Hello again,
While researching the law regarding the points in this post, I noticed some government and media attention has been focused on a group name “Sovereigns” as being classified as if they were a ‘hate’ group. Based solely on news reports, it’s my understanding other groups believe people who consider themselves sovereign are a threat to – someone. Situations like this remind me to consider the motive of a group that brings a claim against another group, prior to the formation of my own opinion.
I do realize, however, that not all politicians are crooked; not all Muslims are terrorists; not all lawyers are liars; not all prisoners are evil; and not all “Sovereigntists” are haters who some consider a threat because of a perceived exploitation of the system.
With the above in mind, I’d like to make it perfectly clear that Ali3nz are not allied with those people labeled as sovereign or any other group that allegedly promotes hate, fraud, or a violation of any other just law or moral standard. Any references to ‘sovereignty’ herein is made only to educate the reader within the context of unreasonable “contradictions” of a supposedly fair and impartial system of justice, and are supported by case law or other precedential rule. It follows that we’ll present certain quotas along with what the legal profession calls, ‘a citation’ by which anyone may check the veracity of the quoted material. A typical citation consists of the name of the case or rule, and the subsequent volume number of the book where the cite may be found. Then an abbreviation of the particular type of record [i.e.: Sct. = U.S. Supreme Court Reporter, or F3d = Federal Reporter – third edition (Circuit Courts of Appeals)], followed by the page number of that volume. Bold, underlined or other emphasis applied to the following text is my own addition.
The point to all this is to expose the unfair justice system for the arbitrary effect it has on some people, to uncover reasons for the unfairness/why the injustice is allowed, how all this relates to disenfranchised Ali3nz, and to specify a possible method to remedy the contradictions, thereby gaining true justice.
The previous entry about systemic in-justice exposed even more questions which led yours truly to investigate further, but where to start? How does one find the nature of something so infinitely complex?
For forty-odd years, my thinking process has been anything but logical, as evidenced by my admitted ups-and-downs (well, mostly downs). Over time, I’ve learned to ‘break down’ a given subject into its lowest terms (or essence) in order to discover the nature of a thing. In my mind this is somehow a substitute for logic. In that light, I didn’t believe it was too much of a stretch to conclude the in-justice system did not become contradictory overnight. There had to be some history involved. Recorded history can be located and studied. Working from that hypothesis, the mechanism which appealed most to me for finding the separation point between what these days makes zero sense and what seemed to make sense in the past – is time travel.
Back in the 80’s – well that’s far enough back, although Huey Lewis did make the “Back in Time’ reference then “Where American history is concerned, how far ‘back’ should I look? If the government gets its power from a contract/compact in the form of a constitution, then where does the power of the constitution come from? So I ask a lot of questions that anyone who paid attention in government class would find elementary. I failed that class three times.
Something else I’ve discovered is that judges have given their opinions both for and against a seemingly countless number of issues. For example, the Supreme Court opinion of, Martin et al vs. The Lessee of Waddell, 41 US 367, states: “for when the revolution took place, the people of each state became themselves sovereign.” If that were true then, when people came together in a common cause (to oust the King of England), then each and every living human was at that time in fact, a sovereign, owing no fealty to anyone because they were no longer “subjects.”
What is the Nature of Sovereignty?
“Sovereignty itself is, of course, not subject to law, for it is the author and source f law…” Yick Wo vs. Hopkins, 118 US 356. Therefore, one might conclude, as I did, that sovereign humans either entered into some kind of agreement wherein they gave up some of the sovereignty to the government (or government’s creditors) or they kept their sovereignty and created a government that was supposed to be subject to the sovereign people. And it appears the latter took place because:
“The Constitution is the voice of the people speaking in their sovereign capacity. People vs. Parks, 58 Ca. 624.
So we might reasonably conclude that, the people who created the constitution and their ‘posterity’ were superior to government, initially anyway. Carrying that point forward in an unaltered state then, when I entered this world, kicking and crying, I should have been a sovereign automatically, not subject to government regulation at least until another “sovereign” human has/had an issue with me. At that point, two sovereigns might use the ‘government’ to settle a dispute, like an umpire.
After tentatively establishing that point in my own mind, I wondered if governmental rules would directly apply since I have not (knowingly) relinquished my sovereign status in any way (hell, I didn’t know ‘sovereignty’ existed in the first place). Without entering into such an agreement, how could I become subject to a corporate entity that is supposed to be subject to me (or at least subject to the original framers of the constitutional compact)?
Keeping in mind the ‘commercial contract’ premises found in Part One, as we return to the American post-revolutionary period, I learned (or maybe re-learned), the Continental Congress incurred some debt from fighting the war with Brittain. As a result of this debt, in 1781 the Congress was obligated by its Brittish creditors to form the First National Bank of the United States. The term of a bank’s charter was to be for twenty years. When the government elected to not renew the charter, the War of 1812 was fought mostly within the District of Columbia. Seemingly, after the Brigs possessed D.C. they mysteriously “surrendered” and went home. The U.S. government promptly renewed the charter for the First National Bank.
Some say (though Ii have no proof as yet), that in 1871 the District of Columbia was ‘incorporated’ in England. I did find, however, the “Act to Provide a Government for the District of Columbia,” at 16 STAT 419 that was passed and states:
“The United States of America is a corporation, whose jurisdiction is applicable only in the ten-mile-square parcel of land known as the District of Columbia and to whatever properties are legally titled to the United States, by its registration in the corporate county, state, and Federal court governments that are under the military power of the United States and its creditors.”
Even in this day and age, we find that, “The UNITED STATES” means: “A Federal corporation…” Title 28 USC 3002 (5).
We also learn that the United States is a “Debtor” located “in the District of Columbia.” UCC 9.307.
I could be wrong, yet the above authorities lead me to believe that the United States, the Republic, has been superceded by the Federal Corporation with the same name, and although the corporation portends to be a democracy, its jurisdiction should end with the boundries of Federal Property. This premise sat me to ponder that the Federal power is too far removed from myself to ever apply to me – unless the corporate governments of state, county, etc., are somehow under the military power of the U.S. and its creditors.
Later, I practically stumbled over the U.S. Senate report 93-549 93rd Congress 1st session 1973, which suggests:
“A majority of the people of the United States have lived all their lives under emergency rule…and, in the U.S., actions taken by the government in times of great crisis have – from at least the Civil War, in important ways, shaped the present phenomenon of a permanent state of national emergency.”
At this point in the inquiry, I was still failing to see the whole picture, I mean, yeah, the president can declare an emergency but I still do not get where I gave up my ‘sovereignty,’ so I dug deeper. What president declared an emergency and hy? The above quoted Senate Report suggested the emergency rule goes back to the Civil War. Also, I’m told that in 1850-61, the representatives for the Southern states of the union, walked out of the congressional session, creating ‘sine die’ (without day).
So, some would say that the republican form of government ceased to exist as a result of the sine die, leaving only a portion of the legislative democracy (private), and the executive branch of government to make the day to day decisions. An emergency form a government would have kept things operating to an extent. It appears Abraham Lincoln became President, and while still under a National Emergency and Martial Law the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were enacted under Executive Order. Those old Executive Orders had no expiration date and are likely to remain in effect. There are whispers (which I have yet to prove or disprove, suggesting that when the South seceded from the Union, Martial law was necessary, so there may be some truth to suppositions such as: While after the Civil War, Congress (what was left) proceeded as if business was usual and the emergency powers remained at work to be utilized behind the scenes when needed; that under military law, the several states lost their true sovereignty and were subject exclusively to the Federal Corporation from that point on.
The foregoing seems to demonstrate some of the circumstances placing the states under de facto control of the Fedcorp, but I’m not ‘state’ so I feel like I’m again staring ‘square one’ right in the face…until I discovered information about the governmental insolvency of 1933 (Great Depression). Long before the Constitution was created, the money of exchange everyone in the New World used, was gold and silver coin, or drafts promising to pay in that specie – per the Coinage Act of 1792 (as mentioned in the post on “Borrowing”). The event which precipitated the bankruptcy/depression, as it turns out, the Treasury didn’t have gold in reserve to cover the demands made by anyone holding negotiable power. As a result, the 73rd U.S. Congress proposed House Joint Resolution 193 (HJR0192), and on page 83 in the first paragraph reads:
“Under the new la the money is issued to the banks in return to government obligations, bills of exchange, drafts, notes, trade acceptances, and bankers acceptances. The money will be worth 100 cents on the dollar, because it is backed by the credit of the nation. It will represent a mortgage on all the homes and property of all the people in the nation. The money so issued will not have one penny of gold coverage behind it…” (See Title 31 USC 463 also), “Federal Reserve Notes are Deb Obligations of the United States Government.” (found in Title 12 USC 411).
That being the case, it was in the interest of the members of the corporate government to obligate all the people to the debt because: Take any large amount of debt and divide it among a small number of people/debtors like a few hundred Congressmen), and those Congressmen would be solely responsible for the satisfaction of that debt under the pre-1933 law, in my opinion. Where the credits of the nation is concerned, Congress had to figure a way to ‘dilute’, if you will, their own portion of the debt by making every single soul then existing or yet to be born, a part to the debt. More people ‘paying’ equals less actual debt per individual. And if I was in their position, I’d likely want to “share” the debt also.
