It's unfortunate that Lockheed Martin has been tackled in this way, because the protest was doomed to fail.

Roger Franklin clearly, willingly gives the state authority over him, maybe in exchange for the benefits and pensions he expects. But in doing so, he accepts the terms that are part and parcel of his social contract with the state. He has failed in his contractual obligation, so he accepts the penalty claws. Simples!

He could withdraw from the social contract with the state, in the same way as he could withdraw from a contract with an employer. But he either doesn't want to or can't think in that kind of way. His solicitors, as servants of the state, would certainly not advise him of what is a logical thinking process, rather than common procedure.

If you don't like something that your firm dose, you don't have a right to breach the terms of your contract but you could resign over the matter!

I was going to answer "Anarchist" but discovered this letter below to a local paper from Roger himself which explains his position better than I could.

I think the fact that 222 people gave mutual support to Roger in paying his fine sent a great message to the state. War Veterans get medals, Peace Veterans get solidarity in the way of (small) contributions to fines. So this time at age 84 Roger doesn't have to do jail time, board up his house against bailiffs or have his finances frozen. No failure that.
And Roger asks how many others might follow his example and move away from the UK state - well if all the "anarchists" who posted on indymedia actually took action like this our anarchy might have more impact.


(From the Gloucestershire Citizen)

Roger Franklin: why I could not fill in my census form

WELL, well, what a surprise.

All this legal stuff and threats of huge fines and costs over a refusal to fill in a census form.

And being expected to travel, at considerable expense, to be in Bristol by 10am – a 6am start, for sure, and full prices on trains.

I'd be in no condition.

So, if you are using your mighty legal powers over this trivial matter, I shall have to give you a much fuller account of my several reasons for the refusal than I had thought necessary at the interview with the kind census folk at my house on May 26, 2011.

But I'll not come to Bristol – a difficult journey for an early appointment.

I can never hear in courts anyway (partly deaf).

And you say I need not come. But I would like my arguments to be noted by your court before the Draconian penalties you threaten are imposed on me. What is all this really about? It looks like it's a need that some authorities have for complete obedience.

Okay, so I am rather well practiced in disobedience, civil disobedience.

Sometimes I am criminally disobedient, trying to destroy property that is part of the UK's nuclear genocide machine, e.g. Trident. Such property really has no right to exist. Other times it is civil disobedience (in the tradition of Thoreau), when I have resisted paying taxes that go to pay for nuclear war.

But a refusal of a census? Could this be criminal?

Maybe you would like to know just why I've refused the census and caused so much bother for a lot of people. There are, actually, two separate reasons, one mainly moral, the other legal.

It was the moral one that the census people recorded for the papers you have sent to me. That relates to the census being carried out by a war machine corporation (merchant of death), Lockheed Martin, whose expertise with statistics has probably been developed from calculating the numbers of dead, injured and burned that would result from the explosions of one or more of the nuclear devices that Lockheed Martin helps to make at Aldermaston, and doubtless elsewhere.

I am not prepared to cooperate with making payments to that corporation for their latest, different, job of counting living people and their various doings.

There have been other people refusing the census for this same reason – see enclosures herewith.

Now my civil disobedience is also based on important legal arguments that I didn't bother my census inquirers with as they are complicated, and I had not thought the matter would go as far as it seems to have done.

Obedience

A few years ago, being ever more disgusted by the criminal insanity of those who claim to rule the United Kingdom, as they prepare ever more horrendous nuclear weaponry, and go into more and more terrible wars with ever more cruel weapons, I decided that I must completely dissociate myself from such crimes by declaring myself and my property to be politically independent: Tickmorend Free State – all 17 acres of it.

However, after being presumed to be 'president', as the only inhabitant, I began to realise that it must not be a new state: states are part of the problem as they try to take control, often by force. So I have renamed my seceded territory Tickmorened Free Space; a tiny spot in the middle of the UK where the Queen and her government no longer rule.

Secession has been, and continues to be practiced, often with eventual success by smaller and larger political entities, e.g. the original 13 states that seceded from Britain and led to the present USA. Sometimes, sadly, they have led to terrible conflicts as with the American Civil War, and, more recently, Biafra's secession from Nigeria where millions perished in a suppression supported by Britain and Russia. Nonetheless several states inside the USA still do consider secession, notably Vermont.

I know of one other small secession Britain: Albion, near Scarborough, which is also resisting the census. Its case is well developed around the legal issues, which centre around the assumed right to rule of the Queen and her courts of law, all of whom expect total obedience from all their subjects.

By declaring independence a person or territory ceases to be subject to the previous rulers and has no need to be obedient to them.

