

                 A FICTION AT LAW OF UNTOLD MAGNITUDE

       The Creation and Marketing of the "State of New Columbia"

     by Jeffery, Craig, Thayer
     Sui Juris, Juris et de jure

     Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two
     parties: 

     (1) Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to
     draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes; and 
 
     (2) Those who identify themselves with the people, have
     confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest
     and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public
     interests.  In every country these two parties exist, and in
     every one where they are free to think, speak and write, they
     will declare themselves. -- Thomas Jefferson, August 10, 1824 

    (In "conversation" with a fictitious student, Mr. Thayer unravels
    one of the stickiest traps Congress has yet laid for the unwary:
    the hidden relationship between the District of Columbia and the
    separate States.  The dialogue is very enlightening.--Editor)

    Since 1982, there has been a new flag flying over the District of
    Columbia.  Don't be surprised if you fail to recognize it.  It's
    quite different from the American flag but is treated with equal
    dignity there.  The design, three red stars and two red stripes
    on a white field, also appears on District of Columbia license
    plates and police officers' armband insignias.  The flag is hoisted 
    daily on a separate flagpole to the same height as the U.S. flag 
    in the District--even at McDonalds restaurants.  There are un-
    confirmed reports of this flag also flying over certain United States 
    military bases.

    Why does the District of Columbia need its own flag?
    In 1982, Washington DC, established itself as the STATE OF NEW
    COLUMBIA, complete with a brand-new constitution that bears
    little resemblance to the Constitution for the united States of
    America.

    I don't recall a new state being added.  Am I forgetting
    something?  Your memory is fine.  It is not a State of the Union
    despite some media play that it had applied for admission.  NEW
    COLUMBIA is one of three superstates [London and the Vatican are
    in the others]  and will probably never seriously consider
    becoming a State of the Union.  That would be an evolutionary
    step backward for this political creation. 
    Why should I care?  I don't live there.
    Think again.  Both contract law and the doctrine of the "law of
    the flag" dictate that the Constitution for the STATE OF NEW
    COLUMBIA may very well apply to you right now as your municipal
    law. (See sidebar.) 

    That's impossible.  I can't be bound by laws that are foreign to
    where I live!  Can I?
    I understand your disbelief; it grows out of two time-honored
    concepts, lex loci and  lex loci contractus.  They mean that "the
    law of the place" (where you make your home, where an act was
    committed, etc., or where a contract was entered into) governs
    the relations between those involved.

    However, those concepts, potent in American law until now, have
    been superseded by another that better suits the plans of those
    who created the STATE OF NEW COLUMBIA.  It is know as lex fori
    and governs all administrative and judicial courts today.  Lex
    fori means the "law of the forum [court]" alone will apply.  That
    is, the only law that will count in that court is the positive
    law of the state, country or other jurisdiction to whose judicial
    system the court belongs--regardless of conflict with any other
    body of law.

    Such as the state and local laws that the parties to the action
    might be familiar with and agreeable to?
    Exactly.

    OK.  So what law does govern these courts?
    You can answer that one for yourself.  First look at the flags
    planted in each courtroom.  Then consider that each County and
    State court in which the United States flag is now displayed is a
    contractual, political subdivision of the District of Columbia.

    What?
    That's right; the municipal law of Washington D.C., sometimes
    disguised as State law, now governs you by contract under the
    doctrine of lex fori--also under the doctrine of the law of the
    flag.  By authority of that municipal law (approved by Congress
    in its capacity as legislature for the District of Columbia) the
    new flag now flies over every government building, usually on the
    same staff as the U.S. flag.  By law, it is also displayed inside
    all public buildings whenever and wherever the U.S. flag is
    displayed.

    But don't the District of Columbia laws apply only to those who
    live there?

    Most people believe that.  However, you may become subject to the
    municipal law of this red and white flag in ways you would never
    suspect. When you consent, in writing or otherwise, to "reside"
    or be "employed" in a federal "revenue district," electoral
    district, water conservation district or school district you
    automatically include yourself in a "political subdivision" and
    "body politic" that you know by some local name, but it ALSO
    known as NEW COLUMBIA.  You produce the same result when you vote
    for national officers as a citizen of the UNITED STATES, INC.

