To dare a thought is to risk being wrong.
– James Dale Davidson, American investment writer
Your first contract with government is triggered by your birth certificate. Your inalienable sovereign status denies you a certificate of conception that becomes irrelevant in the cacophony of citizenship. You may be a sovereign inside the womb, but you lose it on your first ‘Earthday’ when you unsuspectingly relinquish your sovereignty.
You are not a sovereign if you take orders from another sovereign.
Augustine of Hippo cautioned that in the absence of justice, sovereignty is nothing but organised robbery. He was referring to ubiquitous government oppression with its cleverly crafted crafty laws that pervert justice in the name of organised and legalised theft. The citizenry is programmed to observe; complain occasionally in social media; and vote when the time comes where vote counters take charge.
In 1962 two Americans who dared to think decided to risk forming their own nation state in a series of coral reefs several miles off the coast of South Florida. They began construction work. They believed the reefs were outside US jurisdiction, and therefore subject to colonisation under international law.
The state and federal governments were notified of their intentions to create a peaceful non-aggressive haven for like-minded individuals who felt the abiding need to keep away from any system of government which is not a crime or a civil infraction. Such ‘off-grid’ living has been practised by indigenous communities since time immemorial.
Understandably Uncle Sam went berserk and ballistic. The US District Court for the Southern District of Florida disagreed with the two nation-builders by declaring that the reefs off Southern Florida were defined in the United Nations Convention on the Continental Shelf, and therefore ‘subject to US jurisdiction, control, and power of disposition.’ The excuse, explanation and justification for refusal was the usual bogeyman – ‘national security’.
The upshot of that decision was that no citizen is allowed to opt out of government jurisdiction. Government has become necessary in everyone’s life – that’s what the federal court said in essence. Every reef, every inch of land in any uninhabited island or atoll, or even a cave for that matter, belongs to some government.
Theodor Herzl observed that ‘our first object is the obtaining of sovereignty, assured by international law, over a portion of the globe sufficiently large to satisfy our just requirements.’ Unfortunately, international law, without military back-up, is unenforceable because it has no binding power except for the purposes of a persuasive argument in some tribunals.
Surely outer space is no man’s property or territory barring the ad coleum doctrine. If the Americans landed on the moon, they would have surely claimed real estate rights and sovereignty. But they didn’t because the ‘Eagle’ landed in a well- orchestrated hoax in a well-equipped sound studio, according to experts.
US President James Monroe interestingly observed that it’s ‘only when people become ignorant and corrupt that they degenerate into a populace incapable of exercising sovereignty.’ Unsurprisingly, our devious and deviant education system is dedicated to keeping the citizenry ignorant and unprepared, and by default, corrupt.
Winona LaDuke spoke up for Indigenous Communities (denizens) when she declared that ‘food sovereignty is an affirmation of who we are as indigenous peoples and a way, one of the most surefooted ways, to restore our relationship with the world around us.’ It cannot be wrong to want to be let alone. Those two Americans wanting to build their own nation were outrageously denied sovereignty when they contrived to prove that denizens are not necessarily citizens.
Citizenship is another veiled name for forced dependency and coerced servitude. Citizenship spells labour, one of the four pillars of the economy. Sovereignty and citizenship are not synonymous but work at cross-purposes with an ever-vigilant government.
Fundamental liberties and human rights emanate from written laws and constitutions that operate on whims, fancies, promises, and prayers. Sovereignty is not a man-made edict but a divine right ordained by natural law requiring no challenge or a sustained fight. It is inalienable since life has a definite and defined divine code.
Natural law created sovereign denizens. Man-made law created citizens. ‘National sovereignty can only be achieved after self-sovereignty,’ observed Wes Studi, a Native American actor (Dances with Wolves).
Enforcing our inalienable rights is strictly and solely relegated to our consciousness and conscience. Organised government will not want it any other way to safeguard its power and authority. The staying power of sullied sovereignty is guaranteed.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.
