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Archive 1Archive 2

Lede change

@Bastun: The lede says, "Freemen are mainly active in the United States and in other English-speaking countries: Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand." (emphasis added). This implies that they are found more in the U.S. than anywhere else. The article then goes on to provide examples which are solely drawn from the UK and Canada, it doesn't provide any examples from the U.S.

There are a lot of similarities between Freeman philosophy and tactics and Sovereign philosophy and tactics, and I get that they aren't quite the same, but I think Sovereign thought is more prominent in the U.S. than Freemen thought. It appears, both from the article and from other sources I've read, that Freeman thought is found more often in the U.K. and Canada than in the U.S., where people who are inclined to think that way are more often Sovereigns than Freemen.

Also, that sentence in the lede is unsourced; which is fine, because things in the lede are supposed to reflect things in the body and be sourced in the body. However, as I said earlier, the body of the article does not reflect the statements in the lede.

If you think the lede should remain worded the way it is; then the indication that they are "mainly active in the United States" needs to be sourced and the rest of the article re-written to reflect that. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 15:39, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

I think that ONUnicorn is right on this. I don't think the lede as it's worded necessarily emphasizes the United States, but we could make it less prominent anyway. I suggest: Freemen are mainly active in English-speaking countries: Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Freemen active in the United States may be considered an offshoot of the sovereign citizen movement.[refs] Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 16:24, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
English-speaking rather than Commonwealth, maybe. The U.S. does have Freemen, and Ireland left the Commonwealth well over half a century ago. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 22:18, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
Good point. I was pulling Commonwealth out of nowhere, I admit. I made a small change. On second thought, is it even necessary to say "English speaking"? We could just list the countries ("... mainly active in Canada, the United Kingdom ..." etc). Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 22:52, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
List the countries we have sourcing on (Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia ...) - David Gerard (talk) 00:01, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

No sources backs this but for a simplified outlook on different freemen by country; The largest factors of different outlooks it pointed towards constitutions; The UK argues that ancient documents (Magna Carta, Declaration of Rights, Bill of Rights, Oaths etc) are still valid whereas in Canada they state that Section 32 and Section 52 are still valid within their constitution and in the US they argue that the Constitution is still true up until it wasn't written within 4 corners by the later framers of the US constitution whom amended it this way as it could appear under different laws a contract and that is only binding to the people who signed it. (bit wordy but sort of the argument)" I hope this gave some help to distinguise the differences of those countries if ur adding content. Anonymous 573462i (talk) 03:00, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

There are sources, and the article did in the past accurately reflect them. Some editor has at some point altered the lead to say that the movement is "mainly" in the US, and for that there is no source, but that it started in the US is correct. See, for example, one of the sources used as a reference in the article: "Nonsense or loophole?", Benchmark, Issue 57, February 2012, p 18, which says: "The "Freeman on the land" movement can be traced back to various US-based groups in the 1970s and 1980s onwards. It reached the UK some time around the start of the new Millennium, with the actual term "Freeman on the land" first appearing around 2008." The simplest solution is just to remove "mainly", which I've done. Emeraude (talk) 11:17, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Several complaints of a bias has been made...

If you wish to add new content that stands contrary to the Freeman point of view... I added a section titled; counter-arguments, concerns and criticism.

The sole of the article is based around the perception of the individuals regarded from the caption "freemen".

If you do not like what I have written we can agree upon something here... simply reverting my added material is unnacceptable since it's removing the wording standard against NPOV; for instance... "they believe" etc... which is absurd as anyone can form their own judgement. I've been more than fair when making my edits leaving the premise is of "assume"... they've made arguments and that's true... the assertion being made through this article time and time again is that some individuals can't form there own judgement which is absurd and is a major conflict with NPOV.

Plenty of people have reported a bias, everyone is getting there share... we don't need an article based around people just in support of the view or completely against the view. There are instances in law where some of the arguments being made show some validity in some respects and this should be highlighted.

When the individual wrote this article, he was left to it without people interfering giving them time to add sources and construct a perception... even if it was biased... some of us expect the same to be done in return within good-faith. They've had some work reverted upon their lack of consent since there is a bias. There is an open timeframe and it's our duty under the rules of wikipedia to revert unneutral point of views whether you agree or disagree with them... no matter how extreme you may believe they are as this stands as extreme on wiki.

