Path: imp.ch!news.imp.ch!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeed1.telenordia.se!192.108.210.10.MISMATCH!news-peer-europe.sprintlink.net!Sprint!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!205.217.6.4!nntp.net-link.net!not-for-mail From: frogfarm@hempseed.com (damaged justice) Newsgroups: alt.society.sovereign,alt.answers Subject: FAQ: 9/1/96, 0.9c Followup-To: alt.society.sovereign Date: 8 Oct 1998 19:40:19 GMT Organization: Somewhere just far enough outside of your jurisdiction Lines: 231 Message-ID: <6vj4f3$ij$1@leol.net-link.net> Reply-To: frogfarm@hempseed.com (spammers will be blood eagled) NNTP-Posting-Host: tc01-38.kz.net-link.net Summary: A list of Frequently Asked Questions about the alt.society.sovereign newsgroup, which should be read by anyone wishing to post there. A lot of it just rehashes standard netiquette. Keywords: sovereign legal freedom liberty individual User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980818 ("Laura") (UNIX) (Linux/2.0.35 (i586)) Xref: imp.ch alt.society.sovereign:21555 alt.answers:32352 Archive-Name: sovereignty-faq Posting-Frequency: sporadically quarterly Last-Modified: Sun, 1 September 1996 Version: 0.9c This is the BETA Frequently Asked Questions list for alt.society.sovereign, not yet posted to news.answers. As always, constructive comments & criticism are welcome. 1) "Who died and made you God? The group isn't even moderated!" 2) "Aren't you passing judgment on what's 'acceptable' on the group?" 3) "In your opinion then, what is the purpose of this group?" 4) "What do you consider 'inappropriate'?" 5) "And what do you consider 'appropriate'?" 6) "I still think my post will be appropriate. Any other advice?" 7) "Where can I find more information about these topics?" 1) "Who died and made you God? The group isn't even moderated!" Nobody. An FAQ didn't exist for this group, so I felt it necessary to invent one. Anyone who doesn't like it is perfectly free to write their own FAQ. I'm not a moderator, and I'm not trying to be one; the decision to moderate a newsgroup unnecessarily complicates things and stifles open discussion. There are plenty of moderated areas elsewhere on the net, if you prefer them. 2) "Aren't you passing judgment on what's 'acceptable' on the group?" Yes, and I'm expressing my opinions here. However, I have no power to enforce those opinions on the rest of the net. The best [worst] I can do is post this FAQ occasionally, in an attempt to persuade. It is my hope that the signal will eventually be greater than the noise. 3) "In your opinion then, what is the purpose of this group?" The purpose of alt.society.sovereign is to provide a public forum for the discussion of "individual sovereignty", which is best described as a state of freedom theoretically attainable by any mentally competent individual within one of the States of America, generally entailing some involvement in the court system and a comfortable level of practical legal knowledge of the sort that most lawyers, judges and politicians would rather forget about. The primary focus is on how to successfully defend oneself from prosecution for exercising one's rights, the better to enjoy and pursue those rights. Secondary focus is placed on prosecuting agents of government who have done sufficient damage to one's rights to warrant an offensive approach. A discussion of "Natural Law and Natural Rights" can be found on the Web at http://www.jim.com/jamesd/rights.html The topic of sovereignty is a highly volatile one due to the fundamental questions it raises regarding the nature of freedom and the legitimacy of government. It has also been negatively associated for many years with the stereotype of "racist redneck gun freaks", "nutty tax protestors" and the like. Some noise is inevitable given the group's unmoderated status, and this FAQ is one aspect of my attempt to reduce that noise. The most important thing to remember about alt.society.sovereign is that nothing on it should be construed as legal advice. 4) "What do you consider 'inappropriate'?" - Posts consisting solely or largely of flaming or personal attacks. - Posts clearly unrelated to topic, such as phone-sex advertisements. - Posts which attempt to "debunk" or refute based on anything other than verifiable facts, or which resort to argumentative fallacies. The most common fallacies in this group appear to be: o Shifting the burden of proof (which as any good litigant knows, is always on the one making the assertion) o Ad hominem (attacking the person rather than the issue) o Argument by antiquity (asserting that something is right or good simply because "that's the way it's always been/the way our ancestors always did it") o Ad novitatem (opposite of antiquity; asserting that something is right or good simply because it is newer; "The Constitution? Oh, that's from the horse-and-buggy days!") o Ad nauseam (the more often the assertion is repeated, the truer it is) o Appealing to the gallery/people (use of strongly emotive language which attempts to bypass rational thought; compare to argumentum ad numerum, the belief that a proposition is more truthful if more people support it) o Appeal to force (resorting to force or the threat of force; used by governments everywhere; also known as "might makes right") [above definitions excerpted and rephrased from alt.atheism FAQ] - Posts which are political rather than legal; i.e., discussions of what should be, rather than what is. Politics may be defined as "that which is unsettled in law", while law