From the law I’ve read, it appears the emergency powers enabled the Fedcorp to obtain the consent of each and every one of us via our unknowing participation in/with government, like when a perceived government instant benefit is accepted. Evidence President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” as one example, and perhaps the recent “financial bailout” as well (and a whole lot more). I’ll get back to “acceptance” in due time, but first, let me say that: Corporation or not, military power or not, “…the Congress cannot revoke the sovereign power of the people.” Perry vs. United States, 294 US 330,353 (1935). And: “There is no such thing as a power of inherent sovereignty in the government of the United States. In this country sovereignty resides in the people, and Congress can exercise no power which they have not, by their Constitution entrusted to it: all else is withheld.” Julliard vs. Greenman, 110 US 420.
Using my own case as an experiment and comprehending the fact that the particular statue law I was charged under was the Texas Penal Code, I noted within the code and other) the recurring term: “person.” This term is applied in such a way that causes one to think (due to common usage), the word ‘person’ could be me or any other living human being. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has stated, “in Common usage, the term ‘person’ does not include the sovereign, and statutes employing it will ordinarily not to construed to do so.” U.S. vs United Mine Workers, 330 US 258 (1947).
Nor can a sovereign human be, “…named in any statue merely as a ‘person’ or ‘any person’. “Wills vs. Michigan State Police, 105 Led 2d 45 (1989). Yet, as in my own case, we find that government is routinely applying statues directly to private human beings via every code or rule imaginable. Contradictory, is it not?
History shows that, even in a permanent state of ‘national emergency,’ contractual obligations are made and enforced among parties whether local or international, commercial or non-commercial, public or private, civil or criminal. Where is the international-commercial-agreement which unconscionable replaces my sovereignty with an obligation that subjects me to arbitrary rule which are so inherently obese with contradictions, the proponent corporations may construe those rules however the occasion suits them? Title 27 of the Code of Federal Regulations (DFR) at 72.11 tells us that, “All the following crimes are commercial crimes…” and then goes on to list my own accusation along with others. Evaluating that federal rules indicate that crimes are ‘commercial’, on a whim I checked the la regarding commercial transactions, the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), and, as sure as I’m sitting here, an “agreement” means: The bargain of the parties in fact, as found in the language or inferred from other circumstances…”. Based on that premise, it may be reasonable to conclude that I have been subject to one or more ‘implied’ agreements as ‘inferred’ by my ‘unknowing’ participation in certain commercial transactions. (See: UCC 1.201 (b) (3), agreement). Unfortunately, I may have unknowingly ratified the agreements via “acceptance” as defined in UCC 2.606: “When a part fails to make a effected rejection…”
The UCC also defines the word “person”: “An individual, corporation, business, trust, estate, trust, partnership, LLC… or any other legal or commercial entity.”
Then I had an epiphany – the term “people” as used in the cited cases above, refers to a group of sovereign humans in a collective sense, but also necessarily includes the single sovereign human standing alone, because it takes a group of solitary humans to make up a “people”! Take this as an example, what if all the ‘people’ in this nation suddenly disappeared except for a solitary soul – would that human by him/herself be any less ‘sovereign’ in that case?
Webster’s definition of the noun, “sovereign” is: a ruler with supreme power; a monarch.” As an adjective “Possessing supreme jurisdiction or authority.”
On the other hand, the adjective, “individual” is related as: “Of, for or relating to a single human being.” It would appear that the term individual indicates entity which is of ‘lesser’ status than the sovereign.
Looking again at the UCC’s definition of “person” and considering the undeniable commercial context, we find that the word is listed along with other corporate constructs which are not alive yet they have legal rights. That thought led me believe that; not only is the “individual” of a lesser status than a “sovereign,” but an ‘individual/person’ may be a human conducting commercial transactions in a non-sovereign capacity! (via a strawman). Otherwise, why wouldn’t the code actually use the term ‘sovereign’ or ‘human’ instead of ‘individual’? All the UCC corporations are non-sovereign, i.e.: created by the State, whereas a Sovereign is created by God. Does that also mean that only state created entities may interact/conduct intercourse with other corporations/state agencies? Is any transaction in that type of scenario, a commercial transaction?
My on conclusion is this: A ‘person’ as defined in the Code is not a term that would directly apply to a living human, which raises a few more questions that Id like to address in a future installment. Feel free to check my work and challenge the reason.
Until next time, try to be less of a ‘person’ but a better ‘human’.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Borrowing
My yard used to be shaggy—but in my defense, that wasn’t a conditioned result based on my own laziness—rather a giving attitude towards my next door neighbor. Did you ever have a neighbor who began “borrowing” a cup of sugar, then the trend continues pretty much exponentially? That’s Jerry, and he’s out of town a lot.
That’s what I think about when I see the borrowing practices conducted by the U.S government, allegedly on “our” behalf. Here’s why:
The medium of exchange used in America is the Federal Reserve Note (FRN for short). Most people think of the “note” as a “dollar” but don’t realize the deceptive dichotomy between those words—which is important if we want to understand borrowing in terms of what is borrowed, from whom it is borrowed, and how the debt is satisfied in this context.
Along with the recent financial crisis one may notice media references to the “monetized debt.” For those who don’t know what that is, I think it prudent to explain what lawful money is supposed to be in this country. The U.S. Constitution at Article I Section 8 gives Congress the power to “coin money and regulate the value thereof.” The legislature did that very thing when passing the U.S. Coinage Act of 1792. The monetary unit was named “dollar,” which was primarily defined as 25.8 grams of gold and therefore, un-inflatable.
For decades, banks issued promissory notes that weren’t really money but were “backed” by real money, meaning that one could exchange the notes at a bank, receiving the lawful amount of metal coins in return. Today, the Federal Reserve “notes” aren’t redeemable for gold or silver coins because they are no longer backed by precious metals that have their own value.
If you look up the definition of the word note, you’ll discover it is simply debt. What we commonly refer to as a single dollar is nothing more than a dollar’s worth of the national debt—which is said to be about 12.7 trillion dollars now. When we trade the inflatable FRN-dollar for a loaf of bread (as if), we’re obtaining that bread by exchanging debt or a somebody-owe-you. The question naturally arises, “If I’m getting something substantial with what is essentially an I.O.U., then isn’t that just passing along a debt?” and “who’s responsible for the final payment of that debt?”
As it turns out, we can buy stuff without discharging the underlying debt, but our liability—for the privilege of buying without paying—is limited. The liability for payment of this debt is accounted for in bulk as each of us has the dubious distinction of being responsible for an equal portion of the entire national debt. I’ve heard claims that individual citizens’ division of that debt could be anywhere from 42,000 dollars to 68,000 dollars each.
In a manner of thinking, America has bee borrowing from Peter to pay Paul due to the monetized debt thing. True gold money as a commodity has its own intrinsic value apart from its express statutory worth. Conceptual dollars (FRN’s) are the only thing actually traded at the end of the day. That’s why the trade deficit is such a hot topic for officials, but everything financial is still measured in dollars.
What all this means for the American public is that the value of FRNs are directly related to the GNP or the products of citizen labor. Extrapolating that idea further:
1. We own our labor, which we trade to employers for notes that are secured by our own labor in the first place.
2. We trade our notes to obtain goods that we produce.
3. For the privilege of using the notes, which are worthless without our own labor as surety, we’ve charged interest by private bankers who don’t have any tangible products themselves.
What happens if production were to shut down? How much would the “notes” be worth then? When you think about it, the concept of a people paying for stuff they already own, the whole idea is as unconscionable as my memory of borrowing my own lawnmower from Jerry. I wish Jerry wouldn’t take advantage of me in that way. If only he were more responsible in returning my property. Or, perhaps Jerry could at least provide for me to have equal access to the mower.
I also wish that the problem—our governments’ ad infinitum practice of borrowing money into existence with the knowledge that the national work product is limited—would be as easy to solve as the neighbor issue. I do have an equal access suggestion, however:
Nobody wants to think about what might happen when the Federal Reserve notes become completely valueless and America’s creditors demand payment in something more valuable than dollars. Will the GNP be sufficient to service the debt? If we default, then each and every American would be responsible for paying from 42,000 to as much s 68,000 dollars apiece out of their own pockets. Is that fair? Should someone who only make 20,000 a year be liable for a 60,000 dollar debt? N the other hand, should someone who makes 100 million a year be liable for only 60,000 dollars of debt?
I propose that whatever circumstances the future brings, that the individual citizens’ debt liability should be determined by their participation in the capitalist system as measured in dollars. It’s no secret that the billionaires in American receive substantially greater benefit from the system as compared to those people living at a subsistence level. Ho many corporate executives contribute to the campaigns of politicians who, in turn, see to it that the generous companies are awarded beneficial legislation of outright contracts? That benefit does the common human receive?
Clearly, the access to system benefits are inequitable. So, the debt liability should be inequitable as well, right? Measured in dollars, the affluent who hold, some say, 95% of the wealth should be responsible for paying 98% of the debt. The other folks could pay the rest. From the perspective of the individual to the system—you pay for what you get.