    "UNITED STATES, INC."?  What's that?
    The United States government is a corporation, no different
    legally than Chrysler or General Motors.  Corporations are
    political creations.  The UNITED STATES, INC. was given formal
    legal birth in 1990 when the Federal Debt Collection Practices
    Act was passed.

    I'm confused; I thought the United States was a nation!
    That's not surprising.  There are more than three distinct
    definitions of "United States" officially recognized by the
    Supreme Court. 

    The picture gets even more confusing; the large body politic or
    "superstate" labeled the STATE OF NEW COLUMBIA actually has
    satellites known by different names.  In Pennsylvania for
    example, NEW COLUMBIA is known by several aliases, such as the
    COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA and the STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
    (distinguished from the Constitutionally established Pennsylvania
    commonwealth or Pennsylvania state), the abbreviation "PA" with a
    ZIP Code numeral, (in contrast to "Penna." or "Pa." long
    established for Pennsylvania commonwealth or state), the COUNTY
    OF SUSQUEHANNA (distinguished from the Constitutionally
    established Susquehanna county), etc.

    Capitalizing and reordering words to convert a political entity
    in a "STATE OF" or a "COUNTY OF" name are telltale signs that it
    may actually be one of the many political subdivisions of the
    District of Columbia. 

    In each of these satellite jurisdictions, officers of the UNITED
    STATES, INC. apply laws passed by Congress which are created and
    applicable only in the District of Columbia--"except as provided
    by law."

   For example?
   Take a simple conveyance of real estate.  Recall your American
   history?  The English Stamp Act of 1763 was one of the prime
   igniters of the Revolution.  Forced upon the colonies, this law
   regulated stamps placed on deeds, contracts, agreements and
   papers in law proceedings, bills, notes, letters, receipts and
   other papers in order to tax these transactions.  They were not
   postage stamps.  Each stamp placed on these papers was a tax for
   the "privilege" of conducting the transaction in the King's
   domain.  The premise and paradigm in the pre-Revolutionary period
   was that the King owned everything--the colonists were merely
   tenants.

   Today a notary seal acknowledging your signature on a deed, deed
   of trust or mortgage has the same purpose as the Stamp Act. 
   Instead of the King receiving "tribute" for this transaction, his
   pretended successor, the UNITED STATES, INC. receives it through
   various Federal, "State" and "County" political subdivisions of
   the District of Columbia.  Notaries carry out a federal office
   and function.

   Unless there is evidence to the contrary, placing the seal of a
   notary public on your document, verifying your signature, amounts
   to saying that you resided in a federal enclave or taxing
   jurisdiction when you conveyed the land.  Consider those seals as
   equal to plating the flags of the UNITED STATES, INC. and STATE
   OF NEW COLUMBIA on your documents. 

   Most States no longer use revenue stamps, but they impose a
   transfer tax and enter the property into the property tax rolls
   of a Federal County, which is a political subdivision of the
   District of Columbia by contract.  Simply put, when you signed
   your name, you agreed to the "notion" that you bought the
   property in a venue subject to the law of the District of
   Columbia and its political subdivisions.

   That's unfair!
   Maybe so, "except as provided by law."  Although you may have had
   other options, your failure to reserve and execute those options,
   significantly complicates any effort to be free of Congress's
   exclusive legislative jurisdiction effected through the District
   of Columbia. 

   Are there other examples?

   If you were ever to find yourself embroiled in criminal or civil
   litigation in a UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, what procedural
   laws do you suppose would apply?

   In a U.S. district court?  Well the Federal Rules of Criminal
   Procedure or the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, I guess.
   No offense (most attorneys would answer the same way you did),
   but that shows you don't understand why these rules of procedure
   apply or that their use is actually restricted to the District of
   Columbia--except, of course, "as provided by law."

   For example Rule 54 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure
   gives this definition:

   `Act of Congress' includes any act of Congress locally
   applicable to and in force in the District of Columbia, in
   Puerto Rico, in a territory or in an insular possession.

