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FOTL Woo in Perth

Graham2001

Graduate Poster
Graham2001
Joined
Aug 19, 2006
Messages
1,771
In Perth, a man named Richard Pennicuik, spent about three months up a tree to protest the cutting down of a tree and got international support for doing so. (I spent three years being tortured by my fellow students and got zip!).

He is now facing court over what he did and is producing some very familiar arguments in his defense:

In court, a subdued Mr Pennicuik, wearing a grey suit similar to the one given to him during a radio station makeover, told Magistrate Liz Langdon he would not enter a plea because his name was underlined, in capital letters and his surname was before his first name on the prosecution notice.


He said this was not his name as it appeared on his birth certificate.
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http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/mp/7026706/tree-man-lashed-in-court/2/

This does not completely surprise me, earlier he was trying to claim the local council opposing him had no legal authority because local government is not mentioned in the Australian Constitution.

This is the first time I have seen this nonsense appearing in an Australian Court, thankfully it is getting short shrift...
 
The FOTL woo movement does seem to be growing - or at least, gets better media attention.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it says much about the people whose FOTL arguments that they are so easily fooled by them and actually think they are work. On the other hand, they ARE so easily debunked that it provides a great example of critical thinking in a very public forum (the courts).

I think movements like this ebb and grow with the economy and underlying populism: when the economy is down people have more financial problems and look for quick and easy solutions like FOTL ritual that seem to offer ways out when the law offers none.
 
Freemen On The Land.

It's like a bad Red Skelton "Freddie the Freeloader" skit on steroids.
 
I wonder if this ploy will spill over into countries that use non-alphabetic writing systems?

"Mr. Tanaka said that he would not recognize the authority of the court because the computer-printed summons had his name written in kana, which was different from the kanji on his birth certificate." ;)
 
neocenturion said:
Trust me, you don't want an answer. As soon as you start looking into what FOTL is, you'll be forever addicted. It's nearly impossible to stop reading FOTL forums. Its a case study in the depths of human ignorance.
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And very funny too.
 
dafydd said:
And very funny too.
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Not particularly. Sorry, my sense of humor took a nosedive as I watched the Freemen in Montana and their sorry shenanigans over the course of a few years. I was working with a woman who was originally from Montana who had to put up with this bizarre nonsense, and the incredible damage it did throughout the state. In some cases, the Freemen would march into a store, grab items they wanted/needed, and try to pay for it with their "funny money." At that point, there were so many of them, and they were armed, it was almost an act of suicide to call the cops on them.

I'm sorry you guys are having to put up with it down under. I would suspect there's really not much difference between your nutters and ours.
 
I think that Pennicuik spending three months up a tree in protest proves he's a nut.














Well, someone had to say it! :o
 
It annoys me that anybody anywhere thinks of the legal system as a giant formalistic machine for which inputs must be exactly correct or the whole thing breaks. Law was developed by hundreds of thousands of very smart people over thousands of years. We didn't design it to fail over a typo.
 
Loss Leader said:
It annoys me that anybody anywhere thinks of the legal system as a giant formalistic machine for which inputs must be exactly correct or the whole thing breaks. Law was developed by hundreds of thousands of very smart people over thousands of years. We didn't design it to fail over a typo.
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Nor did we develop it to falter over fringe on a flag, or because it was inconvenient. ;)
 
Roadtoad said:
Ah, so it's okay for someone to behave like a third-rate kook in this instance?
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Did you know that it's not just one someone, but three? After Mr Pennicuik came down, another 2 guys went up that tree.
 
Lolly said:
Did you know that it's not just one someone, but three? After Mr Pennicuik came down, another 2 guys went up that tree.
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I know someone in the construction industry who had that happen. Gal went up the tree to save it from being cut down and refused to come down. The foreman went to his truck, returned with a chainsaw, girdled the tree, and then went back to overseeing the rest of the project. The gal climbed down and left shortly after.
 
patchbunny said:
I know someone in the construction industry who had that happen. Gal went up the tree to save it from being cut down and refused to come down. The foreman went to his truck, returned with a chainsaw, girdled the tree, and then went back to overseeing the rest of the project. The gal climbed down and left shortly after.
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Quickest way in the world to kill a tree, short of felling it.
 
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