Updated Significance of Jack McLamb’s Article Right to Travel

While Jack McLamb’s article (reprinted from the Aid & Abet Newsletter) is accurate in what it states about a person’s right to travel unrestricted by government sanction on roadways in the United States when operating outside of a commercial benefit, what he doesn’t explain very clearly is the legal implication behind the reasons why that is so, and how people can challenge the “assumed” authority of the agent (the sheriff’s deputy, police, or highway patrol officer) to restrict their movement. 

For instance, he states that: “Legislators, police officers, and court officials are becoming aware that there are court decisions that disprove the belief that driving is a privilege and therefore requires government approval in the form of a license.” What he doesn’t clarify for the reader are the legal reasons behind why municipalities and states continue to endeavor to enforce their traffic ordinances and codes on perfectly innocent people who have done nothing harmful to anyone in the public. And therein lies the confusion for someone attempting to make sense of this issue. It can be a very frustrating circumstance to figure out.

What the majority of people who become drawn in by the accusations made about them in relation to traffic code violations are not aware of is that there are two different jurisdictions in play. The court cases that McLamb refers to in making his point that noncommercial traveling is a right that cannot be regulated by the state or federal governments are cases concerning the application of public law and not private law to a given situation. Public law has to be constitutional in order to be valid and enforceable.  Private law carries with it no such stipulation.  Virtually all traffic codes and ordinances set up by incorporated government entities are considered private and not public laws. Exceptions to this would be those codes and ordinances which coincide with the common law.

In other words, private law (in the form of the state traffic codes and city ordinances) operates outside of constitutional limitations in the same way that an agreement or contract does. A contract will supercede constitutional limitations because it is a bilateral agreement between two parties who are presumed to have come to a meeting of minds with regard to the subject matter and terms of the contract. A contract does not have to be considered constitutionally correct in order to compel performance on someone.  All it needs is a person’s consent or agreement to abide by it in order to become enforceable.

What has occurred in our society with regard to victimless violations of the traffic code is that it is private law being applied in its operation to the public sector, where it has no enforceability beyond a person’s consent to abide by it. These private laws were never meant to operate in the public sector as a basis for controlling public policy. (See Lee Brobst’s USA The Republic Is The House That No One Lives In beginning at page 9 for an expanded discussion of private verses public law.) And yet, millions of people every year are unwittingly taken in by this misapprehension.

Even if one becomes aware of this difference in jurisdiction and they attempt to argue this point (in their defense or in seeking remedy) in an administrative traffic court, their argument will fall on deaf ears. But why is this? And now, this next point is very important to grasp and to understand. It is because the person has consented to the jurisdiction by the time they engage the “judge” in argument. Engaging a plaintiff in court in argument about the subject matter of a case is an indication of consent to what is termed or known as personam jurisdiction. Personam jurisdiction is one of two jurisdictional elements a court must have in order to hear a matter, the other being termed subject matter jurisdiction. Once a person consents to jurisdiction, the law becomes enforceable, and you lose! That is, if you don't know what you are doing. 

It is a fact that cities and counties these days are seeking all the revenue they can legally bring in, which is why the court will disregard your proof of innocence. It doesn't matter that you were able to prove your case, you are in a private court which operates outside of the moral and ethical boundaries (in other words outside of lawful bounds) put in place by Constitutional law. If you want to prevail in your confrontation with the legal system on a traffic issue, you will need to know and to understand how to withdraw your consent to the jurisdiction. It is really that simple!

The more you argue and remonstrate before a court on the facts in the matter whatever they may be (running a red light, for instance, but harming no one having done so), the more you are wasting your time and effort. As long as you continue to consent to its jurisdiction, the court will take advantage of your actions. However, there are things that you can do in order to extricate yourself from such situations, but you need to focus on doing only those things if you wish to prevail in seeking remedy.

Even if you have already gotten yourself in so deep that it seems to you that all is lost, there are actions you can take that will turn things around 180 degrees. You only need to know what those actions are, and then execute only those actions! It helps, though, if you understand the legal reasoning behind why those actions carry any weight. In other words, it helps to understand the type of law and process you are executing in order to apply remedy.

If you would like to learn more about concepts of law so you can avoid the whole mess without having to “appear” in court, you can download our free ebook Common Law Remedy To Beat Traffic Tickets and learn about the secrets that the courts and legal profession don’t want you to know. 
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If you’d like to learn more about the law and how it can serve you, don’t hesitate to check out our Articles on Traffic Law section. Discover some of the secrets of law that you’ve never been taught!

The laws sometimes sleep, but never die.