   It is beyond any argument that each statute which defines a
   federal crime in Titles 18, 22, 31, 32 and 42 of the United
   States Code, is an Act of Congress, passed and made locally
   applicable only to those residing in the District of Columbia. 
   Otherwise, the offenses defined by those statutes could never
   have been defined federal crimes. 

   But over what "territory" or "insular possessions" does Congress
   have authority to define crimes and punishments?
   Only the District of Columbia, "except as provided by law." 
   Similarly, Rule 81 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
   (governing the entire scope of application of these rules
   relating to civil actions filed in a UNITED STATES DISTRICT
   COURT) defines the phrase "Law applicable" as:

   Whenever in these rules the law of the state in which the
   district court is held is made applicable, the law applied in
   the District of Columbia governs proceedings in the United
   States district court for the District of Columbia.  When the
   word "state" is used, it includes, if appropriate, the District
   of Columbia.  When the term "statute of the United States" is
   used, it includes, so far as concerns proceedings in the United
   States District Court for the District of Columbia, any Act of
   Congress locally applicable to and in force in the District of
   Columbia.

   From this it is quite clear that, in a UNITED STATES DISTRICT
   COURT, the law of the flag is firmly planted and understood by
   practitioners, with a few exceptions not relevant here.  Each
   time anyone appears and responds in such a criminal or civil
   action, by use of a fiction at law s/he is "in" the District of
   Columbia where its municipal law is being applied through one of
   its many political subdivision.

   This is one main reason that United States Attorneys and their
   assistants (employed by the Office of the Attorney General in the
   Department of Justice) appear in criminal actions anywhere in the
   several States, representing the UNITED STATES, INC. and claiming
   that certain Acts of Congress have been violated.

   Yet Title 28 of the United States Code, at Sections 501 and 502,
   undeniably states that the Office of the Attorney General is part
   of the Department of Justice and the Executive Department of the
   United States established only at the "seat of government," Title
   4 of the United States Code, at Sections 71 and 72, restricts the
   phrase "seat of government" to the District of Columbia.  Those
   two sections also restrict the "territorial" exercise of any
   office of the UNITED STATES to the "seat of government" at the
   District of Columbia an nowhere else--"except as provided by
   law."

   Still, municipal law in the District of Columbia three thousand
   miles away can't apply to me in California?!
   True--"except as provided by law."

   But I'm a Californian!  Besides, didn't you show me just the
   other day that each state is legally a separate country from the
   others and from Washington D.C?
   
   Of course, but under principles of municipal and contract law,
   you are a Californian subject to the law of the flag.

   But how can a "municipal" law apply in a different state?
   Easily--the definition of "municipal" has been expanded 
   According to the latest edition of Black's Law Dictionary:

   [I]n a narrower, more common, sense it means pertaining to a
   local governmental unit, commonly, a city or town or other
   governmental unit.  In its broader sense, it means pertaining
   to public or government affairs of a state or nation or of a
   people... Relating to a state or nation, particularly when
   considered as an entity independent of other states or nations
   [Emphasis added]

   Also according to Black's, a "political subdivision" is:

   A division of a state made by proper authorities thereof,
   acting within their constitutional powers, for purposes of
   carrying out a   portion of those functions of state which by
   long usage and inherent   necessities of government have always
   been regarded as public. 


   Washington insiders are well aware that the name of the District
   of Columbia was changed to the STATE OF NEW COLUMBIA when its new
   constitution was ratified by a 61,405 to 54,964 vote in the
   District on November 2, 1982.  Those same insiders are also well
   aware that the STATE OF NEW COLUMBIA is not a "state" of the
   union like Virginia, new Mexico or Montana.

   It's a self-governing, municipal body politic which is not a
   signatory to the U.S. Constitution.  Like England (aka the City
   of London, one mile square, as distinct from the United Kingdom)
   and the Vatican (aka the Papal City, as distinct from Italy), NEW
   COLUMBIA operates subject to no laws or constitution except its
   own.

   What?!
   That's right.  Since it is not a signatory to the social compact
   known as the Constitution for the united States, it is arguably
   not bound by its terms.  Your are generally not bound by any
   contract you did not sign, unless you expressly agree to the
   delegation of duties in an existing contract.  NEW COLUMBIA has
   agreed to no such other contract. 
   Like England and the Vatican, NEW COLUMBIA is not a member of the
   United Nations.  The UNITED STATES, INC. is, but not NEW
   COLUMBIA. 

