7 ms·

It obviously should be illegal, it's a legal shenanigan on tier with "your honor I didn't assault that man, I was simply swinging my fists and his face got in t

It obviously should be illegal, it's a legal shenanigan on tier with "your honor I didn't assault that man, I was simply swinging my fists and his face got in the way"

jjoonathan 4y ago
It's every bit as dumb as "sovereign citizens" trying to argue that they aren't subject to traffic laws because of a centuries old maritime treaty. Unfortunately, it's the people in charge slinging the dumb argument, so it flies.
- robonerd 4y ago
  Governments doing stupid shit like this only encourages "sovereign citizens" to think similar word games and semantics will work for them too. They're naive of course; they seem to think the system is a machine indifferent to class or social standing, which simply isn't the case.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    Class or social standing aren't the right lens for this, I don't think Warren Buffet vs. Three Dollars would fly in court.
    - robonerd 4y ago
      Warren Buffet could do it if he wanted, using his wealth to earn the favor of the right government officials. He could even buy himself a private police force to do the seizing. A real police force, licensed by the state but employed and paid by himself. This sort of thing is already a reality in America. Anyway, my point is sovereign citizens seem to see the system as a machine, the function of which can be manipulated by giving it cleverly formulated inputs. They have a hacker mindset. They see lawyers and politicians doing this sort of thing all the time, and believe they can do the same if only they find the right incantation. It's as though somebody witnesses the Fonz hit a jukebox to make it work, then figure they can do the same trick if they hit that jukebox in the same way. Except it will never work for them, the jukebox only behaves that way for the Fonz.
      - Mountain_Skies 4y ago
        It could be argued that Buffet already has such power, as there are all kinds of weirdness around the police forces belonging to the railroad industry in which he is heavily invested through BNSF. I've never heard of him abusing this power but the potential certainly is there.
      - t-3 4y ago
        Certainly some sovereign citizens see the system as a rigid machine, but many simply believe it should be and act accordingly. They are idealists, not necessarily deluded about reality or trying to hack the system (although those types definitely do exist, I won't deny that). It's almost like a way of turning your life into a demonstrative protest against the "big lie" that is the law and refusing to fall in line.
        pas 4y ago
        > not necessarily deluded about reality but the reality is that law was never this, and their life of protest is led against a straw man, and it's completely ineffective in bringing reality closer to that principle.
        t-3 4y ago
        So, we should never try to be better, because the past and present suck? Your logic is extremely cynical and self-defeating. No change would ever occur with such a mindset.
    - jessaustin 4y ago
      That would totally fly in the courts of e.g. Judges Kaplan or Preska.
- icambron 4y ago
  What’s weird is that American higher courts are often quite good at eviscerating this kind of nonsense, usually by pointing out that such a “workaround” would make the constitutional amendment toothless, and it was not meant to be toothless, so the workaround is bunk. That civil asset forfeiture has survived is simply because the courts are gutless about it.
  - rland 4y ago