See; NPOV;

Explanation of the neutral point of view Policy shortcuts: 

   WP:YESPOV
   WP:WikiVoice

See also: WP:ASSERT

Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as neutrality means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without editorial bias. Wikipedia aims to describe disputes, but not engage in them. Editors, while naturally having their own points of view, should strive in good faith to provide complete information, and not to promote one particular point of view over another. As such, the neutral point of view does not mean exclusion of certain points of view, but including all verifiable points of view which have sufficient due weight. Observe the following principles to achieve the level of neutrality that is appropriate for an encyclopedia: 

   Avoid stating opinions as facts. Usually, articles will contain information about the significant opinions that have been expressed about their subjects. However, these opinions should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice. Rather, they should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc. For example, an article should not state that "genocide is an evil action", but it may state that "genocide has been described by John X as the epitome of human evil."
   Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts. If different reliable sources make conflicting assertions about a matter, treat these assertions as opinions rather than facts, and do not present them as direct statements.
   Avoid stating facts as opinions. Uncontested and uncontroversial factual assertions made by reliable sources should normally be directly stated in Wikipedia's voice. Unless a topic specifically deals with a disagreement over otherwise uncontested information, there is no need for specific attribution for the assertion, although it is helpful to add a reference link to the source in support of verifiability. Further, the passage should not be worded in any way that makes it appear to be contested.
   Prefer nonjudgmental language. A neutral point of view neither sympathizes with nor disparages its subject (or what reliable sources say about the subject), although this must sometimes be balanced against clarity. Present opinions and conflicting findings in a disinterested tone. Do not editorialize. When editorial bias towards one particular point of view can be detected the article needs to be fixed.
   Indicate the relative prominence of opposing views. Ensure that the reporting of different views on a subject adequately reflects the relative levels of support for those views, and that it does not give a false impression of parity, or give undue weight to a particular view. For example, to state that "According to Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust was a program of extermination of the Jewish people in Germany, but David Irving disputes this analysis" would be to give apparent parity between the supermajority view and a tiny minority view by assigning each to a single activist in the field.

Impartial tone Policy shortcut: 

   WP:IMPARTIAL

Wikipedia describes disputes. Wikipedia does not engage in disputes. A neutral characterization of disputes requires presenting viewpoints with a consistently impartial tone; otherwise articles end up as partisan commentaries even while presenting all relevant points of view. Even where a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be introduced through the way in which facts are selected, presented, or organized. Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased, accurate, and proportionate representation of all positions included in the article.

The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute; instead, summarize and present the arguments in an impartial tone.

Please see WP:3RR and particularly, WP:FRINGE. You also seem to be confused. This article was not written by a single individual, but rather by a significant number of authors. If you have specific concerns about sections of the article, you are quite welcome to discuss them here, but remember WP:FRINGE. --Yamla (talk) 01:01, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
You may also want to clarify why you believe your consent is at all relevant here, because it's not clear from your comments. --Yamla (talk) 01:01, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
"Consent" in this context is parallel to the Freemen belief that they are not bound by law if they do not consent to be bound by it. There's no basis for this in law of course, and there is definitely no basis for it in Wikipedia policy. The word salad above should be simply ignored, it has no relevance to how we do things here. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 03:30, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
So just like freemen you believe you don't have to consent Wikipedia rules as they would to statutory law? Hypocrites. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.132.225.170 (talk • contribs) 03:58, December 10, 2015‎
Is this page completely locked off regarding any cases that support freeman arguments? Or do we have to wait until the media does more fair coverage of these individuals which are just protesters to some forms of taxation (supported by ancient laws and a few court rulings). Ofcourse, they're going to look bad now, but in years to come that's hardly going to be the case... people thought Socrates was crazy, that Darwin was crazy, that socialists and communists were crazy, that people who supported Cannabis were crazy (52% of people supported it on the polls), that people who believed 9/11 was an inside job were crazy (I believe 40% of the US believe it's an inside job now), it's just a matter of perspective after all, some turned out to be true some didn't... some get popular, some don't... just feel it's immoral to not allow equal representation no matter the subject. The more you try to suppress an idea, it's only a matter of years until it will become even more well known than intended to the extent that if you call it "crazy"... and let's say it is, people will support it if they find that it has merit more out of scepticism. Honestly... if you're completely against "Freemen ideology"... you're only going to make it more popular than it should be and all these groups and media outlets will drop in huge popularity if this is the situation. But yeah, please respond to the question on the first line of this paragraph... cheers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anonymous 573462i (talk • contribs) 18:17, December 13, 2015‎
Please sign your posts using four tilde characters ("~~~~"). We follow these principles for inclusion of material. If you can't work within those, maybe try elsewhere? BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 18:31, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree on those principles and believe I am exercising them... but a lot of people who framed this article have have a different dictionary to me as to what those principles enshrine. I guess the following question is... are people here okay with me adding principle based cases that support freeman arguments? Anonymous 573462i (talk) 19:32, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

In short - no. WP:NPOV and WP:RS are the most relevant policies. You need to add material that's neutral and reliably sourced. So reporting on what some notable Freeman said, with a source, or what a pro-Freeman publication says, with sources, may be ok if done carefully. Strive to be impartial, aim for balance, and recognise that as Freeman beliefs are WP:FRINGE, they will be described as such. And what you add may be altered or removed, legitimately, by other editors. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 19:50, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

