Self Evident Truths: Day 3

I know I promised to walk you through some definitions today, but I have been having issues with the list I originally created.  I guess I had a human frailty moment.

In fact, it took me so long to get back because I have been going over all sorts of words found in law.  One word led to another and to another and it turns out that INCLUDES is the most important word I've found that isn't defined in ordinary speech the way it is in the legal system.  To your average citizen, includes means, well... to contain - in a way.

Example:

This crate of fruit includes apples.

The average citizen would assume that although there are apples in the fruit crate, there may be oranges, bananas or tomatoes too, one wouldn't presume to know.  In the legal system, however, includes means "to the exclusion of all others".  Now wait a minute... if you use includes you are saying that there is nothing else in the fruit crate BUT apples.  THAT is a big difference!

Now it also goes on to qualify that if it says "and includes" or "including" that this leaves the word open to more.  So our example for this would be:

"This is a crate of fruit including apples"

This means that although there will be apples in the crate, it is anyone's guess what else may be in there now.  If you read an act - and I have read several in this journey - many list definitions of "person" as "includes a corporation" which from what we've discovered means at the exclusion of all else.  Therefore, those acts don't mean me and my friends when it talks of a person, it means a corporation.  The only problem with that is that corporations can't drive cars, fill out forms or do anything because they are not beings.  So why would so many acts include corporations if the corporation can't actually perform any functions?

From what I can find, it looks like the people that make up the corporation do things, but the corporation is the one liable.  It also looks like this can't apply to me.  Maybe these Freemen are on to something...

Don't worry I'll keep up the legwork for you and report in on what I find.  I want to make sure I am thorough, I'd hate to get something this big wrong.  If the Freemen are right, then we've been deceived and enslaved by our own democratic government...by public servants!  By our servants!  That's like if our maid is calling all the shots in our own home!  If they are wrong, then maybe one of them will find this blog and read where they went wrong, hopefully we can stop them from fighting with the cops and tying up the courts...right?

Self Evident Truths: Continued

Hey there!

We are examining the freeman movement and trying to sift through the huge amount of information out there to come to our own conclusions.  The only way to be sure that you have everything right is to look at it from every angle until you can be certain of your own mind.  Only then can you ever be comfortable with yourself and your decisions.

So what have we learned so far?
1. Freeman means someone who is not a slave and who has rights.
2. Sometimes the freemen manage to win in court, so at least some of what they are saying must have merit.
3. Freemen believe in a cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.
4. Freemen come from all walks of life, enjoy many different careers and seem to be just like me - just a little angrier.

Lets examine some of the things they say to find for ourselves whether or not they have a reason to be angry.

Freeman maxim #1:
Laws and legislation do not apply to a natural person.

Well this is silly you'd have to say since we all know that no one is above the law.  I can reject this off-hand, but I am still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt.  They seem passionate so they must have something that makes them believe it.  If I know why they think this way, maybe I can show them where they went wrong.  Let's look up laws and legislation in Canada.  Well let's see...we have the Charter of Rights, that is what lists all of our rights in Canada.  This IS the document the cops read from when reading you your rights, so this is where I'll start.  Looks pretty good until I hit this part right here:

Application of Charter

• 32. (1) This Charter applies
• (a) to the Parliament and government of Canada in respect of all matters within the authority of Parliament including all matters relating to the Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories; and
• (b) to the legislature and government of each province in respect of all matters within the authority of the legislature of each province.
• Source: http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html

Now this makes it look like only government employees have rights.  I know that isn't true, I have rights, we all have rights!  So maybe this isn't a document that grants me my rights or indicates what my rights are.  Maybe this is just a document telling the government how they are supposed to respect our rights.  Maybe there is more to this law thing.

While on the Canadian Law website you can find all sorts of acts and laws that all read like a glossary of terms.  One act will refer to another which will address an issue with another or amend still another.  Going back and forth I can't seem to find many that don't re-define almost every word.  None of them seem to differentiate between a freeman and a regular man and person is used (and re-defined) differently in many of them.  I wonder if there is something out there that'll help me sift through all the terminology?  Oh, wait, what is this?

