Wikipedia: Gag order in United States
Gag orders can be part of a settlement agreement between two parties. In the state of Pennsylvania in 2011, a lifetime gag order on the discussion of fracking was agreed to by a family as part of their agreement with the oil and gas drilling company Range Resources. An attorney for Range Resources claimed in court that the gag order covered not only the adults in the family, but also the children, then aged seven and ten years old, and that the company intended to enforce it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gag_order#United_States
Peter Soderqvist1: The Armstrong settlement may have been unlawfully obtained (forced, duress etc to sign!) The law maybe wrong, but the settlement in the Armstrong case is by the law as can be seen above!1
Peter:
That’s very funny, but, No! The contractual conditions that I refuse to comply with are not lawful, by US Law.
By lawful is meant allowed by the law. This from Black’s Law Dictionary is helpful:
Lawful. Legal; warranted Or authorized by the law; having the qualifications prescribed by law; not contrary to nor forbidden by the law.
The principal distinction between the terms “lawful” and “legal” is that the former contemplates the substance of law, the latter the form of law. To say of an act that it is “lawful” implies that it is authorized, sanctioned, or at any rate not forbidden, by law. To say that it is “legal” implies that it is done or performed in accordance with the forms and usages of law, or in a technical manner. In this sense “illegal” approaches the meaning of “invalid.” For example, a contract or will, executed without the required formalities, might be said to be invalid or illegal, but could not be described as unlawful. Further, the word “lawful” more clearly implies an ethical content than does “legal.” The latter goes no further than to denote compliance, with positive, technical, or formal rules; while the former usually imports a moral substance or ethical permissibility. A further distinction that the word “legal” is used as the synonym of “constructive,” which “lawful” is not. Thus “legal fraud” is fraud implied or inferred by law, or made out by construction. “Lawful fraud” would be a contradiction of terms. Again, “legal” is used as the antithesis of “equitable.” Thus, we speak of “legal assets,” “legal estate,” etc., but not of “lawful assets,” or “lawful estate.” But there are some connections in which the two words are used as exact equivalents. Thus, a “lawful” writ, warrant, or process is the same as a “legal” writ, warrant, or process.2
The only orders that a citizen has a duty to obey are lawful orders. The injunction is unlawful, so I have no concern that I am violating either a duty or a lawful order – and am in no way a scofflaw as the people hating me say — when I openly communicate my experiences or knowledge about L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, Scientologists, etc. and openly refuse to be unlawfully jailed or unlawfully fined.
In the military, personnel have a specific duty to disobey unlawful orders, and this concept can also be applicable to civilian matters.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) 809.ART.90 (20), makes it clear that military personnel need to obey the “lawful command of his superior officer,” 891.ART.91 (2), the “lawful order of a warrant officer”, 892.ART.92 (1) the “lawful general order”, 892.ART.92 (2) “lawful order”. In each case, military personnel have an obligation and a duty to only obey Lawful orders and indeed have an obligation to disobey Unlawful orders, including orders by the president that do not comply with the UCMJ. The moral and legal obligation is to the U.S. Constitution and not to those who would issue unlawful orders, especially if those orders are in direct violation of the Constitution and the UCMJ.3
A number of times over the years, I have mentioned the matter of the Scientologists’ court orders’ unlawfulness, and the consequent absence of any obligation to comply with them. See, e.g., this September 2009 letter to Mark Rathbun:
The analogy is closer to reality than most people would imagine, I would imagine, because, although I have not been falsely imprisoned all the years of your analogous victim above, the Scientology conspiracy did obtain and currently possesses a series of unlawful orders jailing me in California and fining me. I simply didn’t comply with these unlawful orders because they’re unlawful, and no one has any lawful obligation in California, or anywhere in the US, to comply with any order that isn’t lawful. There are still unlawful orders to jail me in California, and you could be very helpful in getting them canceled. If I had complied with even one of those unlawful orders jailing me, the Scientology cultists could have kept me jailed for years, or decades or forever.
You know all the details of the Miscavige regime’s unlawful orders against me, in fact you know details of all Miscavige’s and his regime’s fair game on me, up until 2005, I suppose, when you say you blew from Gilman. I’ll provide a brief description of the unlawful orders and circumstances, and some comments on the relevant related issues, however, so that others who will read this will have enough information to create a pretty clear picture. The available and relevant documents, of course, for all Scientology’s legal cases against me are well organized on my site.