So I'm allowed to add their "theories", news articles I'm guessing are allowed (since they are)... I'm not allowed to give records to court cases matching their principles (unless there's an article that specifies that they've mentioned that case)? Do the natives of Cananda count as "Freemen" durinig the case of 1981, 1982, and 1983?... they requested that in order to be governed they should have been able to request and consent to being governed... as part of a constitutional convention this is the case to date since no parliament or legislature can claim they can govern a dominion unless they have a law or constitutional document that says that any dominion outside of the relative country has requested and consented to be governed. The freemen are arguing that they've never requested or consented to be governed baring in mind "dominion is synonymous with sovereign"... and they argue that they're sovereign cizitens... I argue that the current theory used is equally a fringe theory for suggesting they absolutely are governed at birth due to being registered by parents. There is yet a response from anti-freemen to prove that "young-borns" compariable to this situation... "That if adult 1 is to make adult 2 enter into a contract for them... we consider this void. That if an adult enters a young-born into a contract that they still have to prove the contract is not void..." I copied this...

The general position when contracting with a minor

In order to form a legally binding contract the general elements of a contract must be present, for example there must have been an offer, acceptance and an intention to form a legally binding contract. Without all of these elements being in place a contract will not be legally binding.

If all these elements are in place a contract with be legally binding, however, the law presumes that certain people do not have the power to enter into a contract. If you have the above elements and enter into a contract with one of the following kinds of people the contract will be void: 

   Children under 7 years of age
   People who are diagnosed as mentally insane
   People whose judgement has been impaired by being very drunk or drugged

And yet minors are considered living at birth, this fringe theory has more weight supporting it than the "anti-freeman" fringe theory is my conclusion so far.

I'm still waiting for these concerns to be addressed... Also if a contract results in creating a loss with no reasonable gain for 1 party this tends to mean that the contract is void anyway. The amusing thing about the above is that you're unable to contract with freemen if you consider them "insane" xD

Anonymous 573462i (talk) 20:22, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I've found something of note here.... http://www.childprotectionresource.org.uk/category/the-freeman-and-common-law/ which states freemen use Article XXIX to support their arguments... may I find a place for this that they use that article to support their arguments, even if it's written in a way that it's a myth? Anonymous 573462i (talk) 21:48, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

That's a repost of a blog, so not generally considered a WP:RS per WP:USERGENERATED. There are some exceptions, but it does not look to me as if the original board http://www.quatloos.com/Q-Forum/ and author meet the requirements for this to be used as a reliable source. Meters (talk) 22:08, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
And really, the concept is covered pretty well already in the article. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 22:55, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm just gonna assume people won't be too eager to buy the article by the way it's written since it's far different to most articles... The irony of being against "Freeman ideology" is that it's not far from Jesus's teaching of not necessarily paying tax. Jesus a terrorist! xD lmao 90.220.157.192 (talk) 03:34, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Mark 12:17? BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 11:55, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
That's how Freemen interpret "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's"? Odd, but I guess not surprising. Is there a source for this? Doug Weller (talk) 15:30, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

You have to read the full section, firstly Jesus calls the Pharisees hypocrites (with regards to them not paying homage to Caesar)... most historians agree the coin represents Julius Caesar and not Augustus Caesar...

Julius Caesar won every battle and only lost 1 (as he records it) only because his troops couldn't hear him.

Augustus Caesar hid in a bush up against brutus or something like that... his battle against Antony turned out to be easy because he left the battlefield following Cleopatra and one of his generals also sold out his plan (I don't know whether this last parts factual)

As for whether Julius Caesar was a tyrant is controversial to sceptical viewers... He wasn't born into power or rich, had to borrow everything to get to where he was and wouldn't accept the crown the senate kept trying to give him. He was also deified after his death (where August was living) by Marc Antony... He was also more popular and didn't write propaganda as Augustus is famous for.

Jesus was arguably against the "Sabbath day commandment"... "The Sabbath was made for man, and man not for the Sabbath"... and instead taught "Do in return to others as you'd have done in return to you". He was against Usury; "Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest." despite this conflicts with Luke 6:35... luke 6:35 is arguably a copy of;

Do not return evil to your adversary; Requite with kindness the one who does evil to you, Maintain justice for your enemy, Be friendly to your enemy. - Akkadian Councils of Wisdom (from the ancient Babylonian civilization that existed two millennia before Jesus was born)

So yeah... you kinda have to find out which verses are unique and which aren't to get closer to the bottom of the mysterious man teaching these ideas... Since Augustus was a propaganda artist as was Constantine... We had no knowledge until the 20th century (I believe) of Horus yet all the superstition sticks out in the bible matching Horus... Augustus when in Egypt destroyed all their scriptures we found the ones burried years later. (unless you're against deductive reasoning, this pretty much confirms that the roman's had been changing the story of the bible... hence Thomas Jefferson ruled out all the superstition in his version.) The catholics refused and murdered the man who translated the bible as it stopped them from carrying on re-editing.

