Image from a Guardians of the Free Republics meetup group in the Phoenix area
This is too perfect a Breaking Time outbreak to ignore. A scattered, mostly internet-based group entrenched in an esoteric alternative universe of legal doctrine seeks to break America up into hyper-local states through well, I'll let you read the article/interpretation from Salon:
WASHINGTON -- Any minute now, all 50 governors should begin implementing a plan to eliminate mortgages, waive auto registration requirements, abolish the IRS, and generally restore the proper constitutional order circa December 1860. Either that, or resign.
That's the gist of the demand letters
sent to statehouses around the country this week -- which have gotten
the FBI extremely interested -- by a group calling itself "Guardians
of the Free Republics." Either governors agree to go along with
the group's "Restore America Plan," or the group's "de
jure grand juries" will remove them from office. Authorities say
they don't anticipate any danger from the actual group's threats, but
worry that the declarations against all the governors could provoke
someone else to react violently.
The Restore America Plan, as laid out online, basically involves dismantling most of the federal government. The "territorial jurisdiction United States Federal Corporation, posing as the de jure United States of America," for instance, would be "terminated." So would marriage licenses, which the group says give too much power to courts that aren't established properly under the Constitution, and birth certificates. (Don't worry, though; according to one like-minded Web site, "Social Security payments will not be interrupted.")
Something has to be sacred, I suppose. It gets better: the Guardians demand that "admiralty law" be repealed. That, of course, being the martial law you didn't know you'd been living under due to, uh, the gold trim on flags:
For years, the truly paranoid have distinguished themselves from ordinary skeptics of government power by insisting that the flags on display in courtrooms somehow prove that something weird is going on there. And they base it all on admiralty law. The decorative gold fringe many flags sport, apparently, indicates that the courtroom is under martial law. Military flags, see, are required to have gold trim. At some point, someone decided that meant any flags with gold trim are, therefore, military flags. Which makes courts military courts (which is why federal judges are appointed by the president, instead of elected directly). By misreading some obscure portion of international admiralty law, the people behind this theory have deduced that any room with a military flag flying is subject only to military law. "When you enter a courtroom displaying a gold or yellow fringed flag, you have just entered into a foreign country, and you better have your passport with you, because you may not be coming back to the land of the free for a long time," one Web site dedicated to the notion declares.
Federal courts receive a constant, low-level barrage of filings insisting that they're entirely illegitimate because of the flag, and also because the people they're trying to prosecute or sue are "sovereign citzens," or "flesh and blood people," and therefore not subject to the courts' laws. That theory is rooted in the far-right Posse Comatitus movement; essentially, adherents think the government came up with some way during the Civil War and Reconstruction to deprive citizens of the rights they were supposed to have. Before the 14th Amendment was passed, no one was a citizen of the U.S., but rather of whatever state they lived in, according to the theory. Which is the way it's supposed to be. By returning to the way things were before then, you can reclaim your proper rights from the government that's usurped them.
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But don't worry; the best part of the Restore America Plan is that most people will be able to enjoy the benefits of a restored America without having to do anything at all to bring it about. "With thousands of you consumed with vision and hope, most of those who have contacted us thus far WILL NOT NEED TO TAKE FURTHER ACTION AT THIS TIME," the Guardians Web site declares. "You can literally sit back and await the changes that are coming, and be ready if we should contact you." Chances are, you literally can't. It's the best conspiracy theory of them all -- one that takes care of itself.
I swear, this is the kind of political era where stranger-than-fiction events movements seem to crop up on a daily basis. Though if we're actually under admiralty law, I want to wear a naval uniform next time I have to go to court for a speeding ticket. Huzzah.
If they have such a fun time with Admiralty Law, I'd love to see their faces if you walk up to them and present a Letter of Marque and Reprisal...
Posted by: Cat Vincent | April 03, 2010 at 04:39 PM