   How did this "STATE OF NEW COLUMBIA" manage to get itself
   "constituted" under a body of law different from that passed and
   enforced in the 50 states which had to apply for admission and
   become part of the Union?  How did this separate and super
   "State" come about?

   The Constitution for the STATE OF NEW COLUMBIA was reportedly
   ratified by approximately 116,000 "electors" in Washington D.C.,
   not by any vote put to the U.S. citizens at large.

   So no one asked the rest of us whether we approved of the change?
   Right, and the term "ratify" has this important meaning:

   To approve and sanction; to make valid; to give sanction to. 
   To authorize or otherwise approve, retroactively, an agreement
   or conduct either expressly or by implication.

   Saying that the residents of the District ratified this new
   constitution means that they were the same people (electors) who
   proposed and agreed to its terms.  Otherwise we should say that
   it was "enacted," like a decree from an emperor.  Whether any of
   the 116,000 supposed electors actually proposed any of the NEW
   COLUMBIA constitution is highly questionable.

   Were any of them even told what it really means?
   We don't know yet.  Media coverage of the event was essentially
   blacked out, but research is under way to discover what actually
   happened. 

   History offers bright students many examples of public officials
   intentionally giving words and phrases, particularly legal terms,
   a "spin" to confuse those who read and use them.

   Like that punchline, "except as provided by law," that you keep
   adding with your wicked little smile?

   Precisely.  That innocent little phrase opens the door for
   legislators to change, and the courts to re-interpret, any thing
   that precedes it.  You will discover it strewn throughout the NEW
   COLUMBIA constitution and the D.C. Codes, giving lawmakers a
   mandate for providing protection, to children or the elderly, for
   example, in whatever way they deem best according to statutory
   law alone.

   In NEW COLUMBIA you can forget about the common-law concepts of
   unalienable rights to life, natural liberty, self-defense, etc.;
   under this new constitution the legislature won't be hampered by
   such concepts when they decide what protection they want to
   provide.

   Wow!  What about situations where the "law" innocently or
   intentionally overlooks a needed protection?

   There's always that danger and, under the law as written, there's
   no recourse outside itself.  With this new constitution, Congress
   gave itself a blank-check delegation of powers, authority and
   conscience to act as the sovereign for NEW COLUMBIA.

   Of course, under the law of the flag, any of their laws can apply
   to you, too, and to anyone else in the 50 states.  The U.S.
   Constitution won't necessarily apply.

   Welcome to 1774--or 1984!  all of this about trick words has me
   wondering:  Does the word "district" in "District of Columbia"
   figure into this puzzle somewhere?

   Smart question.  According to Black's, a district is:

   One of the territorial areas into which an entire state or
   country, county, municipality or other political subdivision is
   divided, for judicial, political, electoral, or administrative
   purposes... The circuit or territory within which a person may
   be compelled to appear.

   Hmmm, just how expanded does the definition of "territory" get?
   The same dictionary gives us one of many understandings:

   Territory...A portion of the United States, not within the
   limits of any state, which has not yet been admitted as a state
   of the Union, but is organized, with a separate legislature,
   and with executive and judicial officers appointed by the
   president.  See Trust territory. 

   Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
   Yes, "territory" obviously describes the District of Columbia. 
   But what is a "trust territory"?

   No edition of Black's until the current one has listed the
   phrase--not even the 5th, which was printed in 1979.  But now it
   appears as: 

   A territory or colony placed under administration of a country
   by the United Nations.

   Wait a minute!  Are you saying that Washington D.C., now re-named
   the STATE OF NEW COLUMBIA, has been placed under the
   administration of a country, now re-named the "UNITED STATES,
   INC.," by the United Nations?!!

   That's what a literal reading of the definitions means, but it's
   still a matter for debate; we don't have all the facts yet. 
   Remember, Congress didn't create this corporation until 1990.

   With all of these confusing definitions and competing
   jurisdictions, how can anyone make any sense of this mess?
   Some people have very effectively navigated their way though the
   "red- tape jungle," but only by first understanding the
   historical development of the District of Columbia's laws.