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/i-21/

An act to tell people how to interpret other acts...well that is handy!

According to this:

1. Laws apply differently depending on jurisdiction.  Common law is acknowledged and upheld in Canada as per section 8.2:

                   

Terminology

8.2 Unless otherwise provided by law, when an enactment contains both civil law and common law terminology, or terminology that has a different meaning in the civil law and the common law, the civil law terminology or meaning is to be adopted in the Province of Quebec and the common law terminology or meaning is to be adopted in the other provinces.

So Quebec seems to behave differently than the rest of the country, but haven't they always?  I wonder why they get away with it?  that'll be a discovery for another day.

2. There are some things in law that are suggestions and others that are obligations:

Imperative and Permissive Construction

Marginal note:“Shall” and “may”

11. The expression “shall” is to be construed as imperative and the expression “may” as permissive.

3. If you are going to redefine something, you have to be consistent.  If you define something for one act then all other acts that follow must use the same meaning unless specifically indicated.

Interpretation sections subject to exceptions

(2) Where an enactment contains an interpretation section or provision, it shall be read and construed

• (a) as being applicable only if a contrary intention does not appear; and
• (b) as being applicable to all other enactments relating to the same subject-matter unless a contrary intention appears.

So a car in one act is the same as a car in another act pertaining to cars.  Makes sense.

4. Power to make laws does not allow you to redefine words in those laws.

Words in regulations

16. Where an enactment confers power to make regulations, expressions used in the regulations have the same respective meanings as in the enactment conferring the power.

5. There isn't much room to move when writing laws:

Gender

• 33. (1) Words importing female persons include male persons and corporations and words importing male persons include female persons and corporations.

• Marginal note:Number

  (2) Words in the singular include the plural, and words in the plural include the singular.

• Marginal note:Parts of speech and grammatical forms

  (3) Where a word is defined, other parts of speech and grammatical forms of the same word have corresponding meanings.

Reading acts of legislation isn't fun, but some of the things I am discovering are pretty neat.  It makes it hard to see how people could have gotten things wrong like the freemen say.  I am trying to keep an open mind, but things look legit.

Okay, so just trying to use the Interpretation Act to understand law seems to have confused me more.  I can't assume that Freemen  are all illiterate, but I have yet to see where any of this applies to me, or the average Joe.  Maybe I am still missing something.

Let's look at a law dictionary.  When you have so many regular words being defined and re-defined, it is good to have a book that gives you all the possible meanings so you can pick the right context.  There are several words I believe I already know that I see repeated throughout these acts and regulations, some of those that stand out to me are:

1. Enactment

2. Contains

3. Includes/including

4. Person

5. Applies

These are pretty basic words, but if they are defining almost every word in an act, maybe there are different meanings for things than I now know.  Maybe it is in these simple words that I can find the key to understanding why the freemen are mad or bad...whichever it may be.

We'll talk definitions in our next installment.

Self evident truths

Self evident truths are often not as obvious as we might think.  You might find that one truth is all you see until you turn around and look at something from a different angle.  Often the culture you were raised in can alter your perceptions so drastically you find that you cannot help but be blinded to real truth and only see what seems self evident.

For example, take this freedom movement rocking through countries that have previously been held as examples of good living in the world.  Somehow it seems that the privileged people of the world are whining about how hard our lives are.  From one perspective, that is exactly what is going on.  If you change your perspective slightly though, the whole picture changes.

Let us suspend our disbelief for a moment - this is that thing you do when you go to a movie and you just accept that all the inconsistencies are logical to accept the story.  We are now poised to receive a new perspective because we have decided to accept the following information as true.  Once we have this new perspective and we have gone through the process we can then decide if the new perspective is one we can adopt as a personal truth or whether we wish to return to our previous perspective and opinion.