We could start this plan today, balancing the economic system. I’d wager that if we did this as a nation, the affluent would be less cavalier about their borrowing practice.
That’s what I think about when I see the borrowing practices conducted by the U.S government, allegedly on “our” behalf. Here’s why:
The medium of exchange used in America is the Federal Reserve Note (FRN for short). Most people think of the “note” as a “dollar” but don’t realize the deceptive dichotomy between those words—which is important if we want to understand borrowing in terms of what is borrowed, from whom it is borrowed, and how the debt is satisfied in this context.
Along with the recent financial crisis one may notice media references to the “monetized debt.” For those who don’t know what that is, I think it prudent to explain what lawful money is supposed to be in this country. The U.S. Constitution at Article I Section 8 gives Congress the power to “coin money and regulate the value thereof.” The legislature did that very thing when passing the U.S. Coinage Act of 1792. The monetary unit was named “dollar,” which was primarily defined as 25.8 grams of gold and therefore, un-inflatable.
For decades, banks issued promissory notes that weren’t really money but were “backed” by real money, meaning that one could exchange the notes at a bank, receiving the lawful amount of metal coins in return. Today, the Federal Reserve “notes” aren’t redeemable for gold or silver coins because they are no longer backed by precious metals that have their own value.
If you look up the definition of the word note, you’ll discover it is simply debt. What we commonly refer to as a single dollar is nothing more than a dollar’s worth of the national debt—which is said to be about 12.7 trillion dollars now. When we trade the inflatable FRN-dollar for a loaf of bread (as if), we’re obtaining that bread by exchanging debt or a somebody-owe-you. The question naturally arises, “If I’m getting something substantial with what is essentially an I.O.U., then isn’t that just passing along a debt?” and “who’s responsible for the final payment of that debt?”
As it turns out, we can buy stuff without discharging the underlying debt, but our liability—for the privilege of buying without paying—is limited. The liability for payment of this debt is accounted for in bulk as each of us has the dubious distinction of being responsible for an equal portion of the entire national debt. I’ve heard claims that individual citizens’ division of that debt could be anywhere from 42,000 dollars to 68,000 dollars each.
In a manner of thinking, America has bee borrowing from Peter to pay Paul due to the monetized debt thing. True gold money as a commodity has its own intrinsic value apart from its express statutory worth. Conceptual dollars (FRN’s) are the only thing actually traded at the end of the day. That’s why the trade deficit is such a hot topic for officials, but everything financial is still measured in dollars.
What all this means for the American public is that the value of FRNs are directly related to the GNP or the products of citizen labor. Extrapolating that idea further:
1. We own our labor, which we trade to employers for notes that are secured by our own labor in the first place.
2. We trade our notes to obtain goods that we produce.
3. For the privilege of using the notes, which are worthless without our own labor as surety, we’ve charged interest by private bankers who don’t have any tangible products themselves.
What happens if production were to shut down? How much would the “notes” be worth then? When you think about it, the concept of a people paying for stuff they already own, the whole idea is as unconscionable as my memory of borrowing my own lawnmower from Jerry. I wish Jerry wouldn’t take advantage of me in that way. If only he were more responsible in returning my property. Or, perhaps Jerry could at least provide for me to have equal access to the mower.
I also wish that the problem—our governments’ ad infinitum practice of borrowing money into existence with the knowledge that the national work product is limited—would be as easy to solve as the neighbor issue. I do have an equal access suggestion, however:
Nobody wants to think about what might happen when the Federal Reserve notes become completely valueless and America’s creditors demand payment in something more valuable than dollars. Will the GNP be sufficient to service the debt? If we default, then each and every American would be responsible for paying from 42,000 to as much s 68,000 dollars apiece out of their own pockets. Is that fair? Should someone who only make 20,000 a year be liable for a 60,000 dollar debt? N the other hand, should someone who makes 100 million a year be liable for only 60,000 dollars of debt?
I propose that whatever circumstances the future brings, that the individual citizens’ debt liability should be determined by their participation in the capitalist system as measured in dollars. It’s no secret that the billionaires in American receive substantially greater benefit from the system as compared to those people living at a subsistence level. Ho many corporate executives contribute to the campaigns of politicians who, in turn, see to it that the generous companies are awarded beneficial legislation of outright contracts? That benefit does the common human receive?
Clearly, the access to system benefits are inequitable. So, the debt liability should be inequitable as well, right? Measured in dollars, the affluent who hold, some say, 95% of the wealth should be responsible for paying 98% of the debt. The other folks could pay the rest. From the perspective of the individual to the system—you pay for what you get.
We could start this plan today, balancing the economic system. I’d wager that if we did this as a nation, the affluent would be less cavalier about their borrowing practice.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
"Just Contradiction"
For those who may wonder what a post about Texas Just-ice has to do with the stated paradigm of Ali3nizm…I would direct your attention to the following:
1. That philosophically, Ali3nizm is a common forum for individuals who feel they have been “alienated” by another group, culture, gender, etc. and the justice system chews up and digests Ali3nz by the thousands.
2. Though criminal systems aren’t the only repositories of underdogs, given my own experience, it should be fairly easy to expose inherent flaws in a system by investigating the multitudinous contradictions therein and ho they apply to the disenfranchised masses.
That’s exactly what you will find in the Texas “justice” system. Many of us who are subject to the U.S./Texas system of justice wonder how each branch of government can say one thing and do the complete opposite. Not long ago I asked myself that very question and decided to examine the very document which officials claim gives them authority over the individual.
Within the subject context is the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which states: “In all criminal cases, the accused shall be informed…of the nature and charge of the accusation against him.” For the life of me, I have not found the official definition of the Sixth Amendment term “nature” in any court opinion or statute in my unit la library. Perhaps there is no definition.
Prison officials claim that our institutional law library is sufficient for the body of inmates in general, yet we are barred from reading cases older than 20 odd years. When one considers that many older cases may be important due to the principles addressed in the prevailing court opinion—the barring of access to them, displays an arbitrary contradiction that epitomizes unfairness. Her is the short version of almost infinite contradictions one may encounter in the justice system:
Just contradictory examples…
Of the Law itself:
A. Inmate litigators experience the too frequent practice of judges ho simply ignore the proper filing of Pro Se pleadings, despite the fact those actions are a duty. It seems necessary in the majority of cases, for Pro Se litigants to resort to applications for mandamus with a higher court in an attempt to force a lower court to perform the duties they should be doing anyway. Why do we pay taxes for justices who do not perform their jobs?
B. I have heard so many stories about incompetent or outright crooked lawyers that it makes my head hurt. The most common complaint is the attorney promise to a defendant that if he takes a “plea” the sentence ill be shorter, or he will make parole after “X” number of years. Invariably, the judge will choose a sentence over that agreed upon, or there will be no true parole consideration by the parole board. For defendants who pay out-of-pocket for their legal counsel, a retainer will generally grow into a series of supplemental payments for “additional” or “unforeseen” services beyond the original agreement. (Some advice: Demand from the attorney in writing, an agreement that outlines specific performance, prior to any payment.)
Of Parole issues:
C. A type of parole in which an offenders’ “Good Time”, “Work Time” and “Flat Time” equaled 100% of his sentence that used to be called “Mandatory Supervision,” and would indicate the automatic release of an inmate unless time was deducted due to a disciplinary action. That type of release is no called “Discretionary/Mandatory Supervision.” In practice, no matter how much total “time” is accrued, it appears the release is routinely denied in an arbitrary and capricious manner.
Luckily some of us convicted Ali3nz have loved ones “outside” with internet access who are sometimes willing to copy precidential cases in order to snail mail them to Pro Se jailhouse litigators. So, without help from the state, I combed through some older cases looking for the word, “Nature,” hoping against hope to discover the definition of the term as it relates to the Sixth Amendment (so I may comprehend the predicament I’m in.) The Supreme Court opinion of Faretta vs. California, 95 Sct.2525, indicates the “Nature” has something to do with “Ground Rules,” yet to learn the ground rules, it takes the experience of an “attorney who has tried a lot of cases.” A different opinion from the highest court actually distinguishes between the “Nature”, “Statutory Offenses”, “Punishment”, “Defenses”, and “Facts”. Schneckloth vs. Bustamonte, 93 Sct. 2041 (1973).
At arraignment, is seems that judges routinely ask criminal defendants’ the statutorily correct question of whether the accused “Understands the Charge.” The case of Henderson vs. Morgan, 96 Sct. 2253 (1976), suggests that either “nature” OR “understanding” (understood) are necessary for a plea to be “voluntary.” Rarely it seems, does a judge mutter the word “Nature.” How iis it that the Sixth Amendment mandates that a defendant will be informed of the nature, but judges are asking defendants to agree (An understanding can be an agreement of sorts) to waive his rights without first a reference to the nature (or essence, which is the Webster’s definition of the term) of the accusation?
One may contemplate, what on Earth is the nature of a charge in which the very essence is based on contradiction? Many would-be defendants may not care to kno the answer until it’s too late, and they might ask, “Why do I need to know the nature of the charge anyway?”
