Title for Hilfskreuzer Möwe

[Hilfskreuzer Möwe]

Thanks for the title folks, which I like very much indeed, and for all your kind words.

I'm glad I have been able to contribute a few interesting, useful, and hopefully occasionally amusing things to the forum.

And so I will proceed apace. Any semi-submerged objects along my path are purely coincidental.

SMS Möwe

[JamesVincent]

Congratulations on the title Mowe, it is very well deserved. I may not write the best stories or find the cool things but I know quality when it hits me, and your posts have.

[wserra]

Möwe - no thanks are necessary for the rank. Thanks are due for your contributions to the board.

[JamesVincent]

Möwe - no thanks are necessary for the rank. Thanks are due for your contributions to the board.

^ What he said.

[Burnaby49]

My favorite post was this paean to the fragility of friendship. If it wasn't about Belanger and Menard I'd call it tragic:

Ah, summer love. It is a precious yet ephemeral thing. One walks across a sandy shore, scrunching your toes and feeling the grittiness between. Close your eyes, and savour the heat of the full undiminished sun. Then as the night falls, you gaze across a bonfire at a familiar but now older, wrinkly and stubbly face, the face of one with whom you once spent long hours ‘deconstructing’ the law, and discovering a foundation for a better future, together building the proverbial City on the Hill. And those squinty, rheumy eyes stare back. You each chug another brew. After all the years of anger, unkind words, and allegations? Is it possible? Can that just … evaporate away … in this special context? In a crystalline moment?

Can there once more be the camaraderie? Cooperation? Together, raising fists in defiance and truth? Even … perhaps ... love?

And so it was, in mid July of this year, that two friends then bitter rivals became friends again. “minister” Belanger and Robert-Arthur: Menard holidayed together in “Deep Bay”, Bowser British Columbia, with an unidentified host couple. In the hopeful morning after glow, Belanger recorded a video as he wandered around the beach outside the host home, pointed at the landscape and its beauty, observed how his new young friend, Maya was running along the shore with Rob’s dog. Last night there had been raw fresh oysters, Nature's bounty, plucked from these very shores! Perhaps tomorrow – even more?

[Hilfskreuzer Möwe]

Regardless, I am quietly flattered.

And I'm glad you enjoyed the Belanger/Menard tale, Burnaby49. I had a little too much fun composing that!

Strange as it may seem, I have a certain fondness for "minister" Belanger. His misadventures are more those of a crank, and I would be quite pleased if he were to appear here at Quatloos for a visit. (Yes, wserra, I see you over there in the corner, cringing...)

The reason is not to debate law. I know our positions are hopelessly separate and incompatible, but rather that I am curious about Belanger as historian. You see, in Canada the various major figures in the Detaxer / Freeman-on-the-Land phenomenon all appeared in a relatively short period, and were principally located in just two provinces: Alberta and British Columbia. And it seems looking at the now 8-15 year old remnants preserved from that time that everybody pretty much knew everybody.

It's a period before the 'outside' was watching, and so I know of no real source on what that community looked like, how people interacted. But Belanger was there, and whatever else, he is forthright in his opinion. I'd like to hear what he recalls about the people and ideas of that time, and how things evolved. It's the academic in me, I suppose. I would also like to hear about CERI's development and now, decay. It's only an educated guess but it seems that Belanger is pretty much the last person active in that movement.

In a recent video Belanger observed he is in poor health, and I very much hope that he records his history of the last 20 years. I know that his story would likely be of limited interest to most, but I would certainly welcome his perspective and recollections.

SMS Möwe

[wserra]

I would be quite pleased if he were to appear here at Quatloos for a visit. (Yes, wserra, I see you over there in the corner, cringing...)

Not at all.

We have had more than our share of wackos|cranks|fraudsters visit and post over the years - Marc Stevens, L.B. Bork, David (Merrill) Van Pelt, Lawyerdud(e), Tom Clayton (partner of Larken Rose), acolytes of Peter Hendrickson and Ed and Elaine Brown, and many others of varying degrees of social deviance. They have ranted, raved, threatened lawsuits and attorney disciplinary complaints (never filed any, of course) and displayed other such indicia of their legal expertise. They are now all indexed in search engines, complete with the thorough debunking they each received.

We like it when that happens. It's fun, too.

[JamesVincent]

I would be quite pleased if he were to appear here at Quatloos for a visit. (Yes, wserra, I see you over there in the corner, cringing...)

Not at all.

We have had more than our share of wackos|cranks|fraudsters visit and post over the years - Marc Stevens, L.B. Bork, David (Merrill) Van Pelt, Lawyerdud(e), Tom Clayton (partner of Larken Rose), acolytes of Peter Hendrickson and Ed and Elaine Brown, and many others of varying degrees of social deviance. They have ranted, raved, threatened lawsuits and attorney disciplinary complaints (never filed any, of course) and displayed other such indicia of their legal expertise. They are now all indexed in search engines, complete with the thorough debunking they each received.

We like it when that happens. It's funny, too.

Fixed it for you.