The One About Growing Food Becoming Illegal in New Zealand
November 30th, 2011Lots of people are submitting NZ Food Security, a site that focuses on fascist elements of the Food Bill.
I’m posting this mainly to let people know that, yes, I know about this and to ask others to please stop submitting it.
A couple of comments:
First, there are so many insane laws in New Zealand that nobody pays any attention to that I don’t see how the Food Bill would be any different. Anyone who thinks that people are going to stop buying/selling/trading seeds here, regardless of whatever bogus laws are passed, is nuts.
A little anecdote about where we live:
One night, a drunk driver rolled her car a few times. The totaled car was in the middle of the road and the driver was bleeding from an injury to her head.
My neighbor called for paramedics.
It took an hour for a police car to show up.
So, tell me another one about how the filth are going to arrest me for saving seeds. Get real, man. They can’t even keep the electricity on out here.
Second, the sovereign man on the land thing: I personally know people in the U.S. and New Zealand who have had their lives ruined by believing that their secret handshakes and crackpot gibberish trumped the actions of states. It doesn’t. These regimes sit atop mountains of skulls. They’re not interested in your ideas about how their laws don’t apply to you.
I’m not kidding when I say that I have been hearing about this “sovereignty” thing for longer than some of you reading this have been alive. I warned someone here who started heading down that path that he and his family were in for the shock of their lives for believing in this nonsense. What happened in the end? Sure enough, this family has fled New Zealand and the husband is now an international fugitive. No amount of 1834 flags and arguments in court about common law were going to keep this guy from becoming a guest of Her Majesty at the Ngawha hinaki (Northland Region Corrections Facility).
The bottom line is that anyone who is selling you on the idea that the state doesn’t have authority over you because you don’t write your name in all capital letters (etc., etc.) is just as nuts as a state that thinks it’s going to bust people for growing carrots.
In activist circles, over painful decades of observation, I’ve noticed that people will buy into just about anything that isn’t the state, the enemy, the corporation, etc. Just keep the following in mind: The state doesn’t have a monopoly on madness. In fringe circles, I’ve seen egos and mental illness that rival anything you would see in a government or corporate setting. We all know that questioning authority is important. Unfortunately, people generally aren’t discerning when it comes to questioning the alleged solutions.
I have read lots on this “Freeman on the land” approach and one thing I have noticed in many of the videos I have watched is, they start off my saying: My name is xyz and I haven’t paid taxes in 17 years!
This Freeman approach is very confrontational and I personally think there are far better ways of approaching the problems we have or are going to face in the future. The PT strategy comes to mind and (as Kevin says) starving the beast is another good one.
A lot of people can’t move beyond binary thinking. If “x” is bad, then “y” must be better, regardless of what “y” is intrinsically. This is how a lot of rebellions end up putting in a government worse than the one they kicked out.
On the main topic, I do find the idea of them busting someone for growing carrots to be laughable.
Kevin, what you say is true. The state holds the “legitimate” use of violence as a tool of control. The sovereignty idea has likewise been on my radar for quite some time. I have heard stories of people who push it too far and try to use it as a way to be a law unto themselves. They are the ones who get slapped down. What about those who use this concept to avoid taxes only, with the intention of withholding consent? Seems you are throwing out the whole idea because it goes to some people’s heads?
@imark
I’m throwing out the whole idea because I’ve seen no evidence at all (over about 20 years) that it works when it needs to and I personally know people who’s lives have been ruined by it. Apparent success stories from people using sovereign citizen arguments are probably due to the fact that the state hasn’t gotten around to actually putting them in jail.
You may or may not know that gun battles have resulted when the police have closed in on some of these people; recently, see the very sad case of Jerry and Joe Kane:
A routine traffic stop in Arkansas turned into an extraordinarily violent shooting between police and a father-son pair of so-called “sovereign citizens” six weeks ago, shedding light on a secretive and dangerous subculture which believes American laws don’t apply to them.
When police stopped a white minivan in West Memphis, Ark., on May 20, they had no idea that it would set off a chain of events that would result in the deaths of two officers as well as Jerry Kane and his 16-year-old son Joseph.
So, in some instances, it’s probably easier to simply wait them out.
Re: Income tax cases:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen_movement
Variations of the argument that an individual is “sovereign” have been rejected by the courts, especially in tax cases such as United States v. Hart,[8] Risner v. Commissioner,[9] Maxwell v. Snow,[10] Rowe v. Internal Revenue Serv.,[11] Heitman v. Idaho State Tax Commission,[12] Cobin v. Commissioner,[13] and Glavin v. United States.[14] The Internal Revenue Service has included “free born” or “sovereign” citizenship in its list of frivolous claims that may result in a $5000 penalty when used as the basis for an inaccurate tax return.
Kevin, Thank you for your comments. Sane voices like yours can potentially save people from a lot of pain going down the sovereign path (or for that matter – believing that the state can stop them from growing carrots).
My personal view on sovereignty is that it’s merely a helpful reminder for me philosophically that the state doesn’t have any legal or moral hold on me. That keeps it fresh in mind that the power over me is wrong, but nonetheless very real. I am enslaved by the state, but only because of the very real and practical use of force. Claiming “sovereignty” only makes them mad.
Hmm… Speaking of which, I was just about to reread some of Herbert Spencer’s works, but I’m heading across state lines so maybe I shouldn’t have “Man vs the State” in the car if I’m detained. If I wanted to be a martyr I could claim that I have rights and such, but it’s easier and I believe more effective to do as SW says with a combination of PT and starving the beast.