The 1995 injunction Scientology got against me in California Superior Court in Marin County was obtained unlawfully and is on its face unlawful. The injunction has been one of the most insane, self-destructive successes imaginable for Scientology. What a flap! And it’s still ongoing. And you, Mark, were involved in the litigation to obtain the injunction, and in the enforcement actions following its unlawful grant. In fact, you were, throughout many of those years, directly over the litigation. It’s funny really, if you could think about it, that you write to Bert Fields that you held the “second highest ecclesiastical position in the [Scientology] religion” when you were over litigation. This supports the reality that litigation is an ecclesiastical activity, or religious expression, or religious exercise. In my life, as I have proven, it certainly is.4
Or, e.g., this letter last year to Dan Sherman:
Although I cannot be in contempt of court for violating your contractual conditions, I do acknowledge that I have been found in contempt of court multiple times for violating your court order. Your injunction, however, is unlawful, and no one has any legal obligation to comply with an unlawful order. You Scientologists’ desiring, obtaining and attempting to enforce this unlawful court order actually evidences your abysmal character and antisocial intentions. Despite how threatening and deleterious it has been in my life, I am glad that I have violated your unlawful court order, as I am doing here in responding to your black PR. I will continue to violate your unlawful order because it is unlawful and because it is wrong for everyone for me to obey it.
It is no more lawful to silence a person by court order about the Scientology religion or his religious beliefs about Scientology, his experiences with Scientology, or his knowledge of the Scientology religion, even though Scientology is an antisocial religion with a murderous philosophy, than it is to silence a person about traditional religions such Christianity, Judaism, Islam or Buddhism. US court orders that silence a person about his religious beliefs, experiences or knowledge, and punish him for communicating these, show that your country’s claims of religious freedom are massively hypocritical. Since what has happened to me obviously can happen to Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, etc. everyone everywhere in the world is justified in opposing the US for its great hypocrisy and its threat to everyone’s religious freedom.
Why the US has taken this cowardly, duplicitous route regarding religious freedom is not completely known. Certainly the US has done so for antisocial purposes that align with you Scientologists’ antisocial purposes. Your claims of promoting and defending religious freedom, when you are silencing good people about their religious beliefs, experiences and knowledge and jailing and ruining them for their free exercise of religion, are shocking in their hypocrisy. Everyone everywhere in the world is justified in opposing all of you and fighting you to the death. That is your contribution to religion, to religious freedom and to world peace.
Yes, you have a jail sentence against me. But that simply shows how antisocial Scientologists make each other with Scientology. Your gloating shows how depraved your religion has made you. I will never serve your jail sentences, because they are unlawful. And I will fight you Scientologists’ unlawful orders and jail sentences, and your antisocial writings and criminal fair game actions until the end of my life.
So yes, you need to say more on this matter, Dan. You can do it. You are not too old, and it is not too late. You have within you the guts to stand up and tell the truth. Yes, Scientologists will hate, revile and fair game you. But that is far better than staying with the haters, revilers and fair gamers and wasting your life destroying the good people who have found the guts and have told the truth. Believe it or not, you can still be a hero. Come out and communicate.5
Maybe fracking is something that a person can be lawfully compelled to be silent about. We will try to find out more about this case.
I wonder if the fracking company Range Resources, and its affiliates, and all their directors, officers, employees, volunteers, agents, attorneys and assigns are permitted to say whatever they want about the Pennsylvania Sucker family, no matter how hateful or defamatory, and the Suckers can be ruined and imprisoned if they respond to defend their reputations or persons or loved ones. And when seven-year old Suzie Sucker is asked in school to speak on the energy sector, ground water, or job opportunities in Pennsylvania, and she mentions fracking, off to the pokey.
Unlike fracking (which is ridiculous and questionable enough) religious beliefs, religious experiences, and religion, are not things a person can lawfully be silenced about. The Scientologists cannot now claim that their cult, no matter how irreligious it is, is not a religion; that their activities, no matter how antisocial or criminal they are, are not religious; and that Hubbard’s writings, no matter how murderous his philosophy is, are not scripture. That false flagged ship has sailed. The Scientologists are caught by their own evil purposes here, falling back on sick black propaganda by sick people on sick message boards. They never predicted that their gags would come to this: their criminal conspiracy would be laid bare by the guy they most tried to gag, and they would be hoist on their own religion petard.
