A question on my own run-in with a SovCit

[Unidyne]

I run a website devoted to the Micronation movement, and every once in a while, I get a message from someone in the Sovereign Citizen movement, asking me some question, often involving matters like "How do I get the USA to recognize my claim?" (You don't) or "How do I use my own license plates on my car without being hassled by the police?" (You can't).

A number of years ago, before I even knew of this website, I got an e-mail from a woman who was using about a page and a half of legalistic gobbledy-gook, asking me a question about a lawsuit she was filing, and wanting my advice on some matter.

After informing her that I was not a lawyer, I told her that using anything involving the Sovereign Citizen movement was going to do nothing but invite trouble, and if she went ahead with what I understood she was going to do, she risked Contempt of Court charges. I also told her to consult a lawyer, preferably one who was registered by the State Bar association and not some flag-waving patriot who claimed to know the "real law". I added that if she couldn't afford a lawyer, she should go to her local library and ask at the reference desk about information on where she could find pro-bono legal help.

I never heard from her again. My only question was, did I do the right thing?

[The Observer]

As much as you could have. The woo was obviously strong with this one, as notorial dissent would say, and beyond giving her good practical advice, there is little else you could do if she decides to ignore you.

[Dr. Caligari]

My only question was, did I do the right thing?

I can't think of anything you could have done better. Good on you!

[notorial dissent]

I think you told her what she needed to hear, it may not have been what she wanted to hear, but that is not anything you have any control over. You gave her an honest and straightforward answer, which all things is the best that you could do. Being honest with sovcits may not get you anywhere, but it won't corrupt your soul.

[Unidyne]

Thanks to everyone who commented. I just hope she got the right advice from the right people.

[Patriotdiscussions]

You could of told her that you have no clue.

Driving is a commercial activity, has been since before cars were even invented.

http://iamman51.blogspot.com/2015/11/dr ... ivity.html

[Judge Roy Bean]

You could of told her that you have no clue.

Driving is a commercial activity, has been since before cars were even invented.

http://iamman51.blogspot.com/2015/11/dr ... ivity.html

Meaningless drivel in the real world of today.

[Wake Up! Productions]

You could of told her that you have no clue.

Driving is a commercial activity, has been since before cars were even invented.

http://iamman51.blogspot.com/2015/11/dr ... ivity.html

Meaningless drivel in the real world of today.

I love all of these early 1900's definitions of the word "driver", yet they can not provide a CURRENT source of the same definition that is used in courts today. Yes, at one time, a century ago, "driver" legally meant "one who was employed". Does it still legally mean this - NO !!!

[wserra]

You could of told her that you have no clue.

Good thing we replaced those old irony meters.

[notorial dissent]

You could of told her that you have no clue.

Good thing we replaced those old irony meters.

With the new super deluxe idiot buffered versions.

[Judge Roy Bean]

...

I love all of these early 1900's definitions of the word "driver", yet they can not provide a CURRENT source of the same definition that is used in courts today. Yes, at one time, a century ago, "driver" legally meant "one who was employed". Does it still legally mean this - NO !!!

Actually, it goes back much further. A "driver" was one who "drove" teams of animals pulling wagons and here in the US, at least, is the source of the term "teamster."

[notorial dissent]

Originally, Automobiles were thought to be and considered very expensive toys of the rich, which they were. It wasn't until Henry Ford that they were remotely affordable to the general public. I remember reading historical comment in my state about them being playthings of the rich and no point in licensing, or even regulating them for that matter, as there were so few of them. When my grandmother and great grandmother were first driving there was NO requirement or even such thing as a license. That all changed in pretty short order after HF. The sovcits can blame it all on him if they want to. Otherwise, about the rest they are just quite simply, DEAD WRONG. Otherwise they fall back on their proclivity to refuse to accept that words can have more than one meaning or in fact change over time, or that legal definitions don't necessarily strictly follow dictionary definitions, particularly if they are defining a term for a law.