    Huh? There is a very long and plainly wrong string of Supreme Court decisions which stretches all the way back to the nation's founding. The courts are very good at precisely the opposite thing that you're describing. I think most people kind of assume that the courts are this sort of shining beacon of enlightened liberal thought: they occasionally seem to have "duds" -- but those are intelligent and well reasoned duds. They're interpreting the constitution in a way some don't like, sure, but still upholding it nonetheless, right? I mean, this thread here about civil asset forfeiture is a great example. If you ask any non-lawyer brained person whether it's wrong, they'll say, yeah, of course it's illegal for the government to just steal your shit. Why is this even a question? Oh, but no, you see, the courts have wisely decided, using an argument that you might hear from a 5-year-old ("actually, this piece of property is actually a mystical ghost that we can treat as a people!"), that stealing your shit is, in fact, legal. I really encourage anyone curious about this powerful and unaccountable institution to read some of the shittier Supreme Court decisions. They are often, simply put, stupid. Like, a regular non-lawyer person can read them and handily "eviscerate" their arguments.
    - jjeaff 4y ago
      My favorite, idiotic decision from a higher court this year was the judge that argued in her opinion that the federal government's legal authority to protect the public from infectious disease did not extend to mask requirements because the law says they can require sanitation, but wearing a mask doesn't "sanitize" anything. Ignoring the fact that the point of a mask is to "sanitize" the germ filled air coming out of or into your mouth, the same law says "or other measures" as needed to protect the public. It was such poor logic, especially considering the context of the original law at the time (fighting tuberculosis) and the potentially damaging aftermath of such a precedent (not hard to imagine a future, more deadly virus that some politicians decides is a political inconvenience).
- zionic 4y ago
  I'm no "sovereign citizen", and occasionally enjoy compilations on youtube of them getting owned in front of a judge (makes for a good laugh). I do however find some sympathy with _one_ of their arguments, where they argue they never consented to be governed. I mean when I think about it, I was born into an established system that imposed its rules on me from birth. I had no say in accepting/rejecting the rules. I'm essentially property of the state, subject to its whims with little to no hope of changing them. So I get where some people come from with a "naw fuck that" attitude, even if I see such resistance as futile. Not directly sov-citizen related, but that does intersect with a broader community of people upset over how property works in the US. Namely, you don't own a damn thing. All deeds/titles are fee-simple, in that you merely buy and sell the right to rent that land from the government for as long as you can afford it. "Renters" in the colloquial sense are really renting twice, which is why "owning" is better. True ownership of property however no longer exists in the US. Maybe we can experiment with better society designs on mars, where landowners are truly sovereign and the state only owns the commons. Enforcement then only exists in the commons (and optionally on property with the consent of the owner).
  - tarboreus 4y ago
    I think if you don't think we'll have the same thing on Mars as we do on Earth, then I have some NFTs to sell you.
    - robonerd 4y ago
      (I'm skeptical of the very premise of colonizing Mars, but putting that aside..) I expect what forms on Mars, at least initially, will resemble the high seas a lot more than it does any country. You'll have facilities owned and commanded by corporations operating under flags of convenience, more or less free to engage in any nastiness they like (at least until a navy or coastguard with guns shows up to enforce their will on the facility.)
      - tarboreus 4y ago
        Perhaps, though that seems like an unstable equilibrium. By the time we have communities up there, they're have their powerful and their not powerful, just like we terrestrials.
raincom 4y ago
It is called “legal fiction”, as judges and lawyers call it among themselves.
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
Once it was broadly accepted that the 14th amendment made corporations into people, the die was cast on the creation of these types of legalistic shenanigans.
- couchand 4y ago
  I'm not sure there's legal or historical basis for that assertion? Edit: see this comment from elsewhere in this thread with a link to a scholarly history of civil asset forfeiture: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31449092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31449092