And there is no need to get permission to declare independence, one can just do it.

However, to be recognised as independent can take time and be controversial.

For the independence to be recognised by former rulers without the use of violence may need a decision from some sort of neutral court because the courts of the previous rulers are bound to be biased. Some international organisations, e.g the European Union with its Court of Human Rights, or the United Nations should be able to help.

Recently this has been the case with the partial recognition by the UN of Palestine's independence.

Albion has pointed out that all UK courts are part of the UK regime, with all officials swearing loyalty to HM the Queen.

Therefore, no UK court can rule on the matter of people and places that want to cease their (assumed) previous loyalty to the Queen.

So, I am not asking your court to recognise my independence in Tickmorend Free Space, and to stop bothering me about the UK's census project.

You cannot do that.

But I shall continue with my civil disobedience until my secession can be confirmed by a court or other authority that is independent of both Tickmorend Free Space and the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile, I am unlikely to cooperate with any penalties for my disobedience that you may decide to impose.

Henry David Thoreau wrote the brilliant "Essay on Civil Disobedience" after his one night in gaol in Concord, Massachusetts for refusing to pay a tax that would help pay for an unjust war.

That was in 1846, and the USA had invaded Mexico.

The essay inspired Leo Tolstoy in Russia, Gandhi in India, and, later, Rev Martin Luther King in USA.

As much of the UK has just celebrated Christmas, it is appropriate to remember the census that forms part of that story.

It seems that you want your census to go even more smoothly than the one in Bethlehem some 2,000 years ago. Then, some rather special people, as it turned out, were forced to travel to Bethlehem to help that census.

Now you want me to travel to Bristol to explain my reasons for objecting to this one.


What you are doing looks like the proverbial use of a sledgehammer to crack a nut. perhaps, though, the 'nut' is already rather 'cracked' to be resisting on such a trivial matter.

But I feel I must resist in order to confirm my independence from the UK's rulers.

You may want to crush this 'nut' to show how disobedience must always be crushed; to make an example.

But do you really think there are many others who will follow me into moving away from the UK and its policies of war? I do hope so, but I'm afraid it seems rather unlikely.

“anarchist” if you are going to use this as a moniker then at least try to get to grips with just a little bit of the way anarchists actually think.

You say
“If you don't like something that your firm dose, you don't have a right to breach the terms of your contract but you could resign over the matter!”

WTF
You clearly haven't got the faintest idea of the nature of production. I as an anarchist (along with some other types of socialist) do not recognise the “right” of any “contract” that my employer has over me. They are unjustly extracting the profit of my labour. weather this is a legal contract or no, in it is not their fucking “right”.

The reason I work and the reason others are forced to rely on welfare or pensions, is because I need to eat. This is one of the controls that the employing class have over us. If I need to struggle against the bosses I do this individually by means such as work to rule or sabotage or whatever. If I do this collectively I do this by means such as strikes or occupations. I do not individually resign because the bosses would simply replace me.

You say
“But in doing so, he accepts the terms that are part and parcel of his social contract with the state”

Are you seriously suggesting that it is possible to opt out of society, that being an anarchist means breaching a “social contract”. Please get a grip. I am an anarchist and whilst I do believe that we can “make the old world in the shell of the old” this does not mean that I can detach my self from reality.

The state is not a set of legal edicts that I'm either in or out of. The state is institutionalised power maintained by a social relationship (AKA Capitalism) defended by its exclusive claims on the right to use violence to maintain that power.

I along with all other actual anarchists am both “within and against the state”.

Ta for now

PS I do recognise that the this Roger chap has declared his land outside of the UK state but im sure that his local plod (or lockheed martin!) don't see it that way.

I hadn't read the letter, thanks for posting it. However I stand by what I said. I don't believe that he has truly resigned his UK citizenship. Are you telling me that he is 85 and not claiming UK state pension? Has he achieved the same status as an "illegal immigrant", even within his own mind? I'd really like to know more.

Our relationship with the state is the longest lasting relationship we have in our lives. We love the state so much we allow the state to bring up our children we even allow it to take the role of father, in our dysfunctional families. Socialism is the welfare state from cradle to grave. Your parent(s) sign you into the state at birth and you're doctor signs you out at death. Who would want it any other way?

Governments killing a few of us every now and then, like a farmer kills his animals, is the cost of socialism. So long as the heard remains healthy, whats the problem?
Obviously it's going to cause stress and anxiety to the other animals it they actually see the slaughter, but that's why we have the bbc. They tell us that it's the big bad wolf that's killing us, not the farmer.

