The Dawning of the Age of Libertarius

Tear-streaked epistles continue to appear in our mailbox from distraught Riddled readers, curiosity piqued but not assuaged by previous posts about the "International Tribunal of Natural Justice", desperate to learn what we make of the backstory to that curious self-appointed Unseelie Court of judicial cosplayers. OK, not really.


This fabricated lede aside, the ITNJ is a fascinating window into a kind of intellectual aquarium. Sometimes you want to tap on the glass and get their attention but the sign says not to. It is an aquarium, or subculture, occupied by some delightful personalities who appear to have escaped from an unpublished Thomas Pynchon novel -- personalities such as Supreme Court Judge Anna von Reitz, and 14th-Amendment Constitutional Bounty Hunter, Private Attorney-General Rod Class... those last two words are not another title or qualification, they're his name, though Rod Class also styles himself sometimes as Judge Dale. Just saying, "14th-Amendment Constitutional Bounty Hunter" would be the worst Reality-TV series EVAH.

In this aquarium one encounters questions in the rhetorical mode such as

Did One People's Public Trust legally foreclose the banks and corporate governments worldwide in 2012?
Did Anna von Reitz liquidate us with a bond in January 2017?

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For these people have devised their own jurisprudence that puts them outside the reach of mere nation-state laws, so Betteridge's Law holds no fear for them. This is the subculture of Sovereign Citizens and Freemen-on-the-Land, who view themselves as a blend of Ayn Rand and Timothy Leary (in his late exopolitics / Starchildren brain-damage phase), the epitomes of transcendental self-sufficiency... which is why they also devised their own eccentric school of economics in which Corporations / Govt / Banks owe them $10 billion each; and their own physics, entitling them to unlimited free energy from the zero-point of the Quantum Vacuum [they read about it in a John Campbell story so it must be true]. Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.For some reason, "Freeman on the Land" always puts me in mind of Rambling Syd Rumpo, and if that is wrong then I don't want to be right.

I have tried to write this post several times, with different ledes, but each time it turned out that the RationalWiki entry on the One People's Public Trust (OPPT) was funnier and more succinct, so go read that, OK?

From this FotL milieu, first there sprang the Paradigm Project, and then the OPPT -- a Libertarian / Hippie translation of the Prosperity Gospel, adorned with rhetorical tropes filched from Philip K. Dick about 'breaking the Matrix' and 'escaping the Iron Prison'. Attend the deep thoughts of Anna von Reitz (Supreme Court Judge):

During the 1990s alert financial analysts working for the Department of Defense discovered an odd thing. Numbers weren’t adding up. A vast amount of public money was being embezzled. As the members of what came to be known as “The Paradigm Project” dug deeper, something even more astonishing appeared. Almost all of the governments on Earth were being run as private, for-profit governmental services corporations chartered under the auspices of the UNITED STATES, INC.

[...]

Now, stripping the onion another layer, the Paradigm Project discovered that not only had nearly all the traditional governments on earth been reduced to mere governmental services corporations owned and operated by the UNITED STATES, INC., but the states and people being served by these new corporations had been similarly unlawfully converted into corporate franchises. For example, Wisconsin had been reduced to a State of Wisconsin and then to a STATE OF WISCONSIN belonging to the UNITED STATES, INC.
Worst of all, living people had been reduced down to corporate entities. An innocent American man operating under the Trade Name: Joseph Allen Smith, was reduced to a Foreign Situs Trust also named Joseph Allen Smith belonging to the State of Wisconsin: after that, Joseph Allen Smith (the Territorial Foreign Situs Trust) was declared “missing, presumed lost at sea” and a Cestui Que Vie ESTATE trust doing business as “JOSEPH ALLEN SMITH” was created “in his name” as a franchise of the UNITED STATES, INC.

That "alert financial analysts for the DoD" is all my bum [said Brinsley]; in fact the OPPT was a core troika of Heather Ann Tucci-Jarraf, Hollis Randall Hillner and Caleb Skinner, who spake the magic words that LEGALLY FORECLOSED the Old World Order and made it all dissolve in a puff of logic. I cannot be arsed inquiring further into these barmpots for the details of their prior histories in fraud and private-education entitlement. In this LEGAL FORECLOSURE, the troika were encouraged and publicised by the 5D Media Network, Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.an alt-media Faceborg group of bloggers and Youtuber channellers. "5D" being loosely synonymous with 'woke', and denoting a higher level of consciousness than mere 3D and 4D cognition.

The RationalWiki entry describes the ensuing OPAL Tour of 2013. The 5D medianauts took to the road to proclaim the vanishment of the OWO, in a caravan of motorhomes running on water and powered by Free Energy, reincarnations of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Although Kesey's activities were limited to a single FURTHER bus by the absence of the Intertubes and PayPal as a fundraising infrastructure... he could not appeal for donations to pay for non-watery fuel, spare parts for the Tesla Technology generator, and drugs. This is ALL TRUE: RW did not make it up and everything can be documented.
Nor did they invent the "Convergence in Morocco" part of the story, where the 5D crowd relocated to Morocco to embark on an exercise in communal living, transcendental existence and drug consumption. There they were joined by sundry OPPT believers (apart from such believers as had attempted to access their $10 Billion entitlement and were in jail by then). They were also joined by 'HopeGirl' (a.k.a. Hope Moore a.k.a. Naima Dawn Feagin) of the "Fix The World" foundation, bringing a differentFree-Energy Quantum Generator that would power the community and indeed the entire village, and usher in the Millennium of Abundance, Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.as soon as Wandsworth the skool dog outside supporters donated enough $$ for the spare parts.* In one account, FtW "has always been a service-to-others organization focused on humanitarian projects to help bring about change on our planet that would work to end human suffering" but the judges would also have accepted "Old-fashioned wholesome family of grifters who glimpsed a new scam and wanted in on the ground floor".**