If we are going to examine a rationale we need to do so in a step-by-step manner.  First, lets examine the title since this is the only information we have at the moment.  FREEMAN MOVEMENT.  I have seen all sorts of names, but this seems to be the most widely accepted and well-known.  We all know what a movement is, so we'll put that aside and examine what a freeman is.  Google had this to say:

free·man

ˈfrēmən,-ˌman/

noun

1. 1.

   a person who is entitled to full political and civil rights.
2. 2.

   historical

   a person who is not a slave or serf.

Well, that seems pretty simple.  I would even have to say that those two terms could apply to me.  What makes this term seem so malevolent to society?  Maybe someone has taken this term and caused it to mean something else?  Let us examine this possibility...

A Google search reveals a lot of references to Morgan Freeman, lists dictionary references to the definition above (or similar to) and a few news stories about people claiming the government has no authority...wait, what?!?

This seems to be the source of the issue.  I know that I, as a law abiding citizen, hate to see people blatantly ignoring the rules and getting away with it, so why would I ever want to listen to someone when they say that the cops are not allowed to pull me over?  When they say that we can go around breaking all their rules and never have to answer for it?  Who wants to live in that world?  Not me, that's for sure!  So now I am done, I took a look and I don't like what I am seeing so we're done.

I feel self-righteous and content in my own ideals now.  I feel empowered.  If someone asked me tomorrow what a freeman was I could honestly say that I looked into it and they all seem like lazy criminals to me.  Okay, so seem like isn't a very definitive term, how about this...I don't think I can get behind this movement.  Wait, I don't think?  Why don't I know for certain?  Maybe I didn't look at things as closely as I could.  Maybe the first thing that shocked me or upset me dissolved my ability to be unbiased and examine this fully.  Maybe I should go back and try again.  Being open-minded is good, being fair is right, nobody ever said being good and fair was going to be easy.  Grow up Joelle and let's really try to understand someone very different from me.

Okay...Freeman Movement.  I always find it is easier to ask questions than it is to look for answers, so let's figure out what questions to ask.  In order to eliminate my already established ideals so that I can be unbiased, I have to understand where the other person's perspective comes into play.  Let's start there.

Quetion #1:

"Why do "freemen" say that laws do not apply to them?"

Obviously they have something to back up their claim, not all of them seem to be able to make it stick in court, but enough do to make you stop and wonder how they did it.  When you eliminate your anger at what they got away with you can focus on asking why did they?  If a judge rules in their favour, even once, they must have a point, right?

Question #2:

"What do the freemen believe in?"

Bad grammar, but please do forgive me for a moment.  A lot of sites list a lot of different beliefs, much like religion.  Also like religion, they seem to have one central principle to which they hold: No government has the right to tell a living person to do or not do something.  This sounds like anarchy to me, am I right?  Anarchy is a bad thing, right?  Um...oh wait:

 an•ar•chy (ˈæn ər ki) 

n.

1. a state of society without government or law.

2. political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control.

3. a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.

4. confusion; chaos; disorder.

Okay, well 1 I can't imagine, 2 sounds like it is the same as 1 but made to sound worse and 4 is downright scary, but 3 doesn't sound too bad and seems to be the one that applies in this situation.  I don't know how we could become a "cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society" but I like the sound of it.

So if anarchy isn't necessarily a bad thing, and judges are occasionally ruling in their favour, what is next?

Question #3:

"If they don't live the way I do, how do they live?"

The government and media make it sound like these people are all freeloaders and on welfare or something.  Lazy people do not start movements, freeloaders are lazy above all else.  Welfare "bums" (not counting those few who are genuinely struggling) don't tend to care about changing the world and certainly aren't trying to bite the hand that feeds them.  Some of the biggest names I can find online are regular people with regular jobs.  Contractors, Teachers, Truck-drivers, Labourers and tradesmen, seems like a lot of people who are used to hard work, not lazy "bums".

Now we have a bit more of an idea who these people are and their values, we can start to piece together the truth from all the sources.  In my next installment, I'll go even deeper to try and deconstruct what the freedom movement is and whether it applies to the rest of us.  For now, I have to say that it doesn't seem all that bad yet.

Don't go too deep!