   [end of part 1]


                 A FICTION AT LAW OF UNTOLD MAGNITUDE

   The Creation and Marketing of the "State of New Columbia"

  by Jeffery, Craig, Thayer
  Sui Juris, Juris et de jure

   (The first part of this article appeared in the May/June issue of
   Perceptions.)  A dialogue between Mr. Thayer, lawyer and
   counsellor at common law, and a fictitious student, it explained
   that the District of Columbia was re-established outside the U.S.
   Constitution in 1982 and that its municipal statutes, supposedly
   applicable in the District alone, can actually have the force of
   law in any of the fifty States and their Counties.

   In this second of three parts, My Thayer explains how this came
   about and who is, and who is not, affected by it.)


   Last time you told me that I would need to know some of the
   District of Columbia's history in order to understand what is
   going on now in the "STATE OF NEW COLUMBIA."

   Yes.  Between the period of 1801 and 1925, there were no less
   than sixteen attempts to collect and provide a code of law for
   the District of Columbia.  Many times the people who were
   supposed to provide this code did nothing more than assemble and
   compile what had already been issued.  Congress published their
   works but did not adopt them. 

   On the other hand, in 1872 the Legislative Assembly of the
   District of Columbia (Congress in its lawmaking function for the
   District) directed its printer to publish a work titled Statutes
   in Force in the District of Columbia.  Supposedly just a
   compilation, it also included many "innovations."  The governor
   of the District transmitted it to the House of Representatives,
   but it was not adopted either.

   Between 1861 and 1874, Congress proposed more legislation for
   governing District affairs than it had in the entire fifty years
   before.  During that time, slavery had been abolished, and the
   District of Columbia had adopted a general incorporation law, a
   law creating metropolitan police, and divorce and partnership
   laws.  During this same period Congress created a "territorial"
   government for the District and abolished the old Washington and
   Georgetown corporations along with the Levy Court. 

   In June 1866, Congress passed an act authorizing the President to
   appoint three commissioners to revise and compile all the
   District statutes and parts of statutes which ought to be brought
   together and to make such alterations as might be necessary to
   reconcile contradictions, supply omissions and mend imperfections
   of the original texts. 

   That was soon after Lincoln was assassinated and his Vice
   President had taken over control of the country, wasn't it?
   Yes, and it's important to note that, on its face, this act did
   not seem to refer to the District or even to embrace it.

   The commissioners were appointed and proceeded with their work,
   which took seven years.  With no express authority, they also
   made a separate revision and collection of the acts of Congress
   relating to the District, gratuitously adding an unauthorized
   collection of general statutes relating to the entire United
   States.

   They reported each collection to Congress to approve and enact
   into law.  The concluding paragraphs of each one repeal virtually
   every part of every act of Congress passed before 1873--not just
   those concerning the District--and the commissioners
   intentionally omitted those repealed acts from this crudely made
   collection without any authority from or ratification by the
   people.

   Wow, I never read about that in American History 101!
   Let me stress that the people had not given Congress or these
   commissioners any general authority to "collect, reconcile
   contradictions, supply omissions and mend imperfections" of
   approximately 70 years of law.  They had no authority whatsoever
   to completely repeal all of that tremendous, time-honored body of
   law. 

   These revisions, amendments and supplements, masquerading as
   innocent clerical corrections, were then enacted as the entire
   body of United States statutory law.  When referring to the
   "United States" in this context, Congress made an intentional
   misstatement, of course, the only authority it had to promulgate
   laws relating to this type of subject matter was contained in
   this charter as legislature for the District of Columbia, not for
   the United States as a union of compact States. 

   Just how did Congress assume the authority to pass these criminal
   and civil statutes for the fifty States while sitting as the
   legislature for the District of Columbia alone?  How did they
   make it stick? Which answer do you want, the long or the short?

   Both, but give me short one first, OK?
   The simple answer is this:  The people of the United States are
   naive and uneducated.  It is easy to pull the wool over someone's
   eyes when he does not understand that you are blindfolding
   him--and especially when he has grown to like the warm wooly
   feeling.

