to think the 'common law/freeman on the land' thing is a whole load of bollocks?

[qwertypop]

I've come across a few people over the last few years that take it very seriously and bang on at length about how the police and courts have no authority over them as they are self declared 'freemen'. Something to do with common law being the only true law in Britain, I think? And not having to wear bike helmets or pay for TV licenses or repay your debts also seem important to the ones I've had the dubious pleasure of meeting.

A couple I met at the weekend have taken the biscuit though and not registered their baby's birth because apparently this will mean said baby grows up to be a 'freeman' (she's actually a girl but the term appears to be freeman anyway). They believe quite firmly that to register her birth will mean that the law assumes her and her name (which is a fucking corker, of course) are one and the same and that only by NOT registering her birth can she be free to be a human being. Quite what this actually means is a mystery to me and tbh the mumbo jumbo they gave me by way of an answer leads me to suspect they don't really know either

I've tried to read up on it but all the info I can find is written in a style you'd expect of an paranoid, delusional, and possibly hallucinating chimpanzee let loose with a legal dictionary.

So AIBU to think this is bollocky woo of the most fucking ridiculous type? Or is someone going to come along and actually enlighten me as to wtf its all about, preferably in plain English with no pseudo-legalese?

Not enough tinfoil in all the world.

State schools r a very bad idea. In england anyway.

Wtf? Why exactly... What do recommend? I don't imagine it's the private sector somehow!

Sorry, that was to Tiggy.

Methe

Who r u asking?

I suppose the same goes for health too? The NHS being something to avoid?!

Surely the sea of trolls is a matter for maritime rather than common law?

God I love this thread, thank you so much TeamStupedFucks.

"Would u please let us know the risks for parents & children who do not register?"
I am sure you know that. Presumbaly a google search will throw up the offence committed if people fail to register.

"If they outweigh the risks of signing ur child over to the state I would b very surprised indeed."

That's for each person to decide. As a very high earner lawyer with children who do very well and will have the money to ensure any life they like we do pretty well being in the 1% etc from the English common law. In fact our common law is our most successful export to the rest of the world and one reason people want to live here because for all its defects it is one of the best systems of law on the planet.

"I am also interested in ur comments on the identity card. What r ur biggest concerns regarding this as oppose to the birth certificate etc etc? I have read that freemen on the land use them to help with travel?"

Not sure what you mean about helping with travel but under English law there is no obligation to carry anything with you - yet another reason we are better here with the common law than say in France. So yes most of us has a birth certificate but we aren't obliged to carry it with us and it doesn't have a photograph on it. Identity cards would.

"Do you know much about FMOTL? Thats what I came here to discuss! & I have a couple of questions."
Never heard of it and not particularly interested but I am glad I live in an England where the common law allows people to hold different views.

What an entertaining and informative thread. I've spent the evening reading it had no idea such bonkerness existed.

Why do the proponents of this freeman thing spurn the use of punctuation capital letters and correct spelling? Is that seen as some conspiracy by The Man to make us all linguistic conformists, and in fact we should just spell however we jolly well like, and sod effective communication.

Oh, and I went on a cruise around the Sea of Trolls; beautiful scenery but the locals were really argumentative.

Gah, missed a comma. That'll teach me to be sarcastic

"Come with me, my love, to the sea, the sea of trolls..."

Did they have textspeak in King John's time?

No, peasant speak: ur a blacguard n a fool, sirra, ceese yr prating.

Natural Law - don't know much about this. It is an idea in philosophy, and was around a lot in the eighteenth century. It is the idea of what would happen if there were no laws/kings/property at all Modern sociology, anthropology and psychology seem to think that it's a great idea, but never actually is going to exist in any form in a technological society. It is nothing to do with legal process and has never been anything to do with legal process.

Statute Law - law made by Parliament. Previous to the existence of Parliament, law made by the king.

Common Law - this is 'unwritten' law, but it is used within quite close definitions. The real legal boffins know the proper description, but it is the way that the law in England and Wales has evolved during cases. For example, no king, queen or Parliament abolished feudalism. However in the sixteenth century someone tried to claim money that they would have been entitled to under feudalism but the court threw the case out as they said that there had been no feudalism for decades and it could be considered abolished. Therefore feudalism was abolished without needing the action of the state. There are bits of law here and there that have not got an origin in an Act of Parliament but that grew out of the experience of judges and common sense. It has always been entirely within the framework of the whole legal system. Sometimes an Act of Parliament would be supplemented by Common Law. Sometimes a part of Common Law would become part of an Act of Parliament. They aren't separate.

It just seems so obvious... It's a legal requirement for all babies to be registered.... A person has to illegally remain unregistered to be a 'freeman of the land', therefore a 'freeman of the land' is not a status that can be recognised as legitimate under English Law. Therefore there is no 'freeman of the land' law much as some deluded hippies with a bizarre nostalgia for all things medieval might wish there were.

Blimey, is this one still going?

Also, what's so bad about being a 'citizen'.... A welfare state (albeit reduced), universal free healthcare, universal free education to 18, fire service,
Ambulance service, etc etc... What would I get as a 'freeman of the land' to compensate... 'No council tax, freedom to trespass and no jury service...' I'm not sold.

