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Comment by jalapenos | Hacker News Reader

If you want to really make your head hurt, read their article on their legal basis for formation: https://www.principality-hutt-river.com/PHR_The_Formation_of...

Makes the "sovereign citizens" look well-adjusted.

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The law that sent Prince Leonard down this path makes sovcits look like the sane ones. WA had some incredibly bizarre agricultural rules, many still in place until only a few years ago.

He was a farmer with a very large property and a full field of crops ready to harvest but the law was changed and demanded he only sell 2% of it at a price they set, indefinitely, the rest to be burned, making his property now worthless and farming unviable. This was solely done to protect some wealthy friends of the government.

I'm not saying he's a bit off the deep end, but the circumstances that led to it are completely rational in my opinion.

These people are casting spells. As they don't understand legal text (most people don't) they cargo cult the language and make up something that sounds equivalent and then utter it as a magical incantation believing that make their wants a reality.

Hard to blame them when actual lawyers and judges do this all the time too. e.g. the courts in the US actually have decided that the following language means that employers actually can discriminate based on race.

> It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer -

> (1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or

> (2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

The law has exactly as much force as people (particularly potential enforcers) think it does. If someone's "magic spells" are as convincing to people as a judge's magic spells then they can be treated as functionally equivalent.

> The law has exactly as much force as people (particularly potential enforcers) think it does. If someone's "magic spells" are as convincing to people as a judge's magic spells then they can be treated as functionally equivalent.

Until tested in a court of law.

You have just described, quite succinctly, the core premises-for-conclusions substitution also at work in the "code is law" nonsense of cryptocurrency.

Apparently their arguments against the Tax office was similarly nonsense. Although it seams the Tax Office didn't bother too much until recently when the bill got big enough to go to court over https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-16/hutt-river-province-d...

My understanding is the local council gave them a bit of cover because it became a bit of a tourist destination in an area the wasn't seeing much activity.

Yep. Legal standing aside, they were always in great voluntary receipt of taxpayer services that were provided because various levels of government either didn’t care enough or saw the tourist / cultural value. By the time Prince Leonard died, Hutt River had well and truly established itself as a piece of Australiana.

> These clauses strongly clashed with the law stating that “Her Majesty is liable in Tort as a master to a servant”

I searched the quoted phrase (with quotation marks) on Kagi, DDG and Google and found literally no results other than this website. Which is actually quite impressive.

Not only that, it's the opposite of the actual law, known as "sovereign immunity".

These people may have been raving loons.

That's not correct. In the UK there's the Crown Proceedings Act 1947, and in Canada the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act, and Australia this also seems to be the general case, but I didn't immediately find a statutory authority.

> https://www.alrc.gov.au/publication/traditional-rights-and-f...

There is no right to secede or otherwise unilaterally decide what the remedy for this claim is, but the idea that a tort was committed and the authorities were liable seems like the least crazy idea here.

Am I being detained?

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