Maybe you wondered why you have not head much about my book lately? Well, the thing is that I felt it was ready, and so did those I talked to here in Norway. As a last check, I send three test copies to key figures in Douglas, and all I got from them was nothing but high approval ratings. So I decided then to go ahead and publish. That was back in February and the book has been spreading since. Then suddenly, on March 21st, I got a mail from another Douglasite “[…] I am about half through it and am finding it entertaining. However, the English grammar and word usage makes it somewhat difficult to understand. I would rate your grammar and word usage as atrocious at best and possibly even horrific. […]”

Ouch, bummer! He then went on to offer me to edit it, and as his rate was incredibly low, I went ahead and agreed for a second edition (which hopefully should be comming up in a few weeks). But do not be worried if you already ordered the book (see right column), according to my other native English speaking contacts, it is absolutely readable and entertaining.

But the reason why I wanted to post on this is due to only a minor aspect of the editing: one thing that the editor pointed out immediately was that I had said that Douglas was on “US territory” — which of course technically is not true. The term “US territory” is usually used to describe those pieces of land which belong to the United States without being part of any particular state (Guam, Washington DC, etc.). My editor pointed out that a “fringe group” had actually given their US citizenship back and traded it in for “state citizenship,” which somehow means that they don’t need to pay (federal) taxes and don’t need to register their car.

I could quite get it, so I researched it a bit more, and what i came up with was “The state Citizens Service Center” and their leader James R. McDonald. They argue as follows:

In the beginning there were only state citizens, and so “people of the United States” means people of those individual states taken together. The first time that one hears about “US citizens” is in the 14th Amendment (one of those three made right after the civil war), which turns former slaves into US citizens. However, everyone else stayed being a “state citizen” [sic]! After that a umber of laws have been passed, amongst others, all those related to driving. Now the wording in those laws refers explicitly to “US citizens” and that’s why they don’t believe those laws apply to them.

Sounds weird? Sounds racist? Sure does, but I found some even crazier parts in McDonald’s texts.

First of all, you must know that he always refers to US citizens as “citizens of the District of Columbia.” Now here are some of his ideas:

– “if the Fourteenth Amendment DID NOT create a national citizenship, then WHAT did it create? It created a citizenship in the District of Columbia, commonly called the ‘United States’ in legal terminology.”

– “If you recall, the President can send his troops (citizens of the District of Columbia) any place in the world and make war without the approval of Congress. This is a fact of law, since he is NOT sending any Citizen of one of the several States who is a member of the Sovereignty; he is only sending his subjects, just as the Queen of England can do to her subjects. No approval is needed.”

All those are found in his article #13, which is about more foundational problems. But he also writes about communism and Zip codes:

In the article Are You A Practicing Communist?, he argues:

Here in America today, we Americans pride ourselves as being
staunch anti-communists. A lot of us think of the communists as
the bad guys and the cause of our troubles and that of the rest
of the world’s. This bad guy must look really bad and we should
spot him easily in any crowd. Let us examine what a communist
really is.

Communism is a way of life that is contrary to most
teachings of the bible and that of the common law as our beloved
country “The Union of States united” was founded to be. In 1848,
Karl Marx wrote the 10 planks of the communist manifesto, which
he copied from an article written by Adam Weishaupt in 1797.
(This article was named “How to change a Republic into a
Democracy.”) It is the foundation of what communist ideology is
all about. A true communist or communist country would be
practicing all these 10 planks. Today, even here in America, we
are practicing all these 10 planks and we don’t even know that we
are, in reality, communists. We would rather call ourselves
something else “a Democracy” which is really the same thing.

So if you’re pro-democracy, you must also be pro-communism. I totally agree with that of course, especially when it comes to democracy over the economic sphere, but the crazy aspect is of course that he tries to use it as an arguemtn AGAINST democracy.

Ok, and here is the ZIP code logic:

he federal government utilizes the ZIP code to prove
that you reside in a “federal district of the District of
Columbia”. This is why the IRS and other government agencies
(state and federal) require a ZIP Code when they assert
jurisdiction by sending you a letter. They claim that this
speeds the mail, but this is a sly and subtle TRICK. It is also
PRIMA FACIE evidence that you are a subject of Congress and a
“citizen of the District of Columbia” who is “resident” in one of
the several States.

You got it? Just start from now on to send all your mail without using a ZIP code — the US Postal service will love you for it, especially for coast-to-coast mail!

The only reason why this is worth reading though is that surfing aorund, this reasoning seems to have gained some supporters from the conservative christian right. So while this sounds crazy today, it might just be an accepted fact within a decade….