But yeah... in a nutshell;

Revelation 3:9

Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you.

Seems that God's also against the Pharisees or people portraying the techniques. :/ 90.220.157.192 (talk) 16:58, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

None of this is very relevant to Freemen on the land, and especially not to the article about them. Talk pages are not a forum for general discussion about the topic of an article, but for work on the article itself - David Gerard (talk) 17:38, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

I happened to find this; it's somewhat connects freeman and the bible... Not sure I can agree on the premise but I'm trying to work out if it's a usable source (well could be used... I don't know all the rules regarding sources depending how they're fitted.);

http://www.freemansperspective.com/anti-government-religions/ 90.220.157.192 (talk) 18:13, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

[Another blog, thus WP:USERGENERATED again. Possibly usable if Paul Rosenberg "is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications." Meters (talk) 21:53, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z5nl9tuGKA <- This confirms his claim of being on "russia today or RT"... I'm going to keep on investigating. Anonymous 573462i (talk) 22:44, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

  • Rosenberg is a noted libertarian fringe theorist, yes. Noted amongst other libertarian bloggers, at least. He does not appear to be the California-based journalist Paul H. Rosenberg, nor either of the people listed at Paul Rosenberg, and I don't think any of them could be considered subject-matter experts. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 23:08, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

So is the libertarian point of view "fringe-zoned" because you feel that they are, or if I find evidence for him to be an established expert that I can source some of his work eventually on agreeable terms? That claim's abit like say... Ron Paul would be unable to run for office for having a libertarian view on political matters. I haven't yet stated how his work is to be added if so... probably to add more freeman arguments sourced. Anonymous 573462i (talk) 23:15, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

So how about you stop telling us what you're maybe going to add, possibly, at some future point, if you can find enough citable material. WP:NOTFORUM. The article already sets out the main arguments postulated by the Freemen movement; and the main refutations of those arguments. Adding in "noted Freeman expert Paul Rosenberg says..." isn't going to lend more weight to the Freemen PoV, because the article isn't a debate you can "win". WP:NPOV and WP:BALANCE and WP:FRINGE. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 23:26, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

You've both confusing me as I'm not sure whether you're speaking your mind or if you're suggesting I can't look to add content to qualification that he's is an established expert. I found this none-the-less hoping someone can tell me whether this website can be used as I can't identify if so; http://www.salon.com/writer/paul_rosenberg/

Please assume good faith as I am fairly new still. Anonymous 573462i (talk) 00:08, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Are you sure these two are the same Paul Rosenberg? They appear unrelated, but maybe I'm mistaken? --Yamla (talk) 01:08, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
I can't tell if they are the same guy either, but even if they are, Salon.com does not appear to me to be a "reliable third-party publication" due to the probable bias. Better than a blog, but Salon (website) quotes a critic as saying the site is "among the worst offenders of the new pseudo-journalism."
User:Anonymous 573462i, please read WP:RELIABLE Meters (talk) 01:55, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

In Wikipedia, the source does not have to be unbiased to be considered a reliable source. However, based on what I see, there is very little likelihood that the two "Paul Rosenbergs" in question are the same person. In fact, I see zero evidence that they are the same person. Famspear (talk) 02:03, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

For determining if self-published material is acceptable we need to see if "its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications." And from WP:THIRDPARTY we have "A third-party source is not affiliated with the event, not paid by the people who are involved, and not otherwise likely to have a conflict of interest or significant bias related to the material." So, it looks to me as if the bias is significant for what we are discussing. Meters (talk) 03:28, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, good point. The Rosenberg at freemanperspectives dot com would be doing self-published work. The writings of the Rosenberg at salon dot com might not be considered self-published and, even though his writings are his own opinions, salon dot com as a source might be considered more reliable than freemanperspectives dot com. And, see my comments below; neither of them is talking about "Freemen on the land" gibberish (at least, as far as I have seen). Famspear (talk) 04:24, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

I would reiterate and elaborate on what editor Bastun has said: Not only is the article not a debate you can "win," it's not a debate at all. It's an encyclopedia article about some goofy ideas held by various people. The ideas have no legal validity in American law, and probably no legal validity anywhere on Planet Earth. We present the ideas with a Neutral Point of View, but the only reliable authorities who weigh in on the subject are saying that "Freemen on the land" ideas have no legal validity. Neutral Point of View does not mean giving equal weight to all sides of the argument. The article does pretty much lay out what appear to be the main "tenets" of "Freemen on the land," ideas. We can add a little to and improve the article here and there, we keep in mind that the article is not a forum for debate. Famspear (talk) 02:10, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