I love music.  No matter what you are going through or feeling there is a piece of music out there that will "fit".  Probably more than one, too.  Sometimes the same song can even have different meanings depending on how you listen to it.  I have recently learned new things that have caused me to back through my whole music collection and really listen to the lyrics of each song.  The results are surprising.

I've found that although many old songs I have always loved are still just as good or in some cases better than I thought.  There are those however that I simply can't listen to anymore.  For instance, I used to like the Waving Flag song.  It has a nice beat and is easy to move to.  The problem is that it is meaningless.  The lyrics are nonsensical and don't really say anything.  A flag isn't freedom...even Nazis had flags!  A flag is just the fabric that has been printed with a specific pattern to distinguish one country from another to those that are illiterate (yes that was the historical reason - so that illiterate soldiers would know who to fight with).  If this is the essence of freedom please, let me off this planet!

One song I now love more than any other is actually a one-hit wonder from the 80's that never seemed to make much sense until I found out what I now know.  We are being deceived and manipulated and if we want the truth we have to be able to bend our thoughts.  Here it is:

This song has so much meaning for me now.  I never got it until I bent my brain and looked at the world.  Somehow the way things should be is not the way things are and it is up to us to figure out why and how that happened.

Now I could probably just tell you everything you need to know and you'd probably scoff and go on to the next blog never really learning the truth, or you might be open minded, but now you would be dependent upon me to tell you what is the next step.  Neither is the reason I am here in blog-land at all.  Yes I want people to wake up, but I also want to re-teach the world to think.  We know how to memorize and regurgitate because that is what they teach us to do in school and this makes people think they are educated when in actuality they have simply been sophisticated and institutionalized.

If you are educated you can process any information and learn, if you are sophisticated and institutionalized you can only do exactly as you have been taught and are unable to think and reason for yourself.  This is the difference between a doctor that prescribes amoxicillan for every patient in his clinic.  Instead of analyzing his patient he has learned that prescribing something useless is more likely to prevent a lawsuit.  In fact there are simple ways to avoid over-prescribing antibiotics - 1. if your mucus is clear or white you are fine, it's a virus, drink fluids eat chicken soup and rest.  If it is yellow, orange or green, go get some pills from the doctor, it is bacterial and not going away otherwise. - 2. if it lasts more than 7 days you probably have a bacterial infection and need a prescription.  These two little thought processes are what our parents and grandparents used to judge when to take us to the doctor, but they forgot to mention it to us when we became parents ourselves.  

When our work ethic extends only to doing the least amount necessary or whatever will keep us from getting sued or fired, we lose a huge piece of what makes humanity great.  Suddenly everyone I meet is now only concerned with how little they can do to get what they want.  Facebook access is more important at the office than what duties you are to perform.  Number of vacation days exceeds salary in most University students' requirements for employment.  It is now a source of pride for many people that they have managed to skim by on no merit.  It was once considered a shame for others to discover that you erred or were less-than-hard-working, now does anyone really care?

One thing I started seeing long before anything else became apparent was the reluctance of my peers to think on any level beyond the most frivolous.  If you were discussing anything more meaningful than the latest Simpson's episode (it was the late 80s & 90s) then you were mocked for thinking too much and being a geek.  Since I liked Shakespere and preferred exploring the human condition as well as elements of psychology and philosophy as early as 8 years old, I had very few people to talk with.

Next time you are talking with someone and your brain starts to hurt, try listening closer instead of turning away.  You might just come away with something that'll serve you better than gossip a la water cooler.

I'll leave you with one song that I used to hate and now I love both for the same reason, this is the mantra of the average person in society today:

What are you?

In the beginning...

Once upon a time there was a bright eyed little baby girl born to a very dysfunctional royal family.  Mom (The Queen) was Protestant and English, unpardonable offences to her in-laws, Dad (The King) a French Catholic Canadian Man's man with all his neolithic ideals intact and the Prince of the realm was a 6-year old genius with an identity crisis.  Little did the Princess know what she was in for.  The Prince wasn't very manly, in fact he was more interested in art than mechanics and hated getting dirty.  As an infant he learned how to use a spoon before most babies were learning how to grab a Cheerio with two fingers, could be left on a blanket in a yard for hours because the grass felt icky and was therefore a terrible disappointment to the King.  The King believed that all boys had to be tough, love dirt and grime and be able to do anything physically demanding.  Since the Prince was more effeminate than expected, the Queen did all she could think of to mitigate the issue and make peace between the two.

