Authorities on “Membership”
1. Summary of Authorities
For the purposes of this website:
- The collective=social compact=membership=Private membership Association (PMA)=domicile=CIVIL STATUTORY LAW=STATUTORY/CIVIL “citizen” or STATUTORY/CIVIL “resident”.
- The roots of “citizen” trace back to Anglo-French (“citesein”) and Old French (“citeien”), which eventually evolved into Modern French (“citoyen”) 1. The components of the word are:
- “Cite”: Derived from the Latin word “civitas”, meaning “state of being a resident of a town, citizenship” 2.
- “-ain”: An ending that signifies membership or association (similar to the suffix “-ian”).
- “citizen”= RESIDENT of a city=CIVIL STATUTORY member and NOT “national”=RESIDENT alien because they ALIENATED their constitutional rights in exchange for the “benefits” of the city. That ALIENATION is described by the Constitutional Avoidance Doctrine of the U.S. Supreme Court. See:
Catalog of U.S. Supreme Court Doctrines, Litigation Tool #10.020, Section 5.13
https://sedm.org/Forms/09-Procs/HowKeepPropertyPrivate.pdf - The following describes this SCAM from a historical perspective:
How to Keep Your Property Private, Form #09.085, Section 7
https://sedm.org/Forms/09-Procs/HowKeepPropertyPrivate.pdf - Nonresident=non-member-non “resident alien”=”national” without a domicile.
- Nonmembers are called “idiots” in order to discourage people from invoking the status. See:
6.1. Are You an Idiot?, SEDM
https://sedm.org/are-you-an-idiot-we-are/
6.2. My Preferred Pronouns, SEDM
https://sedm.org/my-preferred-pronouns/ - Why Domicile and Becoming a “Taxpayer” Require Your Consent, Form #05.002-domicile is a VOLUTARY FIRST AMENDMENT protected right of association, both politically and legally. You don’t have to associate and when you do, you become a NONRESIDENT.
- How You Lose Constitutional or Natural Rights, Form #10.015-MOST instances of loss of constitutional or natural rights are traceable back to MEMBERSHIP of one kind or another.
https://sedm.org/Forms/10-Emancipation/HowLoseConstOrNatRights.pdf - The evils of collectivism and how to fight it:
Collectivism and How to Resist It, Form #12.024
https://sedm.org/LibertyU/Collectivism.pdf - Proof that The Civil Statutory Law is a Private Membership Association (PMA):
10.1. The Real Social Compact, Form #08.030-description of the REAL social compact and PMA that Americans live under by default because of their own legal ignorance. You don’t have to live under this.
https://sedm.org/Forms/08-PolicyDocs/TheRealSocialCompact.pdf
10.2. Your Exclusive Right to Declare or Establish Your Civil Status, Form #13.008-A description of the origin of the right to form a PMA
https://sedm.org/Forms/13-SelfFamilyChurchGovnce/RightToDeclStatus.pdf
10.3. Proof that joining any group is an act of LEGAL association that causes a surrender of constitutional rights:
https://sedm.org/membership-in-a-specific-class-status-or-group-as-a-cause-for-loss-of-rights/
10.4. An answer to a question by a member on how to form your own PMA
https://sedm.org/forums/topic/does-your-ministry-assist-in-founding-a-private-ministerial-association/
10.5. Explanation how all societies are based on the civil statutory law as a PMA and what causes them to break apart
https://sedm.org/government-corruption-as-a-cause-for-diaspora-and-political-fragmentation-of-communities-into-private-membership-associations/
10.6. PMAs and the Social Compact, Form #03.031-an explanation by the ChatGPT-4 Ai Chatbot how to implement a PMA that removes the government CIVILLY from your life and why the Social Compact they implement is in fact a PMA.
https://sedm.org/Forms/03-Discovery/PmasAndSocialCompact.pdf
10.7. A debate with the ChatGPT -3.5 AI chatbot about whether “income taxes” are really just “club dues” for a Private Membership Association called “the State”.
