‘Freemen’ Favour Fiction Over Facts

Law is like life. It begins small and simple and then evolves. The Darwinian struggles to occupy new existential spaces and overcome challenges create new species. Much like ecosystems, young jurisdictions enjoy relatively simple relationships between their constituent parts but more established legal systems are populated with so many sets of rules, that experts in one area scarcely need know the others. Whether these evolutionary facts are morally good or bad is a philosophical issue. Advanced capitalist countries are routinely perceived as being governed by the practitioners of this ancient craft. Their specialist knowledge is the preserve of the few willing and financially able to obtain the learning required. Specialists are a feature of all complex societies.

Tackling the entrenched inequality in our society is a task requiring all hands on deck. Distinguishing between methods which help and those which hinder us is a key skill in this struggle.

Enter the Legal Woo Brigade. They’d prefer to be known as “Freemen on the land” performing “lawful rebellion”, but their creed is a counterproductive mix of denying both most law and the veracity of all lawyers. They erroneously claim that law does not evolve, that England is still subject to an ancient contract called the Magna Carta. Having blinded themselves to the basic democratic principles which have overcome medieval values, the Woo Brigade insist that no modern law has equal force to the Magna Carta. This is an obvious nonsense. The medieval world was very different from ours, and most the of the Magna Carta is meaningless today. Conveniently, they overlook the evils of that bygone age: the lack of rights for women, serfdom, politics being controlled by religious supremacists to name but three. They proselytise for an imaginary version of the law in the same manner as a fundamentalist preacher promises an unobtainable heaven, by misinterpreting their preferred texts, refusing fair debates and misreporting their numerous failures. Woo forums avoid these awkward truths, preferring fiction to facing down a critical analysis of their belief system.

A common refrain in their comments on critical blogs is “[the woo] makes sense to me!” They prefer to hear what they like rather than accept anyone else may possibly know better. Their attempts to muster recruits in Occupy London met with sustained deconstructions of their bizarre and pseudo-religious beliefs. Although this intellectual conflict was inevitable, they reacted badly to it, resorting to personal attacks on people in Occupy’s legal team and attempts to undermine our efforts to mount a viable legal defence. Whilst I was personally unconcerned about puerile descriptions of me as a “corporate shill”, their campaign to dissuade people from signing witness statements was altogether more serious. Without statements we’d have had no evidence. Without evidence to rebut the City’s eviction case, OccupyLSX wouldn’t even have been granted a trial in the High Court – we’d have been evicted much more swiftly. Whilst OccupyLSX’s indecision on its own longevity didn’t help develop the common law on protest camps, it bought considerable time by taking the actual rules of civil litigation seriously. Curiously, the one woo man who penetrated into the appeal process was rubbished by the Court of Appeal, which described his case as “simply wrong”.

Bizarrely – and in much contrast to Occupy – the Woo Brigade make no case for law reform. Accepting that law has developed does not equate with political submission to the impact of the laws which value proprietary rights over communities. Failing to propose changes reveals the regressive nature of the woo. If only it ended there! Much of the woo preys on vulnerable people. A particular worry is their promise of a cure for chronic debts by giving misconceived legal advice. Faced with increasing exposure, these charlatans have fought back with personal slurs on Occupy’s most committed activists, whilst contributing nothing to the movement. Ignoring this antisocial behaviour has been a costly mistake. Welcoming everyone to Occupy was an early tactical triumph but also a hostage to fortune. The time has come to expose these reactionaries.

By Scrapper Duncan – blog.scrapperduncan.com