By the way, we run into the same kinds of editorial issues in articles such as Sovereign citizen movement, Tax protester arguments, and Federal Reserve System. Famspear (talk) 02:12, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Right, well, hats off to me for finding two libertarian supportive "Paul Rosenberg's" where neither fall against either's ideologies, yet neither at the same time allocate their twitter, location, articles, etc >< hahaha. I'm done this is made my day. "I am laughing so much when you see the 1st man on RussiaToday link actually comparable to the twitter profile sketch of the 2nd man" xD Anonymous 573462i (talk) 02:35, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Dear Anonymous 573462i: I'm not sure what you're trying to say, other than that you believe the two Rosenbergs are one and the same person. At any rate, I don't see any references by either of them to the "Freemen on the land" nonsense which is the subject of this article. The mere use of the phrase "free man" or "free men" is very common in English. Where exactly do you see either of these two people (or one person, or whatever) spouting the "Freemen on the land" gibberish? Famspear (talk) 04:24, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Whether or not the two Paul Rosenbergs are the same (I think they're not) the question is whether their writing can be considered that of an acknowledged expert in their field, for example as Stephen Hawking is an expert in physics, or Paul Krugman is an expert in economics: we can use their self-published work as reliable sources in those subjects because other scholarly publications frequently cite their work. If Rosenberg is similarly cited in scholarly works for his writings on Freemen ideas, then sure we can use him as a reliable source for that. I have seen no evidence of this, though, and it's quite a high bar. Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 15:08, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

This I completely disagree with... technically they used a freeman method though to "win" but at the same time, I find it amusing that people will refuse freemen for not paying taxes yet will let people off for riot damage; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3366508/Riot-suspects-refused-names-court-cases-dropped-prosecutors-accused-failing-justice.html Anonymous 573462i (talk) 08:34, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Reminder: This talk page is not for general discussions. It is inappropriate for you to bring up these riot suspects here, because it is not relevant to the article itself. Remember, this talk page is for improving the article; it is absolutely not a discussion forum for freemen-on-the-land ideology. --Yamla (talk) 12:23, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Benchmark

Is this serial archived anywhere? I can find no mention of it anywhere, e.g. no hits. this blog post and attached PDF is the closest I get to it.--Elvey(t•c) 02:04, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

  • Benchmark is published on the UK Judicial Intranet and it is necessary to sign up. It is the internal bulletin for members of the judiciary and courts staff. All issues were freely available at one time, but the revision of the Judicial Intranet website seems to have resulted in a reduction of what is publicly available.
However, the original issue of the copy quoted in the article is archived on the Wayback Machine at this URL - see page 18. I have made this link the one used in the article, seeing as it is a direct archive and not a copy. Emeraude (talk) 11:23, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

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I just noticed on of these - a large billboard announcing that it is illegal to use a legal name, eg [1] [2] Related is something about it being illegal to vote. [3] Doug Weller talk 15:09, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Worth putting a pic and a link in? - David Gerard (talk) 18:02, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Although I could get the picture, we'd need a good source linking it to Freemen. Doug Weller talk 18:33, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
This BBC article mentions them, but doesn't establish a clear link (and may I say I'm not a fan of the sort of article that spends over a thousand words saying it doesn't know anything about its subject). I'd want at least one more. However, if you can get a good shot, Wikimedia Commons surely needs it! - David Gerard (talk) 18:26, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

anonymous rant removed per WP:NOTFORUM Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:34, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

If, as you say, there's plenty of evidence, it should be easy to provide reliable citations to back up your claim that Freemen generally (or often) win in court. The rest of your post is just general ranting, more suitable for a Freemen forum. It is not suitable for Wikipedia; see WP:NOTFORUM. --Yamla (talk) 17:22, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
There has been an awful lot of this pattern of one-off IPs adding clear forum posts inside old discussions on this sort of topic over the last couple weeks. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:34, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Linguistics section

I know this isn’t TV Tropes, but this particular article probably needs a dedicated section on the linguistics of the freemen on the land.

For example, when the police ask a freemen “do you understand the statement?”, they often reply “I do not stand under that statement”. In another example, some freemen interpret the term “policeman” as “policy man”. --Marianian(talk) 10:15, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Possible sources (Canada)

There are some articles about “OPCA”, which is the designation Meads v. Meads uses for freeman on the land and related ideas, by Donald J Netolitzky, published in the Alberta Law Review and available on the CanLII website. In particular “The History of the Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument Phenomenon in Canada”, but the others should also be useful. Brunton (talk) 18:34, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 12 January 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: page moved (non-admin closure) ~~ CAPTAIN MEDUSAtalk 07:03, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Freemen on the land → Freeman on the land – Make the title singular WP:SINGULAR. Even as a collective, the singular is in use: [Calgary Herald: "More about the Freeman-on-the-land movement" http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/More+about+Freeman+land+movement/8969966/story.html], Footnote 2 indicates singular and plural are interchangeable. BiologicalMe (talk) 00:18, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment: Doesn't this fall into "the names of classes of objects" in WP:SINGULAR? I'm legitimately uncertain. --Yamla (talk) 13:23, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Removed claim from lede