The founding fathers thought that knowing the Nature of the Accusation to be important enough for it to be enumerated in the Constitution as a mandate. That alone leads me to believe the “Nature” is not only necessary information, but the statutes which allow a judge to side-step the duty—may be, unconstitutional!
Since the statutes are silent on what constitutes the nature of an accusation, then perhaps the nature in non-statutory. I’ve already stated that I couldn’t find the definition cited in court opinions, yet where the statutes are silent, “Then the judiciary sets the limits.” James vs. United States, 366 US 213, at 200 (1961). With no other choice, I began to analyze the U.S. Constitution itself. In doing so I thought, if dictionaries suggest the nature is the “essence” of something, then it seems the Constitution grants certain types of courts to operate as colored arms of the legislature in Article I, or as an independent branch of government as in Article III.
Realizing this, if I were to be “arraigned” in court today, I would certainly inquire with the judge whether he is operating as an Article I or and Article III court. I know someone who asked a municipal judge this very thing in a misdemeanor traffic case. The jurist said his “power” came from the U.S. Constitution at Article III.
Naturally, I was next drawn to examine Article III, searching form some clue to the nature of my criminal accusation. It didn’t take long for me to realize that any power of any court in the nation must originate from one of four jurisdictions: (common) law, equity, admiralty, or maritime. Isn’t it essential then, to know the jurisdiction which the court uses to officiate, as one part of defining what the nature consists of? Each of those jurisdictions has its own principles which make it unique, different from the others. Otherwise, why would they be listed as separate? Woe to the litigant, who is unaware of the name of the power a judge has over him. Elementary logic.
Back to my acquaintance in the traffic case. Firmly established by the judge was that the case was “criminal,” otherwise the defendant could not be jailed for a failure to pay the fine. That ruled out equity jurisdiction. His honor indicated his jurisdiction was not based on the common law either. That left only Admiralty or Maritime, which the court said was not granting his power either. Another contradiction, because those are the only Article III jurisdictions the court has license to operate in.
The traffic court guy inquired with his judge as to what is the NAME of the seeming unauthorized jurisdiction. The court replied “Statutory.” Pressed further, the judge said, “The laws of the state of Texas,” then, “Legislative enactment,” and so on. The case ended in a stalemate wherein the judge assessed a fine anyway, but invited an appeal to the next higher court.
What’s wrong with this picture? I mean, what is the “Nature” of a charge that, on its face is so contradictory that no judge will name the judicial power that precipitates it? Logic dictates that, even if we are somehow contractually bound to a given piece of legislation, the court must still hear the case based on the principles of one of the four judicial powers we’ve mentioned. Setting aside the issue of “powers” for a moment, I decided on a whim, to explore the topic of agreements as a possible method of waiving constitutional rights. Research indicated that statutory definitions synonymous with some of my points of contention, are to be found within the U.C.C. (Uniform Commercial Code). As I investigated the U.C.C., in my mind, certain sections began to congeal into a logical paradigm which indicated to me that possibly there were a lot of constitutional protections that may have been inadvertently waived due to my unknowing participation in one or more implied agreements with the State.
One may ask the question, “How is it that the U.C.C. apples to the justice system, unless we are somehow subject to a commercial contract, right?” As it happens, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) is a corporate entity under license of the State and the United States. TDCJ is in the business of warehousing persons or humans for the purpose of creating/maintaining a valuable workforce, where one class of resident workers receives valid compensation of Federal Reserve Notes—in contrast with another class of resident workers that do not receive valid consideration for their labor. The Corporation of TDCJ utilizes the workforce labor to produce marketable goods for sale to other corporate entities. The value for the sale or exchange of products is calculated in dollar amounts of Federal Reserve Notes.
Resident inmates who are housed on property owned/leased by the corporate entity called TDCJ, are by their very existence, engaging in the support of the commerce which TDCJ prosecutes with other businesses, so the inmate has no choice in the matter.
TDCJ and its agents are contractually obligated by law, to provide for the care and custody of its’ inmate residents—regardless of any implied consideration on the part of the inmate(s). In other words, the corporation must provide for the health and welfare of all inmates no matter whether the inmate chooses to follow any rules, work, or otherwise cooperate with the corporation. This includes personal property/inmate labor. Inmates have been sentenced by a court to a term of confinement (time) only and not labor. Even if a court were to sentence a defendant to death, prior to his execution, and by law he has a right to life in the form of food, water, air, clothing and hygiene.
In Texas, it is the duty of those officials of TDCJ to provide those necessities no matter the conduct or other desired cooperation by the individual inmate. During the course of day to day commerce with TDCJ, the population of inmates can choose whether to cooperate with institutional rules in good faith, for consideration termed, “Good Conduct Time Credits.” The credits could qualify as valid consideration to the commercial contract between TDCJ and the inmate(s), if the credits represented true negotiable property value in the mind of inmate(s). However, Vernon’s Texas Government Code, Ann 498.003, provides that Good Conduct Time Credits are good only for early parole eligibility or Mandatory Release, yet the following points serve to remove any concept of value from the credits:
1. The inmate convicted of an aggravated sentence has no prospect for Discretionary/Mandatory Supervision, nor do his combined credits provide early parole qualification because he must serve 50% of his sentence before the parole board will review his case. In addition, it appears the common practice is for the parole board to require an inmate to serve 85% to 100% of his sentence “flat” irregardless of his positive institutional performance.
2. One may conclude that all Texas inmates are denied a valid parole review because the average review in absentia takes only 3 to 7 minutes. How can anyone review a file that is likely “inches” thick in such a short time span? If no valid parole consideration is available, the value of the combined “Time Credits” falls to zero, or less.
3. Should an inmate actually experience a parole miracle—prior to his actual release he would be compelled to sign an agreement that effectively trades all accrued “Time Credits” for however many months of parole it will take to discharge his sentence. The problem here is, as a negotiable instrument, the unequal rate of exchange to months on parole is never uniform from one parolee to the next, which is against the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
4. Although the above relates to what is termed “Work Time Credits,” or inmate time sheets, it appears the code (498.003(e)) considers the two types of “Time Credits” the same as to the stated criteria for “accrual.” In any case, the state contractually awards the time credits to inmates in exchange for their “volunteer” labor or other participation, unless the inmate is mentally or physically incapable of participating.
5. Which brings us to another point of inequity. Is it fair to award the same amount of credits to inmates of a given class when some of those inmates work full time, part time, or not at all? This unfair practice would indicate that sub-classes of inmates exist in this aspect which may go against the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
6. Should any Texas inmate fail to “volunteer” to participate in a work or education program, then he is subject to arbitrary administrative disciplinary action, which can further limit institutional liberty, as well as negatively affect his classification status.
7. Regarding the above points, the inmate’s labor has true value as personal property, but more importantly, is the value in return for consideration in support of a simple contract (U.C.C. 1.204). As stated above, the Good Conduct Time Credits have absolutely no value whatsoever to the average inmate and by extension, the quasi-contract between the state and the inmate.
The fact remains that inmates are coerced into performance of the implied quasi-contract under threat of disciplinary action, without viable remedy or recourse. These facts evidence the “lack of meaningful choice,” and combined with “contractual terms that unreasonably favor” the state, together, meet the “objective standard” that proves the existence of an unconscionable contract. Unconscionable contracts are void and unenforceable.
The Texas statutes which authorize TDCJ to engage in what appears to be void contracts of a commercial nature, suggests the business practices of TDCJ are impairing the obligation of contracts in violation of the U.S. Constitution Article I Section 10.
We’ll explore that possibility in a future post. Until then, don’t sign anything!
1. That philosophically, Ali3nizm is a common forum for individuals who feel they have been “alienated” by another group, culture, gender, etc. and the justice system chews up and digests Ali3nz by the thousands.
2. Though criminal systems aren’t the only repositories of underdogs, given my own experience, it should be fairly easy to expose inherent flaws in a system by investigating the multitudinous contradictions therein and ho they apply to the disenfranchised masses.
That’s exactly what you will find in the Texas “justice” system. Many of us who are subject to the U.S./Texas system of justice wonder how each branch of government can say one thing and do the complete opposite. Not long ago I asked myself that very question and decided to examine the very document which officials claim gives them authority over the individual.
Within the subject context is the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which states: “In all criminal cases, the accused shall be informed…of the nature and charge of the accusation against him.” For the life of me, I have not found the official definition of the Sixth Amendment term “nature” in any court opinion or statute in my unit la library. Perhaps there is no definition.
Prison officials claim that our institutional law library is sufficient for the body of inmates in general, yet we are barred from reading cases older than 20 odd years. When one considers that many older cases may be important due to the principles addressed in the prevailing court opinion—the barring of access to them, displays an arbitrary contradiction that epitomizes unfairness. Her is the short version of almost infinite contradictions one may encounter in the justice system:
Just contradictory examples…
Of the Law itself:
A. Inmate litigators experience the too frequent practice of judges ho simply ignore the proper filing of Pro Se pleadings, despite the fact those actions are a duty. It seems necessary in the majority of cases, for Pro Se litigants to resort to applications for mandamus with a higher court in an attempt to force a lower court to perform the duties they should be doing anyway. Why do we pay taxes for justices who do not perform their jobs?