[Patriotdiscussions]

You could of told her that you have no clue.

Driving is a commercial activity, has been since before cars were even invented.

http://iamman51.blogspot.com/2015/11/dr ... ivity.html

Meaningless drivel in the real world of today.

I love all of these early 1900's definitions of the word "driver", yet they can not provide a CURRENT source of the same definition that is used in courts today. Yes, at one time, a century ago, "driver" legally meant "one who was employed". Does it still legally mean this - NO !!!

Driving is a commercial activity part deux, just for you.

http://iamman51.blogspot.com/2015/12/dr ... -deux.html

Although Ford's refusal to support the private efforts of the Lincoln Highway Association stymied its attempts to build a transcontinental highway, Fisher, with the assistance of Henry B. Joy, president of Packard Motor Company, pressed on to provide marking for the entire route and to build at least one mile of experimental concrete highway in each of the states the route crossed. The test roadways were actually built in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska. The efforts of the Association, though only partially successful, gave some credence to Rose Wilder Lane's statement in her 1943 book, Discovery of Freedom:

... American government should have never interfered with highways. Americans created a free, mutual association, the American Automobile Association, which was dealing with all the new questions arising from the invention of automobiles. Private enterprise originated and built the first trans-Continental highway [this statement is not true if it refers to the Lincoln Highway]; free manufacturers and car-owners would have covered this country with highways, as free Americans covered it with wagon-roads. Americans wanted cars and highways; no police force was needed to take their money from them and spend it for highways. And it is injustice to the Americans who do not own cars, to compel them to pay for highways. [37]


If American roadways had been private property, another question relating to the propriety of driver licensing would have been more easily resolved. Under common law, driving a team of horses, oxen, or mules was a matter of right. Such activities were clearly not a privilege granted to the individual by the state.

In one of the earliest decisions relating to registration and licensing, the Supreme Court of Illinois stated that the City of Chicago might regulate commercial activities, such as those engaged in by draymen, but "no reason exists why [licensing] should apply to the owners of private vehicles used for their own individual use exclusively, in their own business, or for their own pleasure, as a means of locomotion."

Anything which cannot be enjoyed without legal authority would be a mere privilege, which is generally evidenced by a license. The use of the public streets of a city is not a privilege but a right. ... A license, therefore, implying a privilege, cannot possibly exist with reference to something which is a right, free and open to all, as is the right of the citizen to ride and drive over the streets of the city without charge, and without toll, provided he does so in a reasonable manner. [38]

[38] The City of Chicago v. Lorin C. Collins, Jr. et. al., 175 Ill 445 (October 24, 1898) at pp., 456-457. The Court affirmed the illegality of the Chicago "Wheel Tax" ordinance.

[Judge Roy Bean]

...


Driving is a commercial activity part deux, just for you.

Nonsense.

[Wake Up! Productions]

Driving is a commercial activity part deux, just for you.

In today's day and age, driving is ONLY a commercial activity if you are in possession of a COMMERCIAL Driver's License !!!

Canadian "freeman" Robert Menard once tried to argue with me that this isn't so, because one can be employed to deliver food and newspapers using a PERSONAL license. I countered with the CURRENT Black's Law definition of the word "commerce":

commerce. (16c) The exchange of goods and services, esp. on a large scale involving transportation between cities, states, and nations.

Sorry dude, delivering a pizza locally is NOT considered "commerce" !!!

[fortinbras]

The notion that a "driver" must be someone hired or paid to operate the vehicle, and whoever is driving his own car for his own (noncommercial) amusement cannot, by definition, be a driver and therefore does not require a driver's license, has never worked in an American court.

This silliness was built up from a definition for driver that is found in pre-Civil War dictionaries, such as Bouvier's Dictionary of Law. But Bouvier's definition, nor the very similar definition appearing in the first three editions of Black's Law Dictionary, were ever quoted or articulated by an American court. For the last quarter century, revisions of Black's LD have carried updated definitions of driver that comport with modern law.