https://sedm.org/chatgpt-are-income-taxes-club-dues-for-a-private-membership-association-called-the-state/
2. Civil Legal Statuses as PUBLIC property
SOURCE: Property View of Income Taxation, Form #12.046, Section 8; https://sedm.org/LibertyU/PropertyViewOfIncomeTax.pdf
2.1. For the purposes of our website “Civil Status” or “Legal Status”:
2.1.1. Are synonymous.
2.1.2. Describe a status appearing in civil statutes, such as “person” (Form #08.023), “taxpayer” (Form #08.008), “citizen” (Form #05.006), “resident”.
2.1.3. Are legislatively created by the government as both the CREATOR and the GRANTOR of said “privileges” (PUBLIC RIGHTS) and their corresponding “obligations”. The CREATOR of a thing is always the OWNER. See:
Hierarchy of Sovereignty: The Power to Create is the Power to Tax, Family Guardian Fellowship
https://famguardian.org/Subjects/Taxes/Remedies/PowerToCreate.htm
2.1.4. Are associated with DOMICILE (Form #05.002) within the civil jurisdiction of the grantor of the PUBLIC right. Nonresidents cannot have a civil status. See Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 17.
2.1.5. Always consist of a combination of BOTH:
2.1.5.1. Privileges (sometimes deceptively called “rights” but which are actually PRIVATE rights).
https://famguardian.org/TaxFreedom/CitesByTopic/privilege.htm
2.1.5.2. Obligations. Things you can be held legally responsible to do.
https://famguardian.org/TaxFreedom/CitesByTopic/obligation.htm
2.1.6. Are described in:
2.1.6.1. Civil Status (Important!), SEDM
https://sedm.org/litigation-main/civil-status/
2.1.6.2. Your Exclusive Right to Declare or Establish Your Civil Status, Form #13.008
https://sedm.org/Forms/13-SelfFamilyChurchGovnce/RightToDeclStatus.pdf
2.2. BOTH Privileges (franchises, Form #05.030) and Obligations attach to the SAME CIVIL STATUS. Therefore, they are TWO SIDES of the SAME COIN.
2.2.1. One cannot exist without the OTHER.
2.2.2. You cannot pursue the PRIVILEGE without ALSO in implicitly consenting to the OBLIGATIONS that also attach to the civil status that grants them.
2.2.3. Both PRIVILEGES and OBLIGATIONS constitute PUBLIC PROPERTY in a legal sense. The courts call this PUBLIC PROPERTY “publici juris” and thus use LATIN to disguise what amounts to an act of “tacit procuration”. We discuss the laws of property in:
Laws of Property, Form #14.018
https://sedm.org/Forms/14-PropProtection/LawsOfProperty.pdf
2.2.4 The civil statutes (Form #05.037) in effect constitute an OFFER and CONSIDERATION from the GOVERNMENT to YOU to literally BRIBE you to GIVE UP your PRIVATE, unalienable, constitutional and natural rights.
6. The Court will not pass upon the constitutionality of a statute at the instance of one who has availed himself of its benefits.FN7 Great Falls Mfg. Co. v. Attorney General, 124 U.S. 581, 8 S.Ct. 631, 31 L.Ed. 527; Wall v. Parrot Silver & Copper Co., 244 U.S. 407, 411, 412, 37 S.Ct. 609, 61 L.Ed. 1229; St. Louis Malleable Casting Co. v. Prendergast Construction Co., 260 U.S. 469, 43 S.Ct. 178, 67 L.Ed. 351.
__________________
FOOTNOTES:
FN7 Compare Electric Co. v. Dow, 166 U.S. 489, 17 S.Ct. 645, 41 L.Ed. 1088; Pierce v. Somerset Ry., 171 U.S. 641, 648, 19 S.Ct. 64, 43 L.Ed. 316; Leonard v. Vicksburg, etc., R. Co., 198 U.S. 416, 422, 25 S.Ct. 750, 49 L.Ed. 1108.
[Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U.S. 288, 56 S.Ct. 466 (1936)]
2.2.5. The PRIVILEGES constitute PUBLIC property granted or loaned to you, the recipient, by the GOVERNMENT CREATOR and GRANTOR if you either ASK for them or INVOKE their “benefits”.
2.2.6. The corresponding OBLIGATIONS PAY for the delivery of the PRIVILEGES and are then owed back to the GOVERNMENT CREATOR AND GRANTOR of the civil status as PUBLIC PROPERTY.
2.2.7. The purpose of this indelible relation is to ensure that you always pay your own way and take responsibility for yourself. Otherwise, the government would have to abuse its taxing powers to transfer wealth, which is unconstitutional:
To lay, with one hand, the power of the government on the property of the citizen, and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes, is none the less a robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation. This is not legislation. It is a decree under legislative forms.
Nor is it taxation. ‘A tax,’ says Webster’s Dictionary, ‘is a rate or sum of money assessed on the person or property of a citizen by government for the use of the nation or State.’ ‘Taxes are burdens or charges imposed by the Legislature upon persons or property to raise money for public purposes.’ Cooley, Const. Lim., 479.
Coulter, J., in Northern Liberties v. St. John’s Church, 13 Pa. St., 104 says, very forcibly, ‘I think the common mind has everywhere taken in the understanding that taxes are a public imposition, levied by authority of the government for the purposes of carrying on the government in all its machinery and operations—that they are imposed for a public purpose.’ See, also Pray v. Northern Liberties, 31 Pa.St., 69; Matter of Mayor of N.Y., 11 Johns., 77; Camden v. Allen, 2 Dutch., 398; Sharpless v. Mayor, supra; Hanson v. Vernon, 27 Ia., 47; Whiting v. Fond du Lac, supra.”
[Loan Association v. Topeka, 87 U.S. 655, 20 Wall. 655 (1874)]
2.2.8 The above aspects of your interactions with the government thus constitute a “tacit procuration”: An offer of PRIVILEGES and your acceptance by IMPLIED consent demonstrated usually by ACTION rather than EXPRESS written consent. Thus, your consent was INVISIBLE. This insidious silent process of CIVIL contracting with the government is called a “quasi-contract” by the U.S. Supreme Court as a way to AVOID admitting that your consent is not required.
2.2. If you pursue the PRIVILEGES while also RENOUNCING the OBLIGATIONS that pay for the privilege, you are in effect STEALING from the government and committing a “usufruct” over the status. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, as they say.
2.4. The purpose of the Social Security Number (SSN) (Form #05.012) is to provide an accounting mechanism to ensure that:
2.4.1. The costs of delivering the PRIVILEGES are reimbursed by the revenues generated by the OBLIGATIONS called “taxes”.