The contractual conditions for which I have been sued, bankrupted, enjoined and punished are unlawful – and not just a bit, but disgustingly, evilly unlawful.
It would not matter if there was no duress whatsoever, and I had been the person pressuring everyone else to sign; these contractual conditions are unlawful. They unlawfully, needlessly, and cruelly violate the First Amendment’s religion clause and international human rights charters, and they are elements in a very long and ongoing criminal conspiracy against rights.
Nevertheless, the duress was profound and psyche-altering. It is another element in the Scientologists’ conspiracy. There can be no doubt that the evidence of duress presented to the trial court was sufficient to demonstrate a triable issue. To deny me a trial on the evidence supporting a multitude of defenses, including duress, to the Scientologists’ contract claims, was the kind of judicial malfeasance one grows up thinking is only on TV. If you have an interest in knowing what happened in the Armstrong 4 case where the Scientologists were granted summary judgment in 1995 please see the documents we have available here: http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a4/index.php
Also see, e.g., my opening brief filed in August1997 in my appeal from the Scientologists’ judgment:
There is a Triable Issue as to Duress
In his January 27, 1995 order on Scn’s first summary adjudication motion of certain causes of action of its complaint, Judge Thomas stated, regarding GA’s defense of having signed Scn’s SA because of duress, that GA’s own declaration shows that he did not execute the agreement under duress in that it shows he carefully weighed his options. Judge Thomas also stated that GA relied on the conduct of attorney Flynn, a third party, to establish duress, yet provided no evidence showing that plaintiff had reason to know of the duress. (CT 4236-9)
In his opposition to Scn’s second summary adjudication motion of its complaint GA provided evidence of Flynn’s being fair game and a target of many Scn attacks from 1979 until the settlement. (SS 1B, CT 8418-20) In that Scn was the source of the attacks which included some 15 lawsuits, bar complaints and framing with a check forgery, it is obvious that Scn knew of at least that aspect of the duress on Flynn. Scn also knew of all its own acts of fair game directed at GA up to that time, and at all the other settling parties. It goes without saying that the purpose of fair game in its many forms is to apply duress in its many forms to its designated targets. GA filed as part of his evidence declarations by several individuals who had knowledge of fair game. (Hana Whitfield, CT 7780-7887;see, e.g., 7788-91, 7808-27; Dennis Erlich, CT 7888-99 at 7891; Margery Wakefield, CT 7900-41 at 7903; Keith Scott, CT 7942-52 at 7945; Malcolm Nothling, CT 7953-9 at 7955, 7958; Jonathon Atack, CT 7960-8038, at 7962-4, 7977-80; Nancy McLean, CT 8939-49 at 40,1; Lawrence Wollersheim, CT 8052-216 at 8053-59, 8074-212)
That Flynn, GA and the other settling individuals were targets of fair game is also shown in the “settlement agreement” between Flynn and his clients, wherein is stated:
“We the undersigned, agree and acknowledge that many of the cases/ clients involved in this settlement…have been subjected to intense, and prolonged harassment by the Church of Scientology throughout the litigation… that [Flynn] or his firm’s members have been required to defend approximately 17 lawsuits and/or civil/criminal contempt actions instituted by the Church of Scientology against him, his associates and clients, that he and his family have been subjected to intense and prolonged harassment…” (CT 5486,7)
The idea that duress applied by a third party to a person to get him to sign a document cannot be ascribed to the party seeking the person’s signature is not supported by common sense. If an agent of a corporation holds a gun to the head of an attorney’s wife, and the attorney tells his client he must sign the corporation’s document or the attorney’s wife will be killed, although the corporate agent doesn’t know what the attorney says to the client, the agent and his corporation are still the source of and responsible for the duress on the attorney’s client. In this case, the threat of Scn continuing fair game to Flynn, his wife, family, law firm and clients was the gun held to all their heads. That Scn was holding its fair game gun to everyone’s head was the communication Flynn relayed to GA to get him to sign Scn’s document.