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States classifies freemen as sovereign citizen extremists and domestic terrorists.[1][2] This isn't supported by the cited articles. The first (which is nothing to do with the FBI) says that Freemen may embrace sovereign citizen ideology, while the second states '[Sovereign Citizens] may refer to themselves as “constitutionalists” or “freemen,” which is not necessarily a connection to a specific group, but, rather, an indication that they are free from government control'. That isn't the same as saying that the FBI "classifies" freemen as sovereign citizens or terrorists. I've also changed the caption on the first picture, which claimed it was a sovereign citizen billboard, but the cited source just said it was making claims similar to those of the Freemen of the Land and Sovereign Citizen movements. Iapetus (talk) 09:19, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ School of Government, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (September 2012), A Quick Guide to Sovereign Citizens (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 3 May 2015, retrieved 5 July 2015
  2. ^ "Sovereign Citizens A Growing Domestic Threat to Law Enforcement". Domestic Terrorism. Federal Bureau of Investigation. 11 September 2011. Archived from the original on 10 December 2011. Retrieved 3 May 2015.

Origin.

In the 70's there was a Canadian man selling audio tapes and later in the 80's and 90's VHS tapes teaching a 'silver bullet' course on 'American law' to get out of speeding fines, debts, etc. It's the earliest instance I can find with all this boat obsession and woowoo. Does anyone else know an earlier possible origin point? Vergilianae (talk) 13:33, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

If you actually did some research into the law society and judge circuits in England, you would know that there was a time when it was illegal to have a lawyer represent you in court. You may also know that twice the judges have been purged en-masse, once in the late 800's AD - 44 judges were hung by King Alfred the great who looked poorly on incompetence and insolence. Also in approx 1200's AD all but 2 of the judges were fired and fined heavily for corruption/fraud.

TBH I can't see the wiki page - freeman on the land - being much use to the general public unless it is heavily edited and redacted, as it is currently very one-sided and biased, also it fails to mention that the worldwide law society is beholden to the crown and the Vatican, which clearly shows on the law societies heraldry and coat of arms. Also it should be mentioned that western common-law countries have a over riding common-law jurisdiction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.47.104.124 (talk) 09:24, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree, it is a very one-sided view of the law. Rather than putting the article in the present tense, e.g., "Freemen on the land use spurious arguments," it would be better to write the article in terms of what judges of courts constituted by political bodies (USA, Canada, etc.) have said, e.g. "Judge X in case Y says that freemen on the land use spurious arguments." That is a fair statement, but taking any single judge's word for the present (or eternal) truth---take cases concerning slavery. Some would say slavery was legal until it was outlawed. Some would say it was never legal and that all judgments countenancing slavery were, in spite of their enforcement, unlawful. There is a difference between law as it is practied in a given court system (what precedents you can rely on judges accepting) and the discussion of what law ought to be. Freeman on the land is a straight forward term: everyone is free or bond, and everyone is some place, e.g. on the land, in the ocean, etc. The way that the bodies politic presume jurisdiction is by claiming the right to rule within their artificial metes and bounds, but, again, academically, physical geography is distinguished from political geography. That there is a river or a mountain or a tectonic plate is physical geography, that there is a "country" called "united states of america" is political geography. Someone who says "I am not on the land" when he is standing on the land is a fool. Someone who says "I am not in United States, that is purely a conceptual entity that exists only within your mind, and I don't accede to that" is perhaps another sort of fool, but he is not objectively incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:569:7A3C:9100:C933:9FEE:B86C:A50C (talk) 18:40, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Cestui Que Vie Act 1666

I removed the word “admiralty” from one of the court cases because rhe Cestui Que Vie Act is not, in fact, admiralty law and neither of the sources cited says that it is. The change was reverted with the edit summary, ‘“This facet of admiralty and maritime law is pervasive in F’s thinking”’. This is a quotation from paragraph 5 of the judgment, but it doesn’t refer to the Cestui Que Vie Act, it is in the statement “It is in this context that when a birth is registered, F considers this to be the equivalent of an ‘entry into a ship’s manifest’, in which the child becomes ‘an asset to the country which has boarded a vessel to sail on the high seas.’ This facet of admiralty and maritime law is pervasive in F’s thinking.” There is nothing about ships’ manifests in the act, and the quotations in the judgment are from F, not the act. The act just says that if someone is missing “beyond the seas” (i.e. outside Britain), or otherwise, for a certain amount of time they can be presumed dead. It is not admiralty law. Brunton (talk) 09:38, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