2.4.2. The House Ways and Means Committee is the one that MANAGES this balancing act.
2.4.3. When the cost of delivering the PRIVILEGES are not reimbursed by the economic value of the OBLIGATIONS, then the franchise they are part of is running a deficit and either the taxes represented by the OBLIGATIONS must be increased or the costs must be derived from another program or source of revenue. When costs are shifted to another program, this is called “weaponization of government” and it is implemented with “bundling”. For a description of this process, see:
SEDM Disclaimer, Section 4.30: Weaponization of government
https://sedm.org/disclaimer.htm#4.30._Weaponization_of_government
2.5.. In reality, even calling PRIVILEGES a “benefit” or “entitlement” is FRAUD. See:
2.5.1.The Government “Benefits” Scam, Form #05.040** (Member Subscriptions)
https://sedm.org/litigation-main/civil-status/
2.5.2. Why The Government is the Only Real Beneficiary of All Government Franchises, Form #05.051** (Member Subscriptions)
https://sedm.org/product/why-the-government-is-the-only-real-beneficiary-of-all-government-franchises-form-05-051/
2.6. If you don’t want ANY of the OBLIGATIONS or LIABILITIES attached to a specific CIVIL STATUS, the ONLY choice you have is to AVOID the PRIVILEGES and BENEFITS of the status. You have a COMMON LAW and NATURAL RIGHT to decline any and all PRIVILEGES (benefits) and thereby avoid the OBLIGATIONS that go with them. If you DON’T, then SLAVERY is LEGAL and we don’t need a Thirteenth Amendment. See, for instance:
Proof that Involuntary Income Taxes on Your Labor are Slavery, Form #05.055
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/ProofIncomeTaxLaborSlavery.pdf
2.7. These considerations are why we say:
People of all races, genders, political beliefs, sexual orientations, and nearly all religions are welcome here. All are treated equally under REAL “law”. The only way to remain truly free and equal under the civil law is to avoid seeking government civil services, benefits, property, special or civil status, exemptions, privileges, or special treatment. All such pursuits of government services or property require individual and lawful consent to a franchise and the surrender of inalienable constitutional rights AND EQUALITY in the process, and should therefore be AVOIDED. The rights and equality given up are the “cost” of procuring the “benefit” or property from the government, in fact. Nothing in life is truly “free”. Anyone who claims that such “benefits” or property should be free and cost them nothing is a thief who wants to use the government as a means to STEAL on his or her behalf. All just rights spring from responsibilities/obligations under the laws of a higher power. If that higher power is God, you can be truly and objectively free. If it is government, you are guaranteed to be a slave because they can lawfully set the cost of their property as high as they want as a Merchant under the U.C.C. If you want it really bad from people with a monopoly, then you will get it REALLY bad. Bend over. There are NO constitutional limits on the price government can charge for their monopoly services or property. Those who want no responsibilities can have no real/PRIVATE rights, but only privileges dispensed to wards of the state which are disguised to LOOK like unalienable rights. Obligations and rights are two sides of the same coin, just like self-ownership and personal responsibility. For the biblical version of this paragraph, read 1 Sam. 8:10-22. For the reason God answered Samuel by telling him to allow the people to have a king, read Deut. 28:43-51, which is God’s curse upon those who allow a king above them. Click Here (https://famguardian.org/Subjects/Taxes/Evidence/HowScCorruptOurRepubGovt.htm) for a detailed description of the legal, moral, and spiritual consequences of violating this paragraph.
[SEDM Opening Page; , http://sedm.org]
2.7. The BIBLE version of the previous paragraph is:
“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”
[1 Thess. 4:9-12, Bible, NIV]
2.8. If you want to BE and REMAIN TRULY and PERMANENTLY free, you MUST avoid ANY and ALL government PRIVILEGES (Form #05.030), and thus retain all of your unalienable constitutional rights (Form #10.002). In the Bible, the OPPOSITE of doing that was Essau, who ignorantly sold his birthright for a mere bowl of pottage and was cursed by God thereafter:
Esau Sells His Birthright
Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. And Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary.” Therefore his name was called Edom.
But Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright as of this day.”
And Esau said, “Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?”
Then Jacob said, “Swear to me as of this day.”