The nature of the SA itself is also an inference of duress since what attorney, but one under tremendous duress, would have his client sign such a document, knowing intimately the history of fair game by the organization who concocted it. It is clear that Flynn had, before presenting Scn’s SA to GA, already agreed to sign a contract to not represent or defend GA if GA was attacked in the future. Such a contract is illegal. What attorney, one as competent as Flynn, would allow his client to be so exposed and defenseless to future attacks, except an attorney under duress, or one thoroughly corrupted. There is too much evidence of duress to believe that Flynn was just corrupt.
The duress at the time of the settlement, contrary to how it might be viewed at first glance, is actually demonstrated by Scn’s continuing to fair game GA afterward. Tricking and lying to a designated target are parts of the basic fair game doctrine. CT 6934; SS 1A, CT 8412) Scn tricked GA into signing its document by lying about ceasing its attacks. This was acceptable Scn tactics because GA is designated an SP and hence fair game.
Duress is also evidenced by Flynn’s communications to GA throughout this litigation. Flynn has continually told him that he would like to help GA but that he is afraid to. Flynn signed a SA with Scn as well, and has refused to come forward throughout this litigation, despite telling GA that he “would be there for [him]” if he had any trouble with Scn after the settlement. (GA Declaration, 7/20/94 CT 2298) GA filed a declaration executed April 7, 1995 stating what Flynn would testify to if he were released by Scn from its contract with him. (CT 7678-83) Contracts which limit an attorney’s ability to practice or limit his clients are illegal.
In his order of October 6, Judge Thomas stated again that GA had not shown that Scn “was aware of Flynn’s purported duress of defendant.” (CT 8679) That is not the issue; the issue is Scn’s duress of Flynn, GA and everyone else involved. What Flynn stated to GA may be hearsay, but what Scn did over its years of attacks on Flynn and GA, and what it would continue to do if GA didn’t sign is the source of the duress.
Judge Thomas stated that “careful weighing of options” is completely inconsistent with an absence “of free exercise of [GA’s] will power” or his having “no reasonable alternative to succumbing.” That cannot be true. A person with a gun at his head may weigh his options just as carefully as a person with free exercise of his will. His options are, however, radically different. In this case, GA’s options were either sign Scn’s document or have Scn continue to threaten and attack his attorneys, their families, the 20 other people who wanted out from the threats and attacks, and himself. Also included in GA’s weighing of his options was Scn’s promise through Flynn that it would cease all its fair game activities against everyone. Flynn’s statements to GA that the SA’s prohibitions were not worth the paper they were printed on and unenforceable, although perhaps ultimately true, are also reflective of duress, and were also part of GA’s weighing of his options. Some people carefully weigh things; some people don’t. It is the nature of the options being weighed, carefully or not, which is the true indicator of duress. Judge Thomas did not examine GA’s options. These are options which must be examined by the trier of fact.6
I presented my facts and argument as I understood them at the time in a report to the US Department of Justice in 2004, which is in the form of a sworn declaration. I did not have all the evidence I now have of the Justice Department and the IRS’s participation in the conspiracy against rights. I have excerpted a section here, but also urge you to read the whole report.
- If Congress has made a law that now makes it possible for people to be prohibited in the free exercise of religion, Congress did so in violation of the “free exercise clause” of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and without repealing or amending the First Amendment. It is, obviously, inconceivable that the framers and ratifiers of the First Amendment had in mind in 1791 a qualifier to the Amendment that would allow churches or religions to use the U.S.’s secular courts to prohibit people, with $50,000 liquidated damages penalties, from discussing God, Christ, Christianity, the Bible, other Christian texts, and the person’s Christian beliefs, experiences and knowledge, and send people to jail if they refused to stop discussing these religious subjects. The First Amendment, of course, states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. 7
- It is also inconceivable that the framers and ratifiers of the First Amendment had in mind an exception that would allow a new “religion,” or a noxious cult, two hundred years later to use the U.S.’s secular courts to prohibit someone, on penalty of $50,000 in liquidated damages, from discussing that new “religion’s” “source,” “ecclesiastical head,” “scriptures,” and the person’s religious beliefs, experiences and knowledge in that “religion.” If it has become lawful for Scientology to use the U.S.’s secular courts to prohibit the free exercise of religion, by prohibiting a person’s discussion of the religion and his religious beliefs, experiences and knowledge, whereas it would be absurd, outrageous, impossible and unlawful for a Christian church to use the secular courts to prohibit the free exercise of religion, by prohibiting a person from discussing God, Christ, Christianity, the Bible, other Christian texts, and the person’s Christian beliefs, experiences and knowledge, then by this favoritism and special privilege conferred on Scientology to so prohibit the free exercise of religion, Congress must have made a law, in violation of the First Amendment, which effectively establishes Scientology as the U.S. State Religion.