B. I have heard so many stories about incompetent or outright crooked lawyers that it makes my head hurt. The most common complaint is the attorney promise to a defendant that if he takes a “plea” the sentence ill be shorter, or he will make parole after “X” number of years. Invariably, the judge will choose a sentence over that agreed upon, or there will be no true parole consideration by the parole board. For defendants who pay out-of-pocket for their legal counsel, a retainer will generally grow into a series of supplemental payments for “additional” or “unforeseen” services beyond the original agreement. (Some advice: Demand from the attorney in writing, an agreement that outlines specific performance, prior to any payment.)
Of Parole issues:
C. A type of parole in which an offenders’ “Good Time”, “Work Time” and “Flat Time” equaled 100% of his sentence that used to be called “Mandatory Supervision,” and would indicate the automatic release of an inmate unless time was deducted due to a disciplinary action. That type of release is no called “Discretionary/Mandatory Supervision.” In practice, no matter how much total “time” is accrued, it appears the release is routinely denied in an arbitrary and capricious manner.
Luckily some of us convicted Ali3nz have loved ones “outside” with internet access who are sometimes willing to copy precidential cases in order to snail mail them to Pro Se jailhouse litigators. So, without help from the state, I combed through some older cases looking for the word, “Nature,” hoping against hope to discover the definition of the term as it relates to the Sixth Amendment (so I may comprehend the predicament I’m in.) The Supreme Court opinion of Faretta vs. California, 95 Sct.2525, indicates the “Nature” has something to do with “Ground Rules,” yet to learn the ground rules, it takes the experience of an “attorney who has tried a lot of cases.” A different opinion from the highest court actually distinguishes between the “Nature”, “Statutory Offenses”, “Punishment”, “Defenses”, and “Facts”. Schneckloth vs. Bustamonte, 93 Sct. 2041 (1973).
At arraignment, is seems that judges routinely ask criminal defendants’ the statutorily correct question of whether the accused “Understands the Charge.” The case of Henderson vs. Morgan, 96 Sct. 2253 (1976), suggests that either “nature” OR “understanding” (understood) are necessary for a plea to be “voluntary.” Rarely it seems, does a judge mutter the word “Nature.” How iis it that the Sixth Amendment mandates that a defendant will be informed of the nature, but judges are asking defendants to agree (An understanding can be an agreement of sorts) to waive his rights without first a reference to the nature (or essence, which is the Webster’s definition of the term) of the accusation?
One may contemplate, what on Earth is the nature of a charge in which the very essence is based on contradiction? Many would-be defendants may not care to kno the answer until it’s too late, and they might ask, “Why do I need to know the nature of the charge anyway?”
The founding fathers thought that knowing the Nature of the Accusation to be important enough for it to be enumerated in the Constitution as a mandate. That alone leads me to believe the “Nature” is not only necessary information, but the statutes which allow a judge to side-step the duty—may be, unconstitutional!
Since the statutes are silent on what constitutes the nature of an accusation, then perhaps the nature in non-statutory. I’ve already stated that I couldn’t find the definition cited in court opinions, yet where the statutes are silent, “Then the judiciary sets the limits.” James vs. United States, 366 US 213, at 200 (1961). With no other choice, I began to analyze the U.S. Constitution itself. In doing so I thought, if dictionaries suggest the nature is the “essence” of something, then it seems the Constitution grants certain types of courts to operate as colored arms of the legislature in Article I, or as an independent branch of government as in Article III.
Realizing this, if I were to be “arraigned” in court today, I would certainly inquire with the judge whether he is operating as an Article I or and Article III court. I know someone who asked a municipal judge this very thing in a misdemeanor traffic case. The jurist said his “power” came from the U.S. Constitution at Article III.
Naturally, I was next drawn to examine Article III, searching form some clue to the nature of my criminal accusation. It didn’t take long for me to realize that any power of any court in the nation must originate from one of four jurisdictions: (common) law, equity, admiralty, or maritime. Isn’t it essential then, to know the jurisdiction which the court uses to officiate, as one part of defining what the nature consists of? Each of those jurisdictions has its own principles which make it unique, different from the others. Otherwise, why would they be listed as separate? Woe to the litigant, who is unaware of the name of the power a judge has over him. Elementary logic.
Back to my acquaintance in the traffic case. Firmly established by the judge was that the case was “criminal,” otherwise the defendant could not be jailed for a failure to pay the fine. That ruled out equity jurisdiction. His honor indicated his jurisdiction was not based on the common law either. That left only Admiralty or Maritime, which the court said was not granting his power either. Another contradiction, because those are the only Article III jurisdictions the court has license to operate in.
The traffic court guy inquired with his judge as to what is the NAME of the seeming unauthorized jurisdiction. The court replied “Statutory.” Pressed further, the judge said, “The laws of the state of Texas,” then, “Legislative enactment,” and so on. The case ended in a stalemate wherein the judge assessed a fine anyway, but invited an appeal to the next higher court.
What’s wrong with this picture? I mean, what is the “Nature” of a charge that, on its face is so contradictory that no judge will name the judicial power that precipitates it? Logic dictates that, even if we are somehow contractually bound to a given piece of legislation, the court must still hear the case based on the principles of one of the four judicial powers we’ve mentioned. Setting aside the issue of “powers” for a moment, I decided on a whim, to explore the topic of agreements as a possible method of waiving constitutional rights. Research indicated that statutory definitions synonymous with some of my points of contention, are to be found within the U.C.C. (Uniform Commercial Code). As I investigated the U.C.C., in my mind, certain sections began to congeal into a logical paradigm which indicated to me that possibly there were a lot of constitutional protections that may have been inadvertently waived due to my unknowing participation in one or more implied agreements with the State.
One may ask the question, “How is it that the U.C.C. apples to the justice system, unless we are somehow subject to a commercial contract, right?” As it happens, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) is a corporate entity under license of the State and the United States. TDCJ is in the business of warehousing persons or humans for the purpose of creating/maintaining a valuable workforce, where one class of resident workers receives valid compensation of Federal Reserve Notes—in contrast with another class of resident workers that do not receive valid consideration for their labor. The Corporation of TDCJ utilizes the workforce labor to produce marketable goods for sale to other corporate entities. The value for the sale or exchange of products is calculated in dollar amounts of Federal Reserve Notes.
Resident inmates who are housed on property owned/leased by the corporate entity called TDCJ, are by their very existence, engaging in the support of the commerce which TDCJ prosecutes with other businesses, so the inmate has no choice in the matter.
TDCJ and its agents are contractually obligated by law, to provide for the care and custody of its’ inmate residents—regardless of any implied consideration on the part of the inmate(s). In other words, the corporation must provide for the health and welfare of all inmates no matter whether the inmate chooses to follow any rules, work, or otherwise cooperate with the corporation. This includes personal property/inmate labor. Inmates have been sentenced by a court to a term of confinement (time) only and not labor. Even if a court were to sentence a defendant to death, prior to his execution, and by law he has a right to life in the form of food, water, air, clothing and hygiene.
In Texas, it is the duty of those officials of TDCJ to provide those necessities no matter the conduct or other desired cooperation by the individual inmate. During the course of day to day commerce with TDCJ, the population of inmates can choose whether to cooperate with institutional rules in good faith, for consideration termed, “Good Conduct Time Credits.” The credits could qualify as valid consideration to the commercial contract between TDCJ and the inmate(s), if the credits represented true negotiable property value in the mind of inmate(s). However, Vernon’s Texas Government Code, Ann 498.003, provides that Good Conduct Time Credits are good only for early parole eligibility or Mandatory Release, yet the following points serve to remove any concept of value from the credits:
1. The inmate convicted of an aggravated sentence has no prospect for Discretionary/Mandatory Supervision, nor do his combined credits provide early parole qualification because he must serve 50% of his sentence before the parole board will review his case. In addition, it appears the common practice is for the parole board to require an inmate to serve 85% to 100% of his sentence “flat” irregardless of his positive institutional performance.
2. One may conclude that all Texas inmates are denied a valid parole review because the average review in absentia takes only 3 to 7 minutes. How can anyone review a file that is likely “inches” thick in such a short time span? If no valid parole consideration is available, the value of the combined “Time Credits” falls to zero, or less.
3. Should an inmate actually experience a parole miracle—prior to his actual release he would be compelled to sign an agreement that effectively trades all accrued “Time Credits” for however many months of parole it will take to discharge his sentence. The problem here is, as a negotiable instrument, the unequal rate of exchange to months on parole is never uniform from one parolee to the next, which is against the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
4. Although the above relates to what is termed “Work Time Credits,” or inmate time sheets, it appears the code (498.003(e)) considers the two types of “Time Credits” the same as to the stated criteria for “accrual.” In any case, the state contractually awards the time credits to inmates in exchange for their “volunteer” labor or other participation, unless the inmate is mentally or physically incapable of participating.
5. Which brings us to another point of inequity. Is it fair to award the same amount of credits to inmates of a given class when some of those inmates work full time, part time, or not at all? This unfair practice would indicate that sub-classes of inmates exist in this aspect which may go against the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
6. Should any Texas inmate fail to “volunteer” to participate in a work or education program, then he is subject to arbitrary administrative disciplinary action, which can further limit institutional liberty, as well as negatively affect his classification status.