It obviously should be illegal, it's a legal shenanigan on tier with "your honor I didn't assault that man, I was simply swinging my fists and his face got in the way"

jjoonathan 4y ago

It's every bit as dumb as "sovereign citizens" trying to argue that they aren't subject to traffic laws because of a centuries old maritime treaty. Unfortunately, it's the people in charge slinging the dumb argument, so it flies.

robonerd 4y ago
Governments doing stupid shit like this only encourages "sovereign citizens" to think similar word games and semantics will work for them too. They're naive of course; they seem to think the system is a machine indifferent to class or social standing, which simply isn't the case.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  Class or social standing aren't the right lens for this, I don't think Warren Buffet vs. Three Dollars would fly in court.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    Warren Buffet could do it if he wanted, using his wealth to earn the favor of the right government officials. He could even buy himself a private police force to do the seizing. A real police force, licensed by the state but employed and paid by himself. This sort of thing is already a reality in America. Anyway, my point is sovereign citizens seem to see the system as a machine, the function of which can be manipulated by giving it cleverly formulated inputs. They have a hacker mindset. They see lawyers and politicians doing this sort of thing all the time, and believe they can do the same if only they find the right incantation. It's as though somebody witnesses the Fonz hit a jukebox to make it work, then figure they can do the same trick if they hit that jukebox in the same way. Except it will never work for them, the jukebox only behaves that way for the Fonz.
    - Mountain_Skies 4y ago
      It could be argued that Buffet already has such power, as there are all kinds of weirdness around the police forces belonging to the railroad industry in which he is heavily invested through BNSF. I've never heard of him abusing this power but the potential certainly is there.
    - t-3 4y ago
      Certainly some sovereign citizens see the system as a rigid machine, but many simply believe it should be and act accordingly. They are idealists, not necessarily deluded about reality or trying to hack the system (although those types definitely do exist, I won't deny that). It's almost like a way of turning your life into a demonstrative protest against the "big lie" that is the law and refusing to fall in line.
      - pas 4y ago
        > not necessarily deluded about reality but the reality is that law was never this, and their life of protest is led against a straw man, and it's completely ineffective in bringing reality closer to that principle.
        t-3 4y ago
        So, we should never try to be better, because the past and present suck? Your logic is extremely cynical and self-defeating. No change would ever occur with such a mindset.
  - jessaustin 4y ago
    That would totally fly in the courts of e.g. Judges Kaplan or Preska.
icambron 4y ago
What’s weird is that American higher courts are often quite good at eviscerating this kind of nonsense, usually by pointing out that such a “workaround” would make the constitutional amendment toothless, and it was not meant to be toothless, so the workaround is bunk. That civil asset forfeiture has survived is simply because the courts are gutless about it.
- rland 4y ago
  Huh? There is a very long and plainly wrong string of Supreme Court decisions which stretches all the way back to the nation's founding. The courts are very good at precisely the opposite thing that you're describing. I think most people kind of assume that the courts are this sort of shining beacon of enlightened liberal thought: they occasionally seem to have "duds" -- but those are intelligent and well reasoned duds. They're interpreting the constitution in a way some don't like, sure, but still upholding it nonetheless, right? I mean, this thread here about civil asset forfeiture is a great example. If you ask any non-lawyer brained person whether it's wrong, they'll say, yeah, of course it's illegal for the government to just steal your shit. Why is this even a question? Oh, but no, you see, the courts have wisely decided, using an argument that you might hear from a 5-year-old ("actually, this piece of property is actually a mystical ghost that we can treat as a people!"), that stealing your shit is, in fact, legal. I really encourage anyone curious about this powerful and unaccountable institution to read some of the shittier Supreme Court decisions. They are often, simply put, stupid. Like, a regular non-lawyer person can read them and handily "eviscerate" their arguments.
  - jjeaff 4y ago
    My favorite, idiotic decision from a higher court this year was the judge that argued in her opinion that the federal government's legal authority to protect the public from infectious disease did not extend to mask requirements because the law says they can require sanitation, but wearing a mask doesn't "sanitize" anything. Ignoring the fact that the point of a mask is to "sanitize" the germ filled air coming out of or into your mouth, the same law says "or other measures" as needed to protect the public. It was such poor logic, especially considering the context of the original law at the time (fighting tuberculosis) and the potentially damaging aftermath of such a precedent (not hard to imagine a future, more deadly virus that some politicians decides is a political inconvenience).
zionic 4y ago
I'm no "sovereign citizen", and occasionally enjoy compilations on youtube of them getting owned in front of a judge (makes for a good laugh). I do however find some sympathy with _one_ of their arguments, where they argue they never consented to be governed. I mean when I think about it, I was born into an established system that imposed its rules on me from birth. I had no say in accepting/rejecting the rules. I'm essentially property of the state, subject to its whims with little to no hope of changing them. So I get where some people come from with a "naw fuck that" attitude, even if I see such resistance as futile. Not directly sov-citizen related, but that does intersect with a broader community of people upset over how property works in the US. Namely, you don't own a damn thing. All deeds/titles are fee-simple, in that you merely buy and sell the right to rent that land from the government for as long as you can afford it. "Renters" in the colloquial sense are really renting twice, which is why "owning" is better. True ownership of property however no longer exists in the US. Maybe we can experiment with better society designs on mars, where landowners are truly sovereign and the state only owns the commons. Enforcement then only exists in the commons (and optionally on property with the consent of the owner).
- tarboreus 4y ago
  I think if you don't think we'll have the same thing on Mars as we do on Earth, then I have some NFTs to sell you.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    (I'm skeptical of the very premise of colonizing Mars, but putting that aside..) I expect what forms on Mars, at least initially, will resemble the high seas a lot more than it does any country. You'll have facilities owned and commanded by corporations operating under flags of convenience, more or less free to engage in any nastiness they like (at least until a navy or coastguard with guns shows up to enforce their will on the facility.)
    - tarboreus 4y ago
      Perhaps, though that seems like an unstable equilibrium. By the time we have communities up there, they're have their powerful and their not powerful, just like we terrestrials.

raincom 4y ago

It is called “legal fiction”, as judges and lawyers call it among themselves.

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

Once it was broadly accepted that the 14th amendment made corporations into people, the die was cast on the creation of these types of legalistic shenanigans.

couchand 4y ago
I'm not sure there's legal or historical basis for that assertion? Edit: see this comment from elsewhere in this thread with a link to a scholarly history of civil asset forfeiture: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31449092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31449092