Even if I were, has there ever been a case of someone successfully citing this FOTL concept legally?

Written law has existed through most of recorded history in England and Wales. Roman Britain is generally thought to date between AD 43 and AD 410, and there was a written law code.

The first Anglo Saxon kingdoms are usually considered fifth century AD, Bede has the coming of the Anglo Saxons as 449. The settlers brought an unwritten law code with them. Some of the FMOTL may have got carried away by this idea, but the source of the laws were not only those who were official speakers of the law but also the decisions of the king, taken in concert with the main men of the tribe and binding on everyone

The first Anglo Saxon law code is dated between AD 590 and 618. A lot of it was codifying the practice of the law that already existed. The other reason of the code was that the introduction of a new element of society - Christianity - meant that there had to be ways of dealing with conflict that arose from the new conditions. As there was no tradition of dealing with church matters, laws had to be created.

In the Anglo Saxon period there was a strong sense that everyone was subject to the law. All men were supposed to belong to a Frankpledge or a group of people that kept order within themselves. Everyone had their place in society, and it had to be known because compensation for someone's injury or death depended on their social status, a lord being worth more than a peasant. There were special, written rules regarding those who had no-one to speak up for them.

Those who defied the law or who rejected the law and whose behaviour was so bad that no-one would want to be associated with them were outlaws in the original sense in that they were outside the law. Anglo Saxon law said that people who were outside the framework of the law 'let them bear a wolf's head' which meant that they should be killed on sight.

At no point during the Anglo Saxon period was anyone able to legally reject the king's laws. Not unless they had a very large invading army behind them. The Anglo Saxons were very clear that there was no way to evade what was due in taxes or service.

Would you please let me know the risks for parents and children who do not register.
If you don't register a birth you can be prosecuted. That is not good for
the parent's stress levels, finances and time, this in turn is not good for the baby.

The child cannot enrol in school. This can limit the child's learning/social opportunities.
They cannot get a passport, drivers licence or bank account. This will radically limit the child's choices in adulthood.
The parents will not receive any government benefits (child benefit & tax credit). The child could miss out on opportunities due to finances.
They cannot study at university, so closing off many career and vocational desires the child might have.
They cannot get a legitimate job or choose to have a pension, or buy a car or a house.

But that's not all. No that's not all......
If they break a leg, contract a bacterial infection, are in a RTA, get a life limiting/terminal illness, or a toothache, it is going to be difficult to access the help that that child needs. Unless you have buckets of money to begin with.

If they outweigh the risks of signing your child over to the state, I would be very surprised indeed.
What are the risks of registering your child 1Ubuntu?

After the Norman Conquest there were three types of law. There was Cannon Law which isn't really relevant here. There was the law of those who were 'free'. This meant those who were not serfs. This meant that it was a very small amount of people who had to be bound by the law of the king's court and his judges That's what being free in Feudal England usually came down to - the right to be heard in the king's court. This meant the right to trial by jury and generally had judges who knew what the law was and who understood what was going on. The third type of law was manorial law which only applied if you were not free. The feudal lord who owned the serfs heard the legal arguments about who didn't do the ploughing they were supposed to and who got drunk and tried to steal a pig etc and dealt out judgements and punishments. At it's worst, it was 'do as I say or I'll cut you're hands off'. In England and Wales crimes such as murder were always heard in the king's court whether you were free or unfree.

There was still no loophole that said that you could avoid taxes. Free and unfree were taxed differently, but they were still taxed.

Dione The whole idea that you can live in a country without being part of the country's legal system is quite frankly deluded. There is no country in the world that would accept that someone occupying space within their borders would be allowed to opt out.

I think it was mentioned up thread. The fancy background for the FMOTL movement isn't to impress the judges, who will just get irritated, nor the court staff who will get seriously irritated, nor any legal representation of the other side, who will be frankly delighted to have this as a defense against them. It is to impress those who pay money to get the 'secret'. Because it doesn't work.

What is hard is that someone may get sucked into this, and so fail to make the right defences or the right applications and so not only lose a case but also get stung with massive costs when they may have won the case if they had actually used the right procedure.

I wonder, if the FMOTL is right, and they waved their pieces of paper and the judge said, okay then, fuck off but you don't have to pay your council tax, I wonder then if this FMOTL was defrauded of their life savings, would they be able to take it to court, or would they be fucked as they don't recognise the court so it can't help them.

Or if an angry lynch mob of two hundred legal and historical professionals came and beat them senseless and torched their house, what could they do? If they weren't part of the legal system? If they didn't want to be part of the system that had police and a fire service, would they have any protection?

This is the only thread where I have really used bad language, and I should have been in bed two hours ago.

Was FMOTL a reaction/result of common law?

FMOTL is a load of made up rubbish, with no basis in either law or fact. Those who believe in the FMOTL doctrine are (and I'm being charitable here) deluded.

This is a thread about this FM thing on a site full of people who know nothing about it. 90% of the replies are people saying that this all sounds batshit.

No, the replies are saying it IS batshit and a number of posters have given links to legal cases explaining why this is so.