Of cause one argument for state coercion is that we need it to enforce our promises to each other. I disagree. We all know the kind of people who break their promises, don't we;)

Anarchism, to me, is the empirical reasoning against the initiation of coercion and violence which is the basis of hierarchical societies and statism.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewQl-qAtNwQ
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbp6umQT58A&feature=related
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

regarding the above comment:

there are other benefits too. Eg.
1) national defense.... He is benefiting from being protected from foreign invaders (think falklands.... those people would have lost their property and land if it wasn't for the state)
2) law and order... people dont rob him because they would get put in jail because of the law and the police. This is a benefit he is enjoying that is paid for by the taxpayer.
3) streetlights..... taxpayers pay for this. He is enjoying the benefits
4) NHS...... taxpapers pay for this too. He is using the benefits (presumably)
5) Transport Infrastructure: road / rail / pavements etc
6) Radio / TV / Internet infrastructure

Denouncing citizenship would mean he is not entitled to any of the above and would activately be prevented from doing so. No doubt he would quickly winge about that because he sounds like a busybody who wants stuff but also wants to be a pain in the arse.

I personally don't see the problem. We have enormous amount of freedom. Check out other countries like in the middle east of North Korea, China etc. We have so much freedom. Also, check out history, again we can pretty much do what we want within the law. II think he is being a bit of an idealist and basically, if he was dumped on a deserted island (which is basically what creating his own state is), he would quickly change his mind. Perhaps they could do this as an experiment for him?

He's done a great protest against Lockheed Murderers, but a not so great bid for liberty. The two don't really mix, I think.

regarding the above comment:

there are other benefits too. Eg.
1) national defence.... That's the problem, national defence is no longer about defence, but attack, murder and pillaging.
2) law and order... The state dose nat act as a deterrent agains crime but as enforcement of state/corporate monopolies. Burglars still burgle and the police don't really care, so long as the state maintains a monopoly on serious organised crime.
3) streetlights..... excessive and unnecessary street lighting is killing wildlife and contributing to global warming.
4) NHS...... State/corporate monopoly on the "caring industry" is cold and uncaring inefficient and profit driven.
5) Transport Infrastructure: Roads, roads and more roads serves only to boost the interests of the state/corporate monopolies, facilitating commuting for slave workers and long distance freight for corporate monopolies. Endless transport infrastructure developments destroy our common land, kill wildlife and contribute massively to global warming.
6) Radio / TV / Internet infrastructure.... radio and TV is state propaganda. Internet is not state funded.

Denouncing citizenship would mean he is not entitled to any of the above and would actively be prevented from doing so. But he'd be an even bigger hero than he already is! Probably not practical when his supporters are moral supporters but his practical supporter is the criminal, murder state.

Ye! OK! UK has more space in its slave cages than some other tax farms.

yeah, but you still use all those things when it is convenient to you don't you? you dick

next time you need a hospital, I look forward to hearing you boycott all the NHS hospitals and pay for it via a private hospital because clearly the NHS ones are all evil

And stay off the roads and pavements you cunt. If i catch you using one then you are a hypocrite

I'm trying to stay on topic, which is Roger Franklin's, government stock take form, protest against Lockheed Murderers. They are a corporation who is paid with tax payers money to develop equipment for governments to murder people, and who also conducted the 2011 government stock take of it's citizens, of whom Roger claimed not to be one, in a half harted sort of way.

I don't know him personally, but if Roger was born into a world anything like the world I was born in to;

The state has facilitated the enclosure of all our common land and has concreted the bits in between. Now you'r suggesting that we can't even go on the concreted bits unless we submit to slavery. Well done, uncle Tom!

The state health care monopoly "National Health Service" is NOT a FREE service and it's services are restricted to FULLY PAID UP UK citizens only. Foreign citizens, and those with no citizenship are excluded, including war refugees, without status, and those who renounce citizenship to avoid being party to war crimes, people like Roger I guess!

Although I say the NHS is a monopoly, there are other people who care for the health and well being of others, some times for profit usually not for profit, ranging from charity services like Macmillan nurses or specialist clinics that do things that the NHS can't or just won't, to the giant British United Provident Association (BUPA) ,which although a bit corporate and evil, still claims to have NO SHARE HOLDERS and be NOT FOR PROFIT. Last time I needed the NHS I was overseas, traveling illegally, with no government permission, papers, portpass or anything, so I just had to accept charity or pay, as it was I did a bit of both.

We don't use state services just because they are convenient, we use them because the state/corporate monopolies suffocate any natural choice.

And the choice not to be a party to murder is a pretty fundamental decision for a citizen.
That's why the state hates fundamentalism; it want's to deceive to it's pseudobenevolence.