So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
[Gen 25:29-34, Bible, NKJV]
2.9. The birthright they are talking about is your PRIVATE property and UNALIENABLE rights! The ENTIRE CIVIL CODE (Form #05.037) is, in effect, a “bowl of pottage” to bribe you to give up your PRIVATE, UNALIENABLE rights and join the government as its VOLUNTEER agent and/or officer “straw man” (Form #05.042), and thus to VIOLATE the First Four Commandments of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 as a form of IDOLATRY and sin. See:
Proof That There Is a “Straw man”, Form #05.042
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/StrawMan.pdf
2.10 More about lawfully avoiding OBLIGATIONS and CIVIL PRIVILEGES at:
2.10.1. Lawfully Avoiding Government Obligations Course, Form #12.040
https://sedm.org/LibertyU/AvoidGovernmentObligations.pdf
2.10.2. Proof of Claim: Your Main Defense Against Government Greed and Corruption, Form #09.073
https://sedm.org/Forms/09-Procs/ProofOfClaim.pdf
2.11. For a FUNNY EXAMPLE of a community of people who NEVER give up ANY of their constitutional or natural rights, see:
“Freedom Paradise”, SEDM
https://sedm.org/freedom-paradise/
3. Court authorities
1. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1877)
“When one becomes a member of society, he necessarily parts with some rights or privileges which, as an individual not affected by his relations to others, he might retain. “A body politic,” as aptly defined in the preamble of the Constitution of Massachusetts, “is a social compact by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws for the common good.” This does not confer power upon the whole people to control rights which are purely and exclusively private, Thorpe v. R. & B. Railroad Co., 27 Vt. 143; but it does authorize the establishment of laws requiring each citizen to so conduct himself, and so use his own property, as not unnecessarily to injure another. This is the very essence of government, and 125*125 has found expression in the maxim sic utere tuo ut alienum non lædas. From this source come the police powers, which, as was said by Mr. Chief Justice Taney in the License Cases, 5 How. 583, “are nothing more or less than the powers of government inherent in every sovereignty, . . . that is to say, . . . the power to govern men and things.” Under these powers the government regulates the conduct of its citizens one towards another, and the manner in which each shall use his own property, when such regulation becomes necessary for the public good. In their exercise it has been customary in England from time immemorial, and in this country from its first colonization, to regulate ferries, common carriers, hackmen, bakers, millers, wharfingers, innkeepers, &c., and in so doing to fix a maximum of charge to be made for services rendered, accommodations furnished, and articles sold. To this day, statutes are to be found in many of the States upon some or all these subjects; and we think it has never yet been successfully contended that such legislation came within any of the constitutional prohibitions against interference with private property. With the Fifth Amendment in force, Congress, in 1820, conferred power upon the city of Washington “to regulate . . . the rates of wharfage at private wharves, . . . the sweeping of chimneys, and to fix the rates of fees therefor, . . . and the weight and quality of bread,” 3 Stat. 587, sect. 7; and, in 1848, “to make all necessary regulations respecting hackney carriages and the rates of fare of the same, and the rates of hauling by cartmen, wagoners, carmen, and draymen, and the rates of commission of auctioneers,” 9 id. 224, sect. 2.
From this it is apparent that, down to the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, it was not supposed that statutes regulating the use, or even the price of the use, of private property necessarily deprived an owner of his property without due process of law. Under some circumstances they may, but not under all. The amendment does not change the law in this particular: it simply prevents the States from doing that which will operate as such a deprivation.
[Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113 (1877); SOURCE: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6419197193322400931]
2. City of Dallas v. Mitchell, 245 S.W. 944 (1922)
“Our theory of government and governmental powers is wholly at variance with that urged by appellant herein. The rights of the individual are not derived from governmental agencies, either municipal, state or federal, or even from the Constitution. They exist inherently in every man, by endowment of the Creator, and are merely reaffirmed in the Constitution, and restricted only to the extent that they have been voluntarily surrendered by the citizenship to the agencies of government. The people’s rights are not derived from the government, but the government’s authority comes from the people.*946 The Constitution but states again these rights already existing, and when legislative encroachment by the nation, state, or municipality invade these original and permanent rights, it is the duty of the courts to so declare, and to afford the necessary relief. The fewer restrictions that surround the individual liberties of the citizen, except those for the preservation of the public health, safety, and morals, the more contented the people and the more successful the democracy.”
[City of Dallas v. Mitchell, 245 S.W. 944 (1922)]
[…] Authorities on Membership (IMPORTANT!), SEDM. Index of resources on this site dealing with membership. CIVIL STATUTORY “citizens”, for instance, are members. […]