The court of John Doe

JIM ELLIOTT 16 min ago

... We have a state senator who believes that the federal government should “return” federal land to the states, although the land in question has never belonged to the states. A sheriff (who from all reports is a good guy) who holds that the office of sheriff is the highest agency of law enforcement in the county and that state and federal law enforcement agents are subservient to that office. And a group of people, led by political candidates, who are putting on workshops on emergency preparedness that feature discussions on firearms and reloading ammunition, as well as how to accumulate one or two years' supply of food. The first workshop was advertised as providing the citizens with the ability to act in times of natural disaster and “social upheaval” and was well attended.

I have lived here a long time and cannot recall a time when a flood or forest fire has required us to be armed and, so that part of the training must be for the social upheaval portion of the program, and really, the only social upheaval I have witnessed was in 1988 when the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations talked about moving from Idaho to Noxon. That scared the local citizenry enough that a couple of people formed an organization against the move and invited civic leaders from the Idaho hometown of the Aryan Nations to speak at a meeting, which drew as many supporters as there were fans at games of Noxon’s championship basketball team ...

Much of this would depend on how presenters of the preparedness workshop interpret the Constitution, and from what I see it’s probably not a lot different than the way the Bundys read it, because the same “pocket constitution” that the Bundys carry was distributed. This would be the Skousen annotated edition, which was written by the Mormon founder of the National Center for Constitutional Studies. The Mormon Church, by the way, condemned Bundy’s actions ...

... if Bundy can interpret the Constitution to suit his needs and beliefs, why can’t anyone? It seems preposterous that a thief or a murderer could claim that the court they are being tried in has no jurisdiction, but it certainly invites that possibility. Could anyone demand that a Court of Competent Jurisdiction is the one that best reflects their Constitutional beliefs? You have the legally recognized court, and then you have the court of John Doe ...

http://helenair.com/news/opinion/readers_alley/the-court-of-john-doe/article_afd30014-4fce-5758-ad0d-c44af35bd533.html