   So, you can fool all the people all of the time?
   Most of them, especially those who cannot or will not read. 
   The more complete answer is this:  The local municipal law of the
   District of Columbia is technically being applied not to human
   beings individually, but to people collectively incorporated as
   "persons" in the new, corporate Federal States and Counties
   created by written contracts with the District of Columbia. 
   These contract deal with federal programs such as revenue
   sharing, aid to rural highways, agriculture, welfare, crime,
   insurance and health.  Each one causes the District of Columbia
   flag to become first planted, then cemented, into the soil of
   these federally created "States" and "Counties." 
   This trend toward "federalization" has accelerated since 1940,
   when Congress passed the Buck Act.  That act regulates the
   collection and allocation of sales, use and income taxes
   authorized by the Public Salary Tax Act of 1939.  Congress
   quietly passed both acts and made them locally applicable in the
   District of Columbia and in the fifty "States" or "federal areas"
   which the Buck Act created--fifty legal entities never before
   seen in America.  Of course, the media and the public gave the
   Buck Act and the Public Salary Tax Act no more attention that
   they gave the NEW COLUMBIA constitution when it came along,
   because all three seemed to apply to the District alone.

   The Government Printing Office published a thorough two-volume
   analysis of this in 1956-57, entitled Jurisdiction Over Federal
   Areas Within States.

   Where does the U.S. Constitution fit into all of this?  I thought
   it was illegal to create a new state within an existing state.
   That's been a problem right from the start for the people trying
   to federalize the states and counties.  Their plans also conflict
   with the constitutions of the several, freely associated, compact
   states.  Efforts of the "federalizers" to further collectivize
   the Union also run directly counter to the unalienable rights of
   each human being [see endnote 24] claiming American national
   heritage and those unalienable rights are unenumerated "rights at
   law" which precede all earthly governments----as acknowledged (but 
   not created) by the Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  See, 
   I've been studying!

   Very good.  You will also remember that there is an equivalent
   section in each compact state constitution.  So Congress decided
   to-- 

   Wait, don't tell me.  It's starting to fall into place.  Congress
   made up the "STATE OF NEW COLUMBIA" as a thinly disguised ploy to
   get around the constitutional problem before it came up, right?
   Exactly.  They simply created a new playing field, which is best
   described not as a country or a state, but as a pervasive mode of
   behavior.  It is a field of commerce, governed by merchants and
   driven by consumers using increasingly electronic means of doing
   business.  The "rules of play" on this field are the municipal
   laws of the District of Columbia and the STATE OF NEW COLUMBIA.

   For example?
   Recently, I reviewed a new contract for obtaining nationwide
   service from a pager company.  It contained "boilerplate" legal
   terms specifying that the law of the District of Columbia would
   govern all disputes and went on to say that any customer-dispute
   lawsuits with the company must be filed in the District of
   Columbia District Court. 

   Don't tell me.  The company's principal place of business was not
   in the District.

   That's right.  From the contract, it appeared to be either
   Delaware or New York.

   Despite this obvious trend, the only people who become subject to
   and constituted within the jurisdiction of the District are those
   who decide to.

   OK, but you said last time that you can give your "consent"
   unknowingly, even as simply as by using a notary public.
   True, and every contract you have with the District of Columbia
   or one of its satellite State or County political subdivision
   counts a evidence of your status.  Merely exercising your "civil
   right" to vote for national officers is one such contract.
   
   So what can I do--short of moving into a cave?
   One way to live your life free of such troublesome contracts is
   to carefully navigate around them using a series of lawful
   processes; ultimately you will be able to declare a contractual
   status known as Sui Juris.  Judges and law-enforcement officials
   recognize the ancient Latin phrase which indicates this status
   and state of mind:  "In his or her own right; possessing rights
   to which a freeman or Freewoman is entitled; not being under the
   power of another as in the case of a slave, minor or the like."

   The STATE OF NEW COLUMBIA constitution was established within the
   "exclusive legislative jurisdiction of Congress" and, by its very
   nature, will only apply to people who agree to be incorporated by
   Congress within its "exclusive legislative jurisdiction."