7. Regarding the above points, the inmate’s labor has true value as personal property, but more importantly, is the value in return for consideration in support of a simple contract (U.C.C. 1.204). As stated above, the Good Conduct Time Credits have absolutely no value whatsoever to the average inmate and by extension, the quasi-contract between the state and the inmate.
The fact remains that inmates are coerced into performance of the implied quasi-contract under threat of disciplinary action, without viable remedy or recourse. These facts evidence the “lack of meaningful choice,” and combined with “contractual terms that unreasonably favor” the state, together, meet the “objective standard” that proves the existence of an unconscionable contract. Unconscionable contracts are void and unenforceable.
The Texas statutes which authorize TDCJ to engage in what appears to be void contracts of a commercial nature, suggests the business practices of TDCJ are impairing the obligation of contracts in violation of the U.S. Constitution Article I Section 10.
We’ll explore that possibility in a future post. Until then, don’t sign anything!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Profile
My name is Eddie Alan Nunnelley, Jr., but people who know me call me Alan. I’m a 48-year-old heterosexual male, 6 ft. 2 in. tall, 200 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes. I was born under a hot summer sun in Childress, Texas, less than two years prior to the J.F.K. assassination.
ANCIENT HISTORY
My high school years were spent in Garland, Texas, where I was sort of an anti-student at Lakeview High School. Academia wasn’t my strong suit so I quit school, earned a G.E.D., joined the U.S. Air Force, and married one of my high school sweethearts—the wrong one. Well, were wrong for each other, anyway.
We went our separate ways none too soon, but I continued, zombie-like, in a cycle of toxic relationships for the next two decades. My dysfunctional way of life is also evident in my diverse work history. There aren’t many jobs I haven’t tried—including a few of the illegal ones. I’m not proud of any of that, but I did at least become more stable with age. Prior to my latest trouble with the law, I spent some years in the hardwood flooring trade, and that opened the door to a year-long job managing a furniture refinishing project for a hotel. The job I most loved, though, was as Captain of a small cruise boat for a resort on Lake Texoma. I would have done that for half the money.
Nearing forty, I had the life I thought I wanted; I had plenty of money, sex, drugs, and no looking back. I was a “functioning addict,” and by the standards of myself and my circle of associates, I was something of a success.
Then 9/11 came. Business dried up, jobs and money disappeared, and I sank into a quagmire of drugs, crime, and craziness that I couldn’t extricate myself from. Financial and relationship stresses made my mental illness worse, and I wasn’t getting the treatment I needed. Finally, I ended up in prison on charges of Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon and other things. I didn’t know what had hit me.
It took awhile until I was able to pick myself up and begin to piece myself back together. When I did, I started to question who I was and how I had reached the state I was in. I would have described myself as a fairly articulate “regular guy” who was basically as harmless as a box of kittens. Surely, I was neither a brute nor a mania, yet here I was, in prison for violent crimes. How had it happened?
There aren’t as many rehabilitative programs within the prison system as one might hope, but there is some useful material if one is willing to seek it out and make use of it. After a couple of years, I got my present prison job as a teacher’s aide in the CHANGES class, (that’s “Changing Habits and Achieving Goals to Enable Success”) and found some good insights there.
What prison does offer a lot of is time to think, so I spent a lot of my time thinking. It took time, and honesty, and it wasn’t pretty, but I looked back over my prior life and the many mistakes I had made. I had hurt a lot of people over the years starting with the four children I had helped create but hadn’t been a father to. Then there is the rest of my family, my friens, and even if only indirectly, co-workers and taxpayers at large. I regret every bit of it, but can I do better than that? Yes, with what I know now, I can.
The First Book: ALI3NIZM
As part of the process of finding answers to my questions and of re-casting myself I a more positive mold, I began to write. What eventually emerged was an odd sort of memoir. The first part was largely a chronicle of my life up to and including prison, and of the gradual metamorphosis of my thinking about myself and the world. But this is not your average “Gee, I screwed up—don’t let this happen to you” sort of convict testimonial. This is a no-holds-barred personal expose, sort of a psycho-spiritual autopsy. I also describe my encounter in 2002 with a source of information so compelling that it has radically changed my view of and approach to life. The latter part of this memoir then consists of my attempt to express this transformative knowledge in an accessible form. I completed the manuscript in 2006.
While dealing with the impossible logistics of submitting a manuscript from prison and waiting for replies from publishers, I kept continually discovering books and articles that supported or amplified on those themes I’d written about in my manuscript. Dozens of unlooked-for sources just sort of fell into my lap. It seemed too much to be coincidence. This new material quickly piled up, so in 2008, I decided to incorporate much of it into an expanded and annotated version of my original manuscript under a new title.
What I describe in the second part of the book is a complete paradigm of life, so inspiring, that I feel obliged to share it with an many people as I can, but the most novel and hopeful portions are the practical strategies that stem from the basic principles. Especially now, with the situation around the world and in every area of human life rapidly worsening and approaching crisis, we desperately need new ways of doing things. We need to upgrade to a sustainable values system, and I believe that the principles and approaches described in the book could help to turn things around for us. I’m eager to put these ideas into practice and see how well they do, and I have a practical plan to do that which I’ll implement as soon as I’m no longer freedom challenged.
The Cost of Complacency
My own history, my downfall, my experiences in prison, and my present work with the CHANGES program, afford me an unusual insight into the mind and motivations of the ordinary convict, why they offend, and why they so often re-offend and return to prison. Some of these people, it must be said, just aren’t right and are never going to be right. Many have one ire-mediable defect or another, whether it’s labeled habituation, sociopathy, or some other kind of mental illness. But most are fairly ordinary people, some brighter than others, who have learned negative beliefs and antisocial habits of thinking, coping, and behaving. Most of them lack maturity, real self-security and perseverance, are habitually self-focused, and come to prison with a distinct entitlement mentality. They’ve formed the habit of seeing “the system” (society) as a the adversary.
Provided that they can be led to see their errors and that they want to change, they are, mostly, capable of reform. Here, motivation is a crucial consideration. Reform, however, is both a personal and a social process. New views and ethics have to be practiced successfully in order to become ingrained. Cultivating empathy, generosity, and charity requires opportunities to help others without any expectation of direct return. The satisfaction derived provides its own reinforcement, and the new behavior soon becomes a new habit. Personal responsibility in inculcated though the pressures of accountability imposed through real relationships with real people.
Today there are, by some estimates, over 1.6 million people incarcerated in U.S. prisons. The great majority of those will eventually be released into the population at large with only a few dollars, limited supervision, inadequate preparation for employment, and too few of the basic interpersonal and life-skills that might make it possible for them to maintain themselves and build positive lives for themselves in today’s society. These factors, along with other negative external influences, often combine to impel ex-cons to re-offend. And take it from me—once you’ve been in prison and survived, the threat of incarceration alone is no longer a deterrent to future anti-social behavior.
The fact is that the current practice of releasing ex-cons unprepared to manage themselves or meet their own needs, only serves to promote recidivism—it’s an open invitation to return to Criminal College. The policy only benefits employees and stakeholders of the prison-industrial complex. Its effects are unhealthy for society overall.
Society has an obvious interest n finding real ways to reduce the incidence of ex-cons returning to the Big House. Lip service is cheap, but the national average of $24,000 per convict per year to warehouse people isn’t so cheap. Yet a number of programs have shown that it takes much less money to simply change the offenders’ behavior instead of keeping them in prison.
My first step, as soon as I’m released, is to establish a non-profit organization that would help ex-offenders to build positive, productive lives for themselves and avoid falling back into criminal behavior, and which would also benefit society more directly by employing the huge human resource potential represented by so many releasees to help with community service projects and other volunteer activities.
The core of this enterprise will be a re-entry program established in a sort of halfway-house in a rural setting. There, former inmates will be able to provide for their own basic needs through small-scale organic market gardening, animal husbandry, and some sorts of “green” manufacturing. Initially, this will probably focus on the manufacturing, installation and maintenance of renewable energy systems. Along with these basic responsibilities, program participants will also contribute their service to various charitable efforts such as Habitat for Humanity projects. We’re hoping to partner with a number if philanthropic and socially-beneficial organizations life heifer.org, networkforgood.org, organicvalley.coop, and pointsoflightinstitute.org, if they’ll have us.
At the same time, residents will undertake other programs to develop life-, social-, and job-skills, and will gradually ease back into full outside employment, cultivating critical community relationships in the process.
I think that if the “outcasts of society,” ex-convicts, can independently support themselves, even in a depressed economy, can improve and reform themselves, and prove themselves to be a valuable, constructive members of society, they might well inspire and motivate countless others. All we need is the opportunity.
This idea will take time, work, and resources to realize, the most critical of which will be a plot of rural property to start out with. The long-range plans calls for about 160 acres in order to have a completely sustainable, self-supporting mini-farm, but we could probably get started with as few as forty acres. Land donated by some generous individual or organization would be ideal, though a zero-interest, long-term, lease-to-own arrangement with a trust might be an option. Also, there’s only so much research and planning that I can do alone and behind bars. I’ll have to be paroled to actually implement any of this. Any help on that score would be very welcome.