Our interest, though, centres here on Caleb Skinner from that OPPT triumvirate, who is actually more of a character from an abandoned subplot of Cryptonomicon than from Pynchon. Even as the OPAL roadtrip and the Morocco migration was happening, Caleb was reinventing himself as a Software Boy-Genius, and switching his energies to 'Project XIII'... a multifaceted app that would topple Faceborg, luring users with the promise of data anonymity and hard encryption and a gateway to that $10 Billion of credit units to which we are all entitled; all for a nominal monthly fee. Despite sporadic release announcements, five years later 'project xiii' is just a shiny webpage, inspiring doubts that Caleb's forte is more in promises than in software.

But in fairness to Caleb, there were other calls on his time to distract him, e.g. co-opting the ITNJ. For the International Tribunal was meanwhile sprouting from the same rich intellectual loam -- initially as a "People's Grand Jury Initiative", in the recollection of its co-founder -- and Caleb was contracted to write "case-management software".

If we are to believe a series of slightly embittered posts at "Claims of the Living" from co-founder Rebecca Cope, a little band of US SovCits were putting together the underpinnings for a People's Court that would lay bar the machinations of the Matrix, with assistance from like-minded eedjits in South Africa. Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.These bare-bones-budget volunteers were glad of an offer of collaboration from Simon "Sacha" Stone, impresario of a portfolio of mandala-logoed New Earth websites. For he seemed to be a kindred spirit, interviewing the OPAL road-trippers if not actively supporting them, eager to learn from the Grand Jury initiative, in much the same way that a magpie is eager to learn from a collection of shiny valuables. Caleb came as part of the package:

I next presented the timelines to Sir John and team. Caleb was in on that meeting because he was living with Sacha at the time. It was here I discovered the alteration in the intent of the Tribunal.
Sir John tipped his hand when he said he could call up a Grand Jury from the phone book, should he ever need one. Caleb said we could hold the Tribunal next week, since all we needed was a judge. It was stupid to waste time on Juries, etc, etc.

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Clik here to view.Cope's trust in the SovCit belief-system is sincere if delusive (often citing Supreme Court Judge Anna von Reitz and Private Attorney-General Rod Class as the ultimate constitutional authorities) so imagine her surprise to find grifting in progress. She had received one bill from Sacha's mate Chief Justice Sir John Walsh of Branaghfor his advice, another for his presence in London along with his entourage for the Tribunal's inauguration, while the vast bulk of the budget of the ITNJ was assigned for paying Mr Walsh's monthly retainer. A priority for the Tribunal would be cases from which Walsh stood most to profit.***

...massive fraud that would be perfect for exposure of many corrupt corporations. In the letter, the Law Commissioner stated 1/3 of any financial judgment in her favor would be paid to the Australian team for their efforts and requested a call be had as soon as possible between the parties to discuss.

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Clik here to view.Image may be NSFW.
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Clik here to view.And there were recriminations and drama, and the ITNJ charter changed unilaterally so as to no longer involve US input. Letters of Resignation were followed by Letters of She-was-never-really-on-the-team. My first draft included lengthy quotes from Claims of the Living, but it's all funnier in context so read the original.

A recurring theme in Rebecca Cope's account is the central role of Caleb Skinner:

Those who insist that there is a "middle ground" failed to listen carefully to Sir John's dialogue on the Grand Jury last night. Nor did they follow Caleb's"logic" on Contracts and Ecclesiastical Law. According to Caleb, a person coming before the tribunal gives jurisdiction to the Judge. That's the only "authority" the Judge needs. If a person is stupid enough to allow a Judge to hear their case, (Caleb's explanation) then they should suffer the consequences.

[...]

It appears that Caleb's model has been allowed to hijack the Tribunal. We have just reversed direction from what we have worked all year to accomplish. We don't need a Grand Jury. Caleb says so. We no longer have a People's Tribunal. We have a Judge's chamber, and we have our first law commissioner ready to bring a case that is "financially lucrative" that can help pay Sir John and team’s hefty salary.

[...]

Then an email comes through that Sue and others are "circling back" by not getting with Caleb. Caleb has communicated to Sue that he will not do the software until the first case comes through.
Well, of course. Now I understand. Caleb is telling Sacha and Sir John how easy it is to run the Court. "We don't need to do any of the things that Rebecca's team has been working toward. We don't need Grand Juries. That's so NOT zero-point. Here's how we do things MY way."

Rather than write code and wrangle a database, Caleb reframed the situation so that software was no longer required. Whatever his actual software capabilities, he has mastered the three core virtues of programming: laziness, impatience and hubris.


* A perspective on this Convergence comes from Melani Vermay -- yet another 'Alt-Media journalist', i.e. a citizen-ranter with a "Freedom Central" Youtuba channel [also "Head of Media within the God Sky Earth Project", don't ask]. Mel was a passenger aboard OPAL and the QEGand the SwissIndo scamwagons -- the latter being another version of the Prosperity-Gospel grift. Mel is covered by the Hoaxtead beat so here she only warrants a footnote.

Bonus Ranting:

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*** Footnotes and Aftermaths will follow later. Time to Do Work now, so this will suffice for the moment.