't think Menard has tinkered with it in many, many years. Here is how the webpage opens:
On Dec 3rd, 2000 a beautiful healthy baby was born. Her loving parents named her Elizabeth. The name means ‘Oath to God’.
Two days later Agents for the Ministry of Children, Family and Community Services ‘legally removed’ that infant from them.
The Ministry conducted no investigation prior to ‘removal’.
Due to their failure to investigate, they mistakenly claimed the child had only one caregiver. They were informed she had two. When told the parents would prove in a court of Law that the Ministry was wrong, that the infant had two caregivers and there was a family in act and intent, the parents where told that if they tried, The Ministry worker would see to it that Elizabeth spent the first five years of her life going from foster home to foster home to foster home. They threatened to permanently harm an infant in order to deny the parents and the infant recourse to the Law. They committed an act of extortion.
Rob is parent #1. The second parent, Megan, was apparently an underage girl with substance issues. I picked up that information from posts on the JREF forum, I am not entirely certain on the back history of where that data originates. That's where to go if you want more detail. I think Menard himself admitted to some disturbing elements of the narrative while he was a participant on that forum.
In any case, look what the 'abduction' event leads Rob to say:
I intend to leave society. I am not moving physically, either. As a human being born in this country, I have the Common Law right to travel anywhere within it. I also have the right to join or not join societies as I see fit. I cannot be forced to consent. If I refuse to consent, none of the statutes everyone else calls laws will have the force of law with me.
I am leaving this party, not because I reject society, but because I wish to embrace it. I want a good one. One that is as free as can be. I reject the way in which this society deliberates, determines and acts for the common goal. I am not even sure we all have a common goal anymore. Those we elect to provide us with food and music are not doing their jobs. The servants are getting uppity and actually think they are in charge. The stole my family and did so unlawfully. The RCMP refuses to investigate them and the elected representatives are not doing their jobs. I am sick of the rules of this house, the meager portions and the blaring music. I will open this long closed door, stand on the other side and wave at you. I will do things lawfully that you cannot do, for you are still in the house.
...
When I see that members of society once again have recourse to the Law and those we elect to ‘serve the food’ are serving more then they eat, when these statutes are less deceptive and I know that the door outside is wide open at all times instead of being so well hidden, when the servants are acting more like servants, when the portions are bigger and there is less reveling in the kitchen, when the RCMP are abiding by the law and willing to investigate government ministries, then I will consider rejoining.
...
Do not be angry with me for becoming aware of government deception, or for acting against it. Be angry with those who have hidden this door to freedom from you for so long. Be angry with those who tore apart a family and denied citizens recourse to the law. Be angry with the RCMP for refusing to investigate a government ministry just because it is a government ministry. Be angry with your elected representatives for refusing to address crimes within that same ministry. Be angry with them for using so much deception in their legislation. Be angry with the media for constantly referring to new statutes as laws, instead of telling you they are nothing more then the rules of society and that you are free to leave that society if you don’t like the new statute.
The freedom you will achieve by me opening this door and leaving society will cost you nothing and it will empower you over those who claim they are your government. If we are to have a free society, this door must be open at all times. There is not one person among you who can lawfully force me to consent to being governed, nor is there one among you who can lawfully apply society’s statutes to me when I am outside of society.
Here is a letter Menard wrote - again purely focussed on the family law basis for his discontent (
http://www.angelfire.com/rebellion/elizabeth/). It's lengthy so I won't quote it, but you cannot escape the obvious core of the author's distress. The letter also clearly outlines the substantial age difference, that Megan was in various difficult circumstances, if not a ward of the state. Menard claims he had no idea how young Megan was until many months after after he was a father.
Let's run this through the ol' Cognitive Dissonance-o-Meter. Rob, a basically unemployable street performer, entered into a relationship which is at best highly suspect with an individual much younger than himself. A child is the result. The mother probably voluntarily (even eagerly) gave the child up for adoption given her circumstances.
Rob is now faced with an array of evils:
- 1. the nature of his relationship with Megan;
2. his inability to parent, his absence of any useful work or life skills, probable drug use and addictions, and lack of finances;
3. the fact the mother of his child wants him no-where near the kid, and probably herself; and
4. his genuine emotion and bond to his child and his wish to be a parent.
He has failed himself, his child, and the child's mother. If he were honest to himself the consequences would be, at a minimum, grim. So he reverses the blame, and puts the fault outside himself. If only he had been given a chance with Elizabeth Anne Elaine. He'd have shown them all what he could do. It wasn't his fault. He was denied the chance by sinister government authorities who enslave the Canadian population - and the vile mechanism by which they derived the authority to seize his child. Her mother had signed a birth certificate.
Rob doesn't talk about Elizabeth Anne Elaine much any longer. Perhaps it just does not gnaw at him any more. Perhaps he refuses to face the facts of the scenario - it's easier to just leave that out of his narratives with his Freeman-on-the-Land followers. But, if you want an explanation for why I predict that in 30 years we will see Robert-Arthur: Menard still shrieking his outrage at the world?
There is the kernal, the seed from which that grew. And Menard lacks the emotional and intellectual strength to abandon his lies. They are the crutch on which he has tottered forward, every day, for over a decade.
Even as he sees how his crutch is now harming many, many others. He knows. But I don't think he likes to look at it. He deletes stories of unsuccessful Freeman activities from his Facebook page, along with his varied and many schemes once they fail. He no longer visits the World Freeman Society webpage forums - filled with pleas for help, and example after example of failure in court and otherwise.
Can he let go? Of course not. I wonder if he ever stops, looks around, and imagines how Hitler felt in the Fuhrer-bunker beneath Berlin, as it shook under Soviet artillery fire.
SMS Möwe
[Note to readers - I have edited the text of this message and revised some of the details on information about Megan, the mother of Menard's child, after review of other sources so as to more accurately represent information published elsewhere and disclosed in Menard's 'letter to authorites' linked above. My apologies to all for inaccuracies in the initial account.]