"Maritime" is an core aspect. Freeman on the Land, tax protestors and sovereign citizen pseudolaw heavily rely upon that sort of thinking: that there is a secret false government they can remove themselves from, and escaping admiralty law is one of the mystical ways. I will refer to The USDOJ Criminal Tax Manual 40.00 -- ILLEGAL TAX PROTESTERS see Section: 40.05[4][b] The Gold-Fringed Flag ("The American Maritime Flag of War"). A central element that is not placed quite right should be moved to improve accuracy. I have floated one attempt to reword. BiologicalMe (talk) 16:38, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
It’s “an core aspect” of the conspiracy theory, but that doesn’t mean we take it as being valid. In fact it’s one of the reasons that the theory is nonsense. FOTLers may claim that statutes are “maritime law”, but per WP:FRINGE, we do not have to humour them, and we shouldn’t imply that the law can be “reinterpreted” in this way. Brunton (talk) 17:39, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
The subject is WP:FRINGE. We don't delete the article for that reason. We discuss the subject without treating it as valid. The purpose of incuding the maritime aspect is to illustrate the psuedolaw in action. I'll refer you to Netolitzky Organised Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments as Magic and Ceremony (footnote 185): "Registering a child abandons ownership of the child, who can then be seized 'under the laws of maritime salvage and it becomes their chattel property.' In this variant the 'legal entity' is the Record of Live Birth document, which is exchanged for a birth certificate." A simple "the court rejected his argument" can make it clear it didn't fly and still include the essence of the spurious reasoning. Would you prefer to use the word "misinterpreted" since the court rejected the argument? I didn't use it because I try to err in favor of a neutral tone, but for fringe topics there is a lot of leeway. BiologicalMe (talk) 18:25, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
I think that we absolutely should prefer “misinterpreted”. We don’t treat fringe claims as if they’re mainstream. But I’d rather avoid all this by simply omitting the word “maritime”. Brunton (talk) 18:36, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
I disagree. The examples should be illustrative. This case illustrates several features of FOTL pseudolaw including the inapplicable maritime filter. The examples should not be an ever growing list, but a display of the salient features. If the case has all its features shown, it is more likely to make another case redundant. Unless it is moved to a specific section as an example, I encourage showing all the relevant aspects. BiologicalMe (talk) 19:34, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
The secondary source doesn’t actually mention “maritime” or “admiralty” law (or that he was putting a particular interpretation on the CQV Act). The judgment uses the term “maritime law” in the context of “F’s thinking” in connection with the idea that registering the child’s birth would be like entering it on a ship’s manifest; linking this back to the mention of the CQV Act in the previous paragraph is OR. We can use what the secondary source says, which is:
“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”.”
but we shouldn’t go further than that. Brunton (talk) 20:23, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Undue weight given to conspiracy claim

At the end of November, 2a02:c7f:18ae:4900:d11:f5a9:1f8f:ac1c added a claim that the subject is a conspiracy theory (without any details of who the conspirators are). I reverted it last Sunday with the summary "No allegations of conspiracy are maintained by adherents of the movement", but it restored today by Emeraude with the edit summary "How they describe it is irrelevant".

Out of the 31 sources currently present in the article, just 1, a blog entry by Adam Wagner, describes the subject as a conspiracy theory. That means that it is a fringe view on the subject, which should not be given the same weight as the other sources' take on the subject (see Wikipedia:Fringe theories#Parity of sources). Reliable sources cited in the article describe the group as adherents of pseudo-legal theories and misunderstandings, without any mention of conspiracies.

Being a blog does not necessarily mean that a source is unreliable; being controlled by barristers' chamber, the blog in queston would pass Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published sources. However, that is still not enough to give its opinion undue weight compared to the other sources. The lead sentence should describe the subject in the same way the majority of sources do.

Ping: 2a02:c7f:18ae:4900:d11:f5a9:1f8f:ac1c, Emeraude

--Joshua Issac (talk) 16:08, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

There is no question of the conspiracy theory aspect of the movement is not it doubt. The conspirators vary from formulation to formulation, be it banks, governments, the New World Order (conspiracy theory), etc., but the conspiratorial element is a common theme. Netolitzky, Donald J. (2018). "Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments as Magic and Ceremony" (currently reference 12) is abundantly clear on the matter: "These groups typically hold profoundly conspiratorial beliefs concerning the nature and illegitimacy of 'conventional' authorities, and are clearly attracted to the idea of another 'true' hidden law that can be accessed to escape from or retaliate against those who are perceived as enemies or wrongdoers."
Perhaps you would prefer a new source: "Lawyers have dismissed freemen's bizarre claims as a conspiracy theory and they are not known to have won a single case in court." Doncaster Free Press [4]
It is not ambiguous. BiologicalMe (talk) 16:56, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I had removed the statement as the source hung its "conspiracy theory" description on an excerpt from RationalWiki. A source citing RationalWiki ought to be treated as highly suspect, and as there don't seem to be any other sources for "conspiracy theory", it shouldn't be in our article. If there are better sources, then let's discuss. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:09, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
The Doncaster Free Press source a low-quality silly season article that also has a quotation that FMOTL is a conspiracy in itself, not just a conspiracy theory: "It is a fringe thing, and a conspiracy." Netolitzky's Alberta Law Review article on OPCAs, on the other hand, is a high-quality source (that I missed in my earlier check) written by a legal expert. The particular quotation above is about OPCAs in general (including Sovereign Citizens and others), but here is a quotation specifically about FMOTL:

Certain OPCA movements, and in particular the Sovereign Citizens and Freemen, are clearly improvisational millenialist conspiracy cultures. Barkun [...] identifies the Sovereign Citizens [...], but [...] the Freeman movement is an even better example [...] conspiracy of illegitimate government control mediated via the “Strawman” doppelganger.