is "that which IS settled". You may believe that the world would be better off if there were no drug laws, or that extremely strict gun control laws are the only way to save humanity, but these are political questions, and not appropriate for the group. However, if properly presented, almost any question can be appropriate (see below). - Anything that should be in alt.revisionism. This has nothing to do with "censorship" or even narrow-mindedness on my part; it is because any competent individual is capable of exercising and defending rights, regardless of their sex, skin color or other irrelevant attributes. Many people attack material presented here solely out of hostility to the subject matter, for reasons known only to themselves. A surprisingly high proportion of these people appear to be either students at law schools or graduates of law schools; whether this has any relevance is left to the reader to decide. However, just because someone is a lawyer, or is studying to be one, does not automatically make them more qualified to discuss these topics; in fact, the more involved a person is in the traditional legal hierarchy, the more hostile they generally are to the ideas and concepts discussed here. As long as you restrict yourself to addressing substantive issues in a manner respectful of others, you will more than likely be extended the same courtesy in return. Before posting, consider whether your post may be more appropriate in one of the following groups: alt.conspiracy alt.flame alt.revisionism alt.philosophy.objectivism alt.politics.usa.constitution [one of the few truly appropriate crosspost groups] alt.society.anarchy alt.society.conservatism alt.society.revolution alt.usenet.kooks humanities.philosophy.objectivism [moderated] misc.activism.militia [moderated] misc.legal misc.taxes talk.politics.democrat talk.politics.drugs talk.politics.guns talk.politics.libertarian talk.politics.misc talk.politics.republican 5) "And what do you consider 'appropriate'?" Almost anything that doesn't fall into the above categories. Using the above examples, an appropriate post might be an explanation of your personal experiences with challenging a drug- or gun-related charge in court. 6) "I still think my post will be appropriate. Any other advice?" For announcements of upcoming events, make sure you allow time for your post to make its way into the world BEFORE the event takes place. A lag time of seven days is usually enough for your post to be distributed worldwide and read by a fair number of people. Be explicit about location, date and other crucial information. Keep announcements brief and to the point. Remember that the Internet is global, and an event in (for example) New York City is not automatically of interest to the rest of the world. You should be able to change the Distribution header to restrict where your post goes; ask your local guru for details. Posts may be of any size; however, large ones run the risk of not being read and mean less room for other's posts. If you can make documents available via FTP or the Web, it's better to post a "pointer", that is, a brief description of the information and instructions on how to find it. Example: >Joe Blow's excellent article on digital cash from yesterday's Blather Times >is now available at ftp://ftp.fubar.net/pub/blather/joeblow.txt, and on the >World Wide Web at http://www.fubar.net/~blather/joeblow.html. He makes a few >good points on the need for regulation, but still fails to convince me. If you are considering crossposting (posting to multiple groups), please take a moment to consider whether it will truly be appropriate for all of them. If you crosspost, set the Followup-To header so that responses are directed to a single group, unless the discussion is truly germane to each and every group. You will often find crossposts spanning ten or more groups, and it is a Good Thing to trim followups if the topic has drifted far from its original base. If you are replying to a message, PLEASE, if at all possible, cut out all of their text except the parts you are specifically responding to. Many people don't bother to read messages after they see that the first page is nothing but quoted text. Use prefixes in the Subject line of your post based on its content, keep the subjects themselves as short as possible without being cryptic, and warn the reader if your post is larger than average. Examples: >Subject: BETA: FAQ request for comments >Subject: CASE: Fubar v. U.S. (eminent domain) >Subject: QUESTION: Does 2nd Amendment apply to crypto? >Subject: ANNOUNCE: 9th Amendment NYC Seminar, Oct. 24-5 >Subject: POINTER: "The Money Laundromat" available on Web >Subject: LONG: "The Money Laundromat" (64k) This will help people sort through articles, especially if they're doing it by hand. Most of these suggestions are variations on basic netiquette. By following them in every group, not just this one, you can make Usenet a better place for yourself and everyone else. 7) "Where can I find more information about these topics?" My page at http://frogfarm.home.ml.org/frogfarm/ is a good place to start. Some of the links are outdated, although I try to update them every few months. Thanks for reading this. ** end -- http://frogfarm.home.ml.org/ ...for the best in unapproved information "We think people like seeing somebody in a uniform on the porch." -US Postal spokeswoman, quoted in AP, 1/27/96. I don't know about you, but most people I know who saw someone in uniform on their porch would pull out the shotgun...