Daily Archive

It was a nice morning.

I had made coffee and just finished toasting up a zesty jalapeno and cheese bagel for Intransigentia and myself to share before we went to work.  The dog was happily crunching on her kibble, the cat was mewing sonorously(?) as he always does and, of course our radio, was on CBC radio One listening to the news.  And this is the story that I heard causing me to  promptly choke on my the half of my bagel, ruining subtle sweet heat that only a sumptuously slathered creme cheesy-bagel can deliver in the morning.

The source of my bagel negation was this:

“An Alberta pensioner says she feels like a prisoner after her Calgary rental property was claimed as an “embassy” by a man she says identified himself as a Freemen-on-the-Land, a growing movement of so-called sovereign citizens that is raising concerns with authorities both north and south of the border.”

Da fuq?

My ire, and my curiosity have been put on hold until now, as I have the time to do a little research into what the “freeman” on the land movement is all about. But before we get into the back story of these wackaloons, we should finish with the embassy angle.

“A few months after the renter moved in, Caverhill went to inspect the work and she says she found the entire kitchen and bathroom had been gutted. All the doors inside had been removed and the floor of the master bedroom had been painted black, she says.
But Caverhill quickly learned she had much bigger problems.
“He walks me to the door and he’s yelling at me, ‘I’m a Freemen-on-the-Land,”‘ Caverhill says.
“I said: ‘This is my house, not yours.’ He said: ‘No. This is an embassy house now and it’s mine and you have no rights,’ so then he slams the door.”
She says she discovered the locks had been changed and pounded on the door.
“I said: ‘How come the key doesn’t work?’ He said: ‘I changed the locks.’ He said: ‘It’s not your home.”‘

Just as simple as that. This dude just declares the rental property that he recently gutted as embassy and tells the landlady to shove off. This is fucking stupidity with all the upgrades. It gets better –

“She [the landlord] says she later received an invoice from the renter’s personal company for $26,000 in work[?] done to the home.”

This high vicar of stupid who is/was illegally occupying this person’s house then had the audacity to charge her for wrecking and doing weird shit (painting doors black?)to the place.

I would not say that the freeman-on-the-land movement is the zenith of human stupidity, but I believe it is strong contender in the field.   More importantly, these besotted tinfoil hat failures at life ruined my bagel experience.  For that, they shall feel the pointy tip of my logos-based wraith as I investigate who these people are what their movement all about, in a daring series of lightly researched yet mildly amusing blog posts.