[Big Arnold]

Man who refused to register son's birth loses high court case

Father said he did not want his baby to be controlled by the British state

The judge said the father regarded registering a birth as the equivalent of making an entry on to a ship’s manifest. He argued that registering the birth would make the child “an asset to the country, which has boarded a vessel to sail on the high seas”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... high-court

[spoonman]

Sounds like classic FOTL behaviour all right, particularly the bit about the father's behaviour in court.

I would suspect however that the father's objection to his son "becoming an asset to the country" would not stop him trying to claim Child Benefit for him, have him receive treatment through the NHS, get him educated in a state school etc. Not to mention in the future a lack of National Insurance number would make it almost impossible to gain legitimate employment.

[davidjay]

Don't they claim that due to some law dating back to the eighteenth century, everyone is property of the Admiralty or something daft like that?

[Andy McDandy]

I believe it's the creation of the bank of England, or the abandoning of the gold standard, or something. The idea is that Britain is technically bankrupt, so is subject to maritime laws, and blah de blah and again, in the end, it doesn't matter because it's all bollocks.

Its just a slightly dressed up version of the gobshite in the pub claiming that a policeman without his helmet on can't arrest you because he's not in uniform.

[MisterMuncher]

RationalWiki had some good articles on these nutters, but at root, it's a bunch of half thought out semantic distinctions to avoid taxes and any form of social responsibility. It appeals greatly to the conspiracy set, that is, people exactly thick enough to believe they're extremely clever and that real life has both simple plotlines, everyone else isn't a real person and they have found the cheat codes.

[davidjay]

There's a few of them on YouTube, rambling on about the TV licence fee (BBC peedos), parking tickets, acts aren't laws, entering into contracts and the like. I'd like someone to kick their door down, walk away with their telly and see how long it takes them to call the police.

[MisterMuncher]

They make a distinction between natural or common law and that which they term statute or contract law. They believe the former and not the latter.

The distinction might more meaningfully be termed "my rights" and "my responsibilities". Or "stuff I like" and "stuff that may possibly cause me any kind of difficulty whatsoever"

[youngian]

Esther McVey was barracked by a FotL bloke on the campaign trail. Bad luck of her to have irked someone even loopier than she is. They’re called White Pendragons or something and heckled Sadiq Khan as well about Brexit.

[spoonman]

Much of the English variety of FOTL illusion boils down to invoking Magna Carta, whichever version suits them best for what's at hand, and the notion that what is contained in it is irrevocable. This and the idea that only Common Law is obligatory and that Statutory Law is optional - but of course Common Law is not exactly what is applied in the judicial system but a narrow field of what they believe it to be. The lack of a written, codified British Constitution is perhaps a small blessing given the reliance of them in other predominantly white English speaking countries that have suffered FOTL infestations and similar "I can't believe they're not Freemen" groupings.

Thankfully in Britain they have been a mostly harmless bunch of eccentrics who sit at the lunatic fringe of politics and society - the incident at Birkenhead around a decade ago involving Roger Hayes and the British Constitution Group notwithstanding. The spin-off of the 'murcian equivalents, sovereign citizens, are a much more dangerous bunch to the point that the FBI describe them as a loosely connected group of domestic terrorists.

[Oblomov]

Silly bugger:

[spoonman]

Some links that might be of interest.

The Quatloos website covers cases of financial frauds and scams, and inevitablely this extends into FOTL groups and individuals that come up with some fine, fresh bovine excrement to both get away with paying taxes, utilities, contracted obligations etc. as well as extracting money to them the other way. Their forum is a good repository, including a section on UK based "sovereign citizen" scam artists.

https://quatloosia.blogspot.com/
https://www.quatloos.com/Q-Forum/index.php
http://www.quatloos.com/Q-Forum/viewforum.php?f=52 (UK section)

Meanwhile in Ireland there is this 7000+ post megathread on the Legal Discussion subforum of boards.ie for which you'd have to be an absolute glutton for punishment to read from scratch, but it details a lot of the phenomenon in Ireland since 2011 starting with some eejit in Wexford playing the standard FOTL cards in trying to get out of being charged for motoring offences, to some real fruit loops (one in particular named "derry" who goes on long winded speils complete with dodgy grammar) trying to tell these students and observers of law in the state are wrong, with harilious consequences! Includes Ben (of the family) Gilroy, he whom was featured a few weeks ago on HIGNFY showing his campaign video for the EU Election, of Ben using a hurley to smash things up

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthr ... 2056353782