Another good source is "Conspiracy Theories in American History" (p.275) by Peter Knight of the University of Manchester:

Freemen movement of Montana coalesced around a basic conspiracy-minded distrust of the government, the corporate banking industry, and the meaning of citizenship.

So the article should talk about the FMOTL belief in the conspiracy theory, as well as who the alleged conspirators are: (government conspiring to maintain illegitimate control via "strawmen"). The Dual identity section touches on this currently.
Another thing to note is that Netolitzky himself introduces FMOTL as:

Freemen-on-the-Land, a collection of Canadian, politically leftist, “Green,” anti-globalization, marijuana advocacy, and anti-government social activists who “opt out” of government control

He does not claim that FMOTL are a conspiracy theory themselves (as the disputed revision of the article and the Doncaster Free Press article claimed), but refers to them as a collection of activists, before saying what conspiracy theory they believe in. --Joshua Issac (talk) 13:43, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Sovereign Citizens content and categories

One issue I noticed from reading the OPCAs article is that the source describes the subject as a broadly leftist movement with "diametrically opposite world views" to the right-wing American Sovereign citizen movement, but the article has been tagged with the following categories: Far-right politics, Far-right politics in the United States, Far-right politics in the United Kingdom, Tax resistance in the United States, Sovereign citizen movement. These categories would fit the Sovereign citizen movement, but not the FMOTL one, and should be replaced with those that better fit the activities of the group where they are active.

I have struck out the source in my earlier comment that mentioned the Montana Freemen because they are a different group to FMOTL ("A Pathogen Astride the Minds of Men: The Epidemiological History of Pseudolaw" by Netolitzky). FMOTL developed from a fusion of 1950s Canadian tax evasion movements and Sovereign Citizen ideas imported from the United States, and it spread from Canada to other Commonwealth countries, according to that article. --Joshua Issac (talk) 14:26, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

I concur. There exist right-wing groups and individuals that fall under the "Freeman" mantle rather than "Sovereign", but the origin is left-wing libertarian and many retain that. There is a lot of horizontal transmission in the memomes. The far-right labels are not appropriate. BiologicalMe (talk) 16:52, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
Agreed, those categories are not supported by the article content. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:56, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Anti-Authority and Militia Movements in Canada

@BiologicalMe: has added some information for Perry et al paper on "Anti-Authority and Militia Movements in Canada". I think this might be casting the scope of this article too widely. A quote from the abstract

Another shift in thinking that emerged over the course of our study was that the “movement” we were examining was slightly more diffuse than simply the FOTL bloc. It is, instead, a broadly-based anti-state or anti-authority movement consisting of many diverse and frequently contradictory arms.

So it seems the last edit was really discussing a wider phenomenon outside the scope of this article. --Salix alba (talk): 11:47, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

I am aware of the issue of scope. I am not trying to expand the scope of the article, but adding demarcation. In the previous edit, I tried to address that by pointing out that there are groups which are sometimes called "Freeman-on-the-Land" because of similar behaviors, but which have significantly different ideologies. For example, the detaxers are distinct, but also developed some of the ideas later integrated by FOTL. The classification scheme applicable to all the groups is applicable to the individual groups, and the examples are often drawn from FOTL-specific cases, such as "sympathizers" being active in the World Freeman Society and some of the specific gurus. The cited paper's broader scope is a function of distinguishing FOTL-like from FOTL, but it never excludes them. BiologicalMe (talk) 17:27, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
I restored the list and further qualified the header. The list seems relevant, and I share the concerns over scope being conserved. BiologicalMe (talk) 21:51, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Why Thammaruknon v Queensland Police Service should not be listed

The case Thammaruknon v Queensland Police Service had a bit of Freeman on the land for its background, but the case was argued on a mistaken guilty plea, and the judge actually granted the motion by the defendant. Techie3 (talk) 10:45, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

More importantly, there is no real discussion that would suggest that there is something notable about the case. There is no coverage in the media (which are not great a picking relevant cases) and no analysis in legal journals which would help illuminate the topic of the article. The article should not devolve into an unmanaged list of cases which contain something that sounds like OPCA. BiologicalMe (talk) 15:22, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
The list of Australian cases is based on a law student's blog. Since it does not meet WP:RS, I would suggest removing entries which due not have third-party RS coverage. BiologicalMe (talk) 13:52, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
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