If I fail to make parole when I first become eligible, I intend to use the extra “time” to file several novel court claims which should challenge the constitutionality of some statutes and procedures the currently fetter criminal defendants. One example is the following:
All across the nation of prisons, inmates are paid for their labor in dollars. (I realize there are several pro and con arguments on this issue but those are off point right now.) One reason for this is that judges nowadays sentence offenders to only a term of incarceration rather than a term of labor as in the old days. Without a sentence of labor, the practice of coercing a prisoner to work against his will and without some sort of compensation violates the U.S. Constitution’s anti-slavery clause. Yet Texas is doing exactly that.
The constitution also forbids making any law or rule that may “impair the obligation of contracts,” and it’s from this angle that I’m attacking the policy. The claim will demonstrate how the state is using coercion, along with substituting worthless “work-time-credits” for money, to compel all Texas inmates’ participation in an unconscionable contract, which is illegal. Consequently, the respective convictions are void, and these issues are addressable in a non-statutory Habeas Corpus.
Another example is a Constitutional error that can be found in the arraignment process of every person in America who is accused of a crime. The court will read the formal charge and ask the defendant, “Do you understand the charge?” Being under duress and not wanting to alienate the just, defendants will usually answer in the affirmative.
There are several problems with this procedure, but the primary concern is that the statutorially prescribed admonishment from the court is taken by virtually everyone as a satisfaction of the State’s 6th Amendment duty to inform the defendant of the nature of the accusation. We contend, however, that is does not do so, that the legal system has never adequately define the “nature” (or essence) of the charge, and that it should properly include a good deal more information than the minimal amount required by the statute, beginning with the Article III judicial power under which the court hears a statutory case. Again this claim would be presented in a Habeas Corpus.
There are numerous other issues that can and should be addressed, but my larger intent here is to write a book about the Criminal Justice system, from commission of a crim to sentence expiration, using the results of the court claims in support of the narrative. Ten or twenty years ago, such a book wouldn’t have been viable, but with the current economic downturn and the possibility of an associated increase in the crime rate, this information may now be important to people. You may know people, even friends or loved ones, who might wind up in the unfortunate position that I have found myself in. In that case, wouldn’t you want them to know what to expect?
There’s a stereotypical image of prison inmates, endlessly recycled by the popular media, that no only presents convicts in a wholly and exaggeratedly negative light, but lumps all convicts together into a faceless, homogenous mass. The fact of the matter is much more complex. The prison population is a reflection of the country’s overall population. While I haven’t met any princes or saints in here, I can tell you that not all of these people are slope-browed imbeciles, amoral deviants, treacherous con-men, or vicious thugs. There’s big money and political power in the fear-mongering, hate-pimping propaganda, but no truth to the propagandists’ nation of a global “criminal type.” While there are some monsters here, our prisoners are by and large just people who have made mistakes and broken the law in the process, just as you do every time you back your car out of the driveway and into the street. (Yep, it’s reckless driving. Check it out.) At any rate, they’re individuals and should be considered as individuals. Most of them, even if flawed, are salvageable human beings.
Acknowledgements
Personally, I’d like to believe that I’m reforming and re-creating myself, and influencing others in a positive way in my attempt to right a few wrongs—some of which I egret to say that I myself have perpetrated. In that spirit, I’d like to publicly extend my thanks, apologies, or forgiveness to the following people for the various things that I think of as significant. They may be large or small things, the details of which are between that person and myself. I want these people to know that they have my respect, that I appreciate the role each has played in bringing me to where I am in my life today, and that they deserve some share in the credit for my future successes.
Abelin, Jim Nunnelley, Patrick
Allen, Matt Nunnelley, Sean
Bond, Jeff Nunnelley, Whitney
Bucko, Courtney Nunnelley, The Family
Carson, Jane Pollan, Tanya
Carson, Randy Rankin, Lynn
Cheek, Teresa Ray, Benton
Corley, Kelly Ray, The Family
Doucette, Tim Rochelle, Christine
Gibbs, Clifford Smalley, Dixie Gladys
Hale, Kathy Smalley, Glenn
Jewel, Stephanie Stubbs, Kerry
Jourden, Cole Talley, Penny
Jourden, Diane Wayne, Kim
Moorman, Amanda Wrinkle, The Family
Moorman, Jill
If I have forgotten anyone or if you have comments or questions about this post, I invite you to contact me via U.S. snail mail at the address below:
Eddie A. Nunnelley, Jr.ANCIENT HISTORY
My high school years were spent in Garland, Texas, where I was sort of an anti-student at Lakeview High School. Academia wasn’t my strong suit so I quit school, earned a G.E.D., joined the U.S. Air Force, and married one of my high school sweethearts—the wrong one. Well, were wrong for each other, anyway.
We went our separate ways none too soon, but I continued, zombie-like, in a cycle of toxic relationships for the next two decades. My dysfunctional way of life is also evident in my diverse work history. There aren’t many jobs I haven’t tried—including a few of the illegal ones. I’m not proud of any of that, but I did at least become more stable with age. Prior to my latest trouble with the law, I spent some years in the hardwood flooring trade, and that opened the door to a year-long job managing a furniture refinishing project for a hotel. The job I most loved, though, was as Captain of a small cruise boat for a resort on Lake Texoma. I would have done that for half the money.
Nearing forty, I had the life I thought I wanted; I had plenty of money, sex, drugs, and no looking back. I was a “functioning addict,” and by the standards of myself and my circle of associates, I was something of a success.
Then 9/11 came. Business dried up, jobs and money disappeared, and I sank into a quagmire of drugs, crime, and craziness that I couldn’t extricate myself from. Financial and relationship stresses made my mental illness worse, and I wasn’t getting the treatment I needed. Finally, I ended up in prison on charges of Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon and other things. I didn’t know what had hit me.
It took awhile until I was able to pick myself up and begin to piece myself back together. When I did, I started to question who I was and how I had reached the state I was in. I would have described myself as a fairly articulate “regular guy” who was basically as harmless as a box of kittens. Surely, I was neither a brute nor a mania, yet here I was, in prison for violent crimes. How had it happened?
There aren’t as many rehabilitative programs within the prison system as one might hope, but there is some useful material if one is willing to seek it out and make use of it. After a couple of years, I got my present prison job as a teacher’s aide in the CHANGES class, (that’s “Changing Habits and Achieving Goals to Enable Success”) and found some good insights there.
What prison does offer a lot of is time to think, so I spent a lot of my time thinking. It took time, and honesty, and it wasn’t pretty, but I looked back over my prior life and the many mistakes I had made. I had hurt a lot of people over the years starting with the four children I had helped create but hadn’t been a father to. Then there is the rest of my family, my friens, and even if only indirectly, co-workers and taxpayers at large. I regret every bit of it, but can I do better than that? Yes, with what I know now, I can.
The First Book: ALI3NIZM
As part of the process of finding answers to my questions and of re-casting myself I a more positive mold, I began to write. What eventually emerged was an odd sort of memoir. The first part was largely a chronicle of my life up to and including prison, and of the gradual metamorphosis of my thinking about myself and the world. But this is not your average “Gee, I screwed up—don’t let this happen to you” sort of convict testimonial. This is a no-holds-barred personal expose, sort of a psycho-spiritual autopsy. I also describe my encounter in 2002 with a source of information so compelling that it has radically changed my view of and approach to life. The latter part of this memoir then consists of my attempt to express this transformative knowledge in an accessible form. I completed the manuscript in 2006.
While dealing with the impossible logistics of submitting a manuscript from prison and waiting for replies from publishers, I kept continually discovering books and articles that supported or amplified on those themes I’d written about in my manuscript. Dozens of unlooked-for sources just sort of fell into my lap. It seemed too much to be coincidence. This new material quickly piled up, so in 2008, I decided to incorporate much of it into an expanded and annotated version of my original manuscript under a new title.
What I describe in the second part of the book is a complete paradigm of life, so inspiring, that I feel obliged to share it with an many people as I can, but the most novel and hopeful portions are the practical strategies that stem from the basic principles. Especially now, with the situation around the world and in every area of human life rapidly worsening and approaching crisis, we desperately need new ways of doing things. We need to upgrade to a sustainable values system, and I believe that the principles and approaches described in the book could help to turn things around for us. I’m eager to put these ideas into practice and see how well they do, and I have a practical plan to do that which I’ll implement as soon as I’m no longer freedom challenged.
The Cost of Complacency
My own history, my downfall, my experiences in prison, and my present work with the CHANGES program, afford me an unusual insight into the mind and motivations of the ordinary convict, why they offend, and why they so often re-offend and return to prison. Some of these people, it must be said, just aren’t right and are never going to be right. Many have one ire-mediable defect or another, whether it’s labeled habituation, sociopathy, or some other kind of mental illness. But most are fairly ordinary people, some brighter than others, who have learned negative beliefs and antisocial habits of thinking, coping, and behaving. Most of them lack maturity, real self-security and perseverance, are habitually self-focused, and come to prison with a distinct entitlement mentality. They’ve formed the habit of seeing “the system” (society) as a the adversary.