When the Prince was four the Queen was told she was no longer able to bear children, however when the Prince was five she was granted a miracle that answered her prayers.  The Queen was very excited to be able to have another child, a little worried about the age gap between her children and even more thrilled to find she was having a girl.  The King was proud as well, but he had no expectations for girls, he only knew what it was to be a man, not a girl.  He was soon delighted to find that his new little girl was about as feminine as a girl ever need to be yet also as masculine as a girl can get.  She loved to run and explore, got into more trouble and more messes than the Prince and generally delighted the King in every way.  Every complaint he had about his son was remedied in his daughter.  The King's love was great for the Princess and she could do no wrong in his eyes, the Queen and Prince were not happy with this turn of events.

Although she didn't like the way the King favoured one child over the other, she couldn't do much to persuade the King that he should give his son a chance.  The Prince on the other hand was too smart to let this baby take over his place, he was the only heir until she'd come along and he deserved all the glory and attention.  It wasn't fair that he tried so hard and couldn't obtain the King's approval only to watch it go to an infant that hadn't earned a thing.  The Prince also had six years of knowledge over his sister, it shouldn't be hard to manipulate her.

And so, the Prince set out to ensure that the Princess would never hold any power in the kingdom.  His ability to talk circles around her and the Princesses natural temper (genetic trait from the King) and wish to please everyone became the Prince's tools of revenge.  Soon the Princess was confused enough to doubt everything she thought she knew, filled with guilt and suicidal thoughts because she was convinced that she was worthless and stupid and unsure of others.  The Queen was too busy taking care of the kingdom and the Princess' naturally cheerful manners disguised the torture she suffered.  The King was always travelling to ensure the renewal of funds for the kingdom.

One day, when the Princess was six and her brother twelve, the King had an awful accident and died.  The Prince had only recently made strides in his growing relationship with the King and the blow to his goals was more than he could take.  He began to rebel almost from the start.  The recreational drugs that were once just for fun were now essential to his life.  There was no longer purpose to his existence, no longer a reason to strive for anything because the King whose acceptance he needed was now gone and that acceptance so much dust in the wind.  In his youth and anger he turned on the Queen.

No matter what the Queen did to reign in her son he became more and more irresponsible.  He would party, skip school, do drugs, drink and vandalize.  As she watched her brother continue to hurt her mother, the Princess made a vow to always be the "good" child to ease the pain for the Queen.  To always support, to always do the right thing and to listen to the Queen's advice no matter what.  The King had been the love of her life, her world was gone and all she had were two kids and a mountain of bills to pay on her own, no need to add to her burden; the Princess would help where she could in her limited capacity at six and a half.

The Princess didn't realize though that her limited capacity to help was more limited than she thought.  One day she tried to start supper for her mother, she'd helped make cakes and cookies and muffins, how hard could soup be?  She filled a pot with water, added spices and herbs from the cupboard and started chopping a few vegetables with the knife her mother let her use when they cooked together.  Alas the Prince came in to see what she was doing and proceeded to shout at her for being so stupid and sent her to her room for playing with the stove.  He threw away all of the soup she'd worked so hard on and threatened to tell the Queen that she'd been playing and had ruined all that food for fun.  The Princess knew this would just upset the Queen and she went to her room and kept silent.  This laid out the pattern of the Princess' life.  In order not to burden others with her complaints, the Princess simply withdrew into herself and tried to reason it out on her own.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and the Princess was to find this out the hard way.  She wished only to help everyone she met, she wanted to be useful and hoped one day that if she were good enough and smart enough and pretty enough that she'd earn the right to be loved just like the princesses in the stories she'd read since she was three.  No matter what she did though she was admonished and tossed aside.  She couldn't understand why her peers reviled her for her efforts, could not understand why her brother hated her so, could not understand why those that were supposed to care never wanted to help.  She grew sullen and depressed.  None of her questions seemed to have answers.