   Congress's argument goes something like this:  "You elected us as
   your representatives in 'free' elections.  Any laws we pass,
   enact, ratify or adopt as your representatives in that capacity
   are your laws.  You are part of the local federal electoral,
   revenue, water-conservation, air- quality, judicial,
   pollution-control, and/or crime-prevention district(s), which are
   mere fragments and political subdivisions of the larger district
   called the District of Columbia or STATE OF NEW COLUMBIA."

   Bingo!  That's how the municipal laws, passed by Congress for
   local application in the District alone, can become our laws,
   too.  It's by our "collective contract" with the District of
   Columbia, now established as the STATE OF NEW COLUMBIA.
   It may seem unnatural, almost surreal, for local municipal law in
   the District of Columbia to apply in a State or County some
   distance from it.  This may even seem unjust or illegal.  So the
   people who write law dictionaries like Black's have been very
   busy behind the scenes creating a far-fetched "fiction at law"
   for attorneys to use, "proving" how local municipal law can
   become "national" in scope.  A "fiction at law" is-- 

   Wait, I know:  "An assumption or supposition of law that
   something which is or may be false is true, or that a state of
   facts exists which has never really taken place.  An assumption,
   for purposes of justice, of a fact that does not or may not
   exist.  A rule of law which assumes as true, and will not allow
   to be disproved, something which is false, but not impossible." 
   Pretty good memory, huh? 

   Excellent. Obviously this is not a proper legal definition, but
   "political language" intended to confuse rather than communicate. 
   This well-known, often-used legal construct provided the means
   for local law in the District of Columbia to rise like a sick,
   foul-smelling fog out of its 10-mile square territory and waft
   indiscriminately across all of America where no man or woman can
   escape its foul odor.  With informed study and proactive legal
   work, however, you can avoid it. 

   So really, whether a legal fiction is true or false makes no
   difference. As George Orwell said: "Political language... is
   designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and
   give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

   What is this picture about?  [See figure 1]
   Here you see a map of the United States with a pane of smoked
   glass laid over it, like the legal-fiction fog.  The darkened
   glass represents the "superstate" District of Columbia.  The map
   itself represents the several freely associated compact states
   which formed the Union.  By contract, different law applies to
   the "persons" on the glass than to the people who are off the
   glass with their feet firmly planted on the map.

   Because the ones up on the glass have franchised themselves into
   the District of Columbia?

   Yes.  Whether one knows it or not, the franchises into the rule
   of law of one or the other of these competing jurisdictions by
   agreeing to join one body politic and to be "constituted" one way
   instead of the other. 

   To see just how it works, let's examine the "Peter Pan Principle
   of Jurisdiction" borrowed from the tale of Peter Pan.  Do you
   recall Peter's escapades with his shadow?

   Sure.  When his shadow got caught by a closing window, it came
   off and he had to come back for it.  It was exactly the same size
   and shape as Peter, but it had no life of its own; it was the
   faintest of insubstantial copies.

   I couldn't have said it better myself.  Now look at this one. 
   [See Figure 2]  {FIGURE 2 shows the sun casting the shadow of a
   man on a wall, whereon the blocks comprising the wall are labeled
   with many of the "contracts" we can have with the District, such
   as professional licenses, marriage licenses, driving licenses,
   use of zip codes, social security numbers, etc. tlr}

   Here you see the radiant sun shining on a free, sentient human
   being.  Simple as a birthright, and thanks to no state or other
   human agency, this being has the unalienable rights of life,
   natural liberty, pursuit of happiness and self-preservation in
   acquiring, holding and protecting property, to name just a few.

   The picture shows much more, however.  Human beings also cast
   shadows, in this case on a wall.  Let's say that this wall is the
   District of Columbia or any of its Federal State or County
   political subdivisions.  Through contact with that surface, the
   shadow takes on some of the wall's characteristics or attributes,
   the various "contracts," some of which provide "benefits" and
   many of which demand various performances. 

   Compared with human beings, shadows have a most insubstantial
   existence, but years of United States socialization and education
   make most people believe that they are these "political
   creations," forgetting that mere shadows, which do have shapes
   similar to beings, are yet as different from them as night from
   day.


 Downloaded from "OUR TOP PRIORITY" POW/MIA/VETS BBS (206) 367-0479  