In every state the state vehicular code defines "driver" as the person "in actual physical control" of the vehicle. This definition, which is virtually the same from state to state, appears to derive from a proposed uniform law on highway safety that might date back to the 1920s. In any case, the state laws make plain that whoever is at the steering wheel, no matter what his reason for taking the car out for a spin, is the driver. The US Supreme Court, for example, upheld a conviction for driving without a license against a soccer mom who was taking her kids home from soccer practice -- about as noncommercial a situation that can be imagined.

PS: The link provided repeatedly by Patriotdiscussions cites an old edition of Black's LD for "driver", which was attributed by Black to an 1896 Alabama decision, Davis v. Petrinovich (1896) 112 Alab. 654, 21 So. 344, 36 L.R.A. 615 --- but that decision only held that a bicycle was a "vehicle" subject to a city's vehicle tax law even though the law was enacted before bicycles became popular. The words "driver" or "employ" do not even occur in that decision.

[Wake Up! Productions]

The notion that a "driver" must be someone hired or paid to operate the vehicle, and whoever is driving his own car for his own (noncommercial) amusement cannot, by definition, be a driver and therefore does not require a driver's license, has never worked in an American court.

This silliness was built up from a definition for driver that is found in pre-Civil War dictionaries, such as Bouvier's Dictionary of Law. But Bouvier's definition, nor the very similar definition appearing in the first three editions of Black's Law Dictionary, were ever quoted or articulated by an American court. For the last quarter century, revisions of Black's LD have carried updated definitions of driver that comport with modern law.

In every state the state vehicular code defines "driver" as the person "in actual physical control" of the vehicle. This definition, which is virtually the same from state to state, appears to derive from a proposed uniform law on highway safety that might date back to the 1920s. In any case, the state laws make plain that whoever is at the steering wheel, no matter what his reason for taking the car out for a spin, is the driver. The US Supreme Court, for example, upheld a conviction for driving without a license against a soccer mom who was taking her kids home from soccer practice -- about as noncommercial a situation that can be imagined.

Sadly, the biggest mistake most newbies to this make is that old, out of date law dictionaries are relevant in court today !!!

I have tried in vain to convince them that the reason why they make newer UPDATED volumes is because, unlike a regular English dictionary, the definitions contained within Law dictionaries are subject to change - based on the current day case law. A perfect example of this would be the word ABORTION. In America, prior to Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), abortion was ILLEGAL, and punishable by imprisonment. After Roe v. Wade, abortion became LEGAL - therefore the Law dictionary definition CHANGED !!!

[Wake Up! Productions]

Driving is a commercial activity part deux, just for you.

A "Sovereign Citizen" Success Story !!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edzzscWIODw

This is what happens when you attempt to use old, outdated legal definitions of the words: DRIVER and COMMERCE !!!

[notorial dissent]

The point being that a legal dictionary antique or current is irrelevant for the most part in a court setting. What matters is what the law says, not what someone claims the word means or the law means. That is the judge's responsibility. Just more sovcit FOTL intellectual dishonesty, to go along with their moral or moral honesty and integrity. They usually deny or ignore that there are actual statutes in every state regarding this, so just pra for the course.

[Wake Up! Productions]

The point being that a legal dictionary antique or current is irrelevant for the most part in a court setting. What matters is what the law says, not what someone claims the word means or the law means. That is the judge's responsibility. Just more sovcit FOTL intellectual dishonesty, to go along with their moral or moral honesty and integrity. They usually deny or ignore that there are actual statutes in every state regarding this, so just pra for the course.

Agreed, I was merely responding to the link that was posted, http://iamman51.blogspot.ca/2015/12/dri ... -deux.html, which pairs the CURRENT Florida statute with Law dictionary definitions from the 1800's !!!

Traffic - Bouvier's (1856)
Commerce, trade, sale or exchange of merchandise, bills, money and the like.