Why is it that we all agree that being selfish is bad but we all act selfishly in even the most minor of ways?  Why do we believe it is bad to be stupid but refuse to put any effort into learning something?  Why do we revere those that offer nothing of value to society and ignore those that truly benefit the world?  Why do those in power claim to work for the people but refuse to listen when we tell them what we want?  Why is it that children no longer listen to their parents and teachers?  Why are our elders treated like secondary citizens when their wisdom should be revered?  Why do big companies have more power than the people they were created to serve?

It took the Princess 35 years and much heartache to find the answers.

Rethinking Right has the answers, but they aren't pretty.  They are incredible and fantastic and totally true, but you really don't want to know.  The answers to these and more unanswerable questions will become clear if you stick around, but you really don't want to know.  The truth is frightening and unbelievable and probably too late in reaching your ears.  If you stick around for more you can't tell me I didn't warn you.  All I ask is that you look into your own life for examples of what I am talking about.  Don't just look at what I show you as my own "proof" open your eyes and look for it in your own life.  If you can't find a single example of what I talk about you can walk away with all your ideals intact, if you do learn to see the signs I am going to show you be prepared to be terrified.

Introducing myself

Hey there!  My name is Joelle (pronounced Joe-Elle kinda like Noel).  It is a common enough name in most French speaking countries, but even in Western Canada where I live it is baffling to most people.  Not only is it very close to its male counterpart (Joel) but the added letters (making it feminine) confuse people.  Therefore for your ease and mine I will mostly refer to myself as Joe.

I've avoided blogging since My Space was new because I just don't seem to have the discipline needed to focus on this kind of thing and don't really feel people want to read what I have to say.  So I am starting this blog for me.  This is where I plan to put into words those random thoughts I have every day.  Where I can rant and rave about the world or share a recipe or craft project if I so desire.  This will be what I want it to be on any given day, including ignored.

Being that it is all for me I will not guarantee a new post every day, I won't even promise to stick to a theme or a style. I change every day and so will this blog.  I may post 5 times in one day and not at all the next, I may post pictures, but more often than not I won't because my own suck and people tend to get bent out of shape if you use theirs.

I hope some people out there like my kind of crazy and get inspiration or helpful tips from me that can improve their lives, but I am not going to worry about making a living out of this so I am not concerned if you don't like it.  I am beyond broke and not affiliated with anyone, so I won't be supplying people with giveaway contests or subjecting them to posts that read more like ads.

I have very solid and defined opinions and most of the time they offend, if you want to make a comment feel free.  If there is no intelligence behind your argument then I will simply ignore you.  Please refrain from acting like a preschooler and simply insulting people who do not see the world as you do, I may actually have to moderate this shit and that is not my style.

Oh yeah, I swear.  Like a sailor.  If you can't handle it, leave.  Sometimes there isn't a nice way of saying things no matter how broad your vocabulary.  I'll avoid it if I can or if it is not appropriate, but there are always occasions where swearing is not only appropriate but vital to getting a point across.

My life has not always been pleasant, my ideals are often controversial, I go from frivolous to serious in 2.5 seconds and I hate people but love humanity.  I am a study in contrasts and would probably be the perfect candidate for being dissected in the name of science.  I have two kids but I am not a "Mommy-blogger", They are their own entities and separate from me although I love them both a great deal.  I am nowhere near the perfect parent, in fact I have made a lot of horrid mistakes, from getting pregnant at 16 to leaving my daughter on her father's doorstep at age 11.  I had/have my reasons and unless you've been involved you can't know whether they were good or bad ones, so I don't apologize.  Read on and you'll have a chance to learn who I am, who the players are and get your chance to pitch in with comments that would be more than just "OMG!  How could you?  You are horrible!".  I know I am.  What else do you have to say?