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.
_________________
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.