Provided that they can be led to see their errors and that they want to change, they are, mostly, capable of reform. Here, motivation is a crucial consideration. Reform, however, is both a personal and a social process. New views and ethics have to be practiced successfully in order to become ingrained. Cultivating empathy, generosity, and charity requires opportunities to help others without any expectation of direct return. The satisfaction derived provides its own reinforcement, and the new behavior soon becomes a new habit. Personal responsibility in inculcated though the pressures of accountability imposed through real relationships with real people.
Today there are, by some estimates, over 1.6 million people incarcerated in U.S. prisons. The great majority of those will eventually be released into the population at large with only a few dollars, limited supervision, inadequate preparation for employment, and too few of the basic interpersonal and life-skills that might make it possible for them to maintain themselves and build positive lives for themselves in today’s society. These factors, along with other negative external influences, often combine to impel ex-cons to re-offend. And take it from me—once you’ve been in prison and survived, the threat of incarceration alone is no longer a deterrent to future anti-social behavior.
The fact is that the current practice of releasing ex-cons unprepared to manage themselves or meet their own needs, only serves to promote recidivism—it’s an open invitation to return to Criminal College. The policy only benefits employees and stakeholders of the prison-industrial complex. Its effects are unhealthy for society overall.
Society has an obvious interest n finding real ways to reduce the incidence of ex-cons returning to the Big House. Lip service is cheap, but the national average of $24,000 per convict per year to warehouse people isn’t so cheap. Yet a number of programs have shown that it takes much less money to simply change the offenders’ behavior instead of keeping them in prison.
My first step, as soon as I’m released, is to establish a non-profit organization that would help ex-offenders to build positive, productive lives for themselves and avoid falling back into criminal behavior, and which would also benefit society more directly by employing the huge human resource potential represented by so many releasees to help with community service projects and other volunteer activities.
The core of this enterprise will be a re-entry program established in a sort of halfway-house in a rural setting. There, former inmates will be able to provide for their own basic needs through small-scale organic market gardening, animal husbandry, and some sorts of “green” manufacturing. Initially, this will probably focus on the manufacturing, installation and maintenance of renewable energy systems. Along with these basic responsibilities, program participants will also contribute their service to various charitable efforts such as Habitat for Humanity projects. We’re hoping to partner with a number if philanthropic and socially-beneficial organizations life heifer.org, networkforgood.org, organicvalley.coop, and pointsoflightinstitute.org, if they’ll have us.
At the same time, residents will undertake other programs to develop life-, social-, and job-skills, and will gradually ease back into full outside employment, cultivating critical community relationships in the process.
I think that if the “outcasts of society,” ex-convicts, can independently support themselves, even in a depressed economy, can improve and reform themselves, and prove themselves to be a valuable, constructive members of society, they might well inspire and motivate countless others. All we need is the opportunity.
This idea will take time, work, and resources to realize, the most critical of which will be a plot of rural property to start out with. The long-range plans calls for about 160 acres in order to have a completely sustainable, self-supporting mini-farm, but we could probably get started with as few as forty acres. Land donated by some generous individual or organization would be ideal, though a zero-interest, long-term, lease-to-own arrangement with a trust might be an option. Also, there’s only so much research and planning that I can do alone and behind bars. I’ll have to be paroled to actually implement any of this. Any help on that score would be very welcome.
If I fail to make parole when I first become eligible, I intend to use the extra “time” to file several novel court claims which should challenge the constitutionality of some statutes and procedures the currently fetter criminal defendants. One example is the following:
All across the nation of prisons, inmates are paid for their labor in dollars. (I realize there are several pro and con arguments on this issue but those are off point right now.) One reason for this is that judges nowadays sentence offenders to only a term of incarceration rather than a term of labor as in the old days. Without a sentence of labor, the practice of coercing a prisoner to work against his will and without some sort of compensation violates the U.S. Constitution’s anti-slavery clause. Yet Texas is doing exactly that.
The constitution also forbids making any law or rule that may “impair the obligation of contracts,” and it’s from this angle that I’m attacking the policy. The claim will demonstrate how the state is using coercion, along with substituting worthless “work-time-credits” for money, to compel all Texas inmates’ participation in an unconscionable contract, which is illegal. Consequently, the respective convictions are void, and these issues are addressable in a non-statutory Habeas Corpus.
Another example is a Constitutional error that can be found in the arraignment process of every person in America who is accused of a crime. The court will read the formal charge and ask the defendant, “Do you understand the charge?” Being under duress and not wanting to alienate the just, defendants will usually answer in the affirmative.
There are several problems with this procedure, but the primary concern is that the statutorially prescribed admonishment from the court is taken by virtually everyone as a satisfaction of the State’s 6th Amendment duty to inform the defendant of the nature of the accusation. We contend, however, that is does not do so, that the legal system has never adequately define the “nature” (or essence) of the charge, and that it should properly include a good deal more information than the minimal amount required by the statute, beginning with the Article III judicial power under which the court hears a statutory case. Again this claim would be presented in a Habeas Corpus.
There are numerous other issues that can and should be addressed, but my larger intent here is to write a book about the Criminal Justice system, from commission of a crim to sentence expiration, using the results of the court claims in support of the narrative. Ten or twenty years ago, such a book wouldn’t have been viable, but with the current economic downturn and the possibility of an associated increase in the crime rate, this information may now be important to people. You may know people, even friends or loved ones, who might wind up in the unfortunate position that I have found myself in. In that case, wouldn’t you want them to know what to expect?
There’s a stereotypical image of prison inmates, endlessly recycled by the popular media, that no only presents convicts in a wholly and exaggeratedly negative light, but lumps all convicts together into a faceless, homogenous mass. The fact of the matter is much more complex. The prison population is a reflection of the country’s overall population. While I haven’t met any princes or saints in here, I can tell you that not all of these people are slope-browed imbeciles, amoral deviants, treacherous con-men, or vicious thugs. There’s big money and political power in the fear-mongering, hate-pimping propaganda, but no truth to the propagandists’ nation of a global “criminal type.” While there are some monsters here, our prisoners are by and large just people who have made mistakes and broken the law in the process, just as you do every time you back your car out of the driveway and into the street. (Yep, it’s reckless driving. Check it out.) At any rate, they’re individuals and should be considered as individuals. Most of them, even if flawed, are salvageable human beings.
Acknowledgements
Personally, I’d like to believe that I’m reforming and re-creating myself, and influencing others in a positive way in my attempt to right a few wrongs—some of which I egret to say that I myself have perpetrated. In that spirit, I’d like to publicly extend my thanks, apologies, or forgiveness to the following people for the various things that I think of as significant. They may be large or small things, the details of which are between that person and myself. I want these people to know that they have my respect, that I appreciate the role each has played in bringing me to where I am in my life today, and that they deserve some share in the credit for my future successes.
Abelin, Jim Nunnelley, Patrick
Allen, Matt Nunnelley, Sean
Bond, Jeff Nunnelley, Whitney
Bucko, Courtney Nunnelley, The Family
Carson, Jane Pollan, Tanya
Carson, Randy Rankin, Lynn
Cheek, Teresa Ray, Benton
Corley, Kelly Ray, The Family
Doucette, Tim Rochelle, Christine
Gibbs, Clifford Smalley, Dixie Gladys
Hale, Kathy Smalley, Glenn
Jewel, Stephanie Stubbs, Kerry
Jourden, Cole Talley, Penny
Jourden, Diane Wayne, Kim
Moorman, Amanda Wrinkle, The Family
Moorman, Jill
If I have forgotten anyone or if you have comments or questions about this post, I invite you to contact me via U.S. snail mail at the address below:
ID # 1186691
Neal Unit
9055 Spur 591
Amarillo, TX 79107
Monday, April 19, 2010
INTRODUCTION
ALI3NIZM . . . is an evolutionary, Nuevo-movement that, unlike popular “ism’s,” intuitively responds to the unbalanced spirit of the earth by ministering to positive people who have been alienated (anomic) from full participation in mainstream society.
Using a mechanism that is based on a revelatory source of information, we ALI3NZ seek to balance planetary energies through the creation of a series of sustainable rural communities, where everyone participates equally, (sort of like “secular” Amish). The philosophic reasons for bringing society’s ALI3NZ to the countryside are summarized as follows:
To re-establish our connection with nature by teaching each other techniques of organic farming. ALI3NZ will discover every aspect of what it really takes to produce our own food, as well as other useful, but forgotten skills. We expect this experience to foster a greater appreciation for natural things like well-grown food and clean living. We hope our positive example will encourage even non-alienated folks to find a balance by simplifying their own lives—and by extension—world balance.
Since there aren’t many jobs outside of cities, agriculture ill provide some revenue for ALI3NZ until a “green” form of supplemental micro-industry can be established.
The coming burden for ALI3NZ will be finding ways to achieve the goals of ALI3NIZM in a culture dominated by capital-“ism.”
We’ll be posting related (and semi-related) entries on this site in the future and welcome all comments and questions. But, first, below is the “complete” FaceBook profile by the founder of ALI3NIZM, with some backstory on how this mission was conceived.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)