- Since the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was important enough to be framed and ratified, to have survived for over two hundred years, and to have guided the U.S. Government’s conduct and the conduct of its citizens all those years, every citizen would have a right, pursuant to the same First Amendment, to discuss either the new “Scientology law” that creates exceptions to the establishment and free exercise clauses, or, if no such law exists, to discuss Scientology’s assault on the First Amendment and the organization’s efforts to create such exceptions. This right to speak about the new “Scientology law” or Scientology’s assault on the First Amendment would necessarily involve a right to discuss the identify, nature, teachings, doctrines, policies, practices and personnel of the entity for which the new “law” was created or which is executing the First Amendment assault. This right to speak about the entity for which the new “law” was made or which is assaulting the First Amendment would naturally extend, and even particularly extend, to the person or persons who would be most affected and whose rights would be most endangered by such new “law” or assault.
- If Scientology is being granted this special right to prohibit a person from discussing the organization’s source, leader and teachings and the person’s beliefs, experiences and knowledge in Scientology, which right would never be granted to, e.g., a Christian church, because Scientology is not really “church” and not really a religion, it is not really organized for “religious purposes,” and its writings really are not “scriptures,” then Scientology’s representations that it is a “religion” organized for “religious purposes,” and that its writings are “scriptures,” are fraudulent. Even if, however, Scientology is a global religious fraud, it would still be lawfully impermissible to prohibit a person from discussing the fraud, its creator, its operation, its literature and the person’s beliefs about the fraud, his experiences in and with the fraud, and his knowledge of the fraud. Prohibiting a person from communicating about a fraud, and punishing him for communicating about a fraud, would still constitute a violation of 18 U.S.C. §241.
- That all of the “settlement contract’s” “beneficiaries,” in addition to being co-conspirators in their organization’s conspiracy to deprive me of my rights in violation of 18 U.S.C. §241, are also knowing participants in a gargantuan religious fraud is shown by the fact that this conspiracy is a willful, flagrant violation of their own “Creed of the Church of Scientology,” which states in pertinent part:
We of the Church believe:
That all men of whatever race, color, or creed were created with equal rights; That all men have inalienable rights to their own religious practices and their performance; That all men have inalienable rights to their own lives; That all men have inalienable rights to their sanity; That all men have inalienable rights to their own defense; That all men have inalienable rights to conceive, choose, assist or support their own organizations, churches and governments; That all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others; …
And that no agency less than God has the power to suspend or set aside these rights, overtly or covertly. 8
- In truth, as Scientology’s “settlement contract” proves beyond any doubt, every director, officer, employee, representative, volunteer, agent and attorney of every Scientology corporation, organization, group or affiliated entity is bound by “contract” to violate each of these creedal precepts, even if such a creed violation also constitutes a violation of 18 U.S.C. §241 for which each co-conspirator could be sentenced to up to ten years in U.S. Federal prison. On the other hand, I refuse to participate in their criminal conspiracy, indeed by law I am obligated to refuse to so participate, and I refuse to violate any of these creedal precepts. Since a “creed” is a doctrinal formula intended to define what is held by a church or religion as true and essential and to exclude what is held to be a false belief, it is clear that I am by creed more of a Scientologist than any of those directors, officers, employees, representatives, volunteers and agents of every Scientology corporation, organization, group or affiliated entity who comprise the “contract’s” “beneficiaries.”
- Even if a person had completely left Christianity and forsworn its creed, he could not lawfully be prohibited by a Christian church from discussing God, Christ, Christianity, the Bible, other Christian texts, or his Christian beliefs, experiences and knowledge, because, among other reasons, he could decide to reconvert to his former religion at any time. Thus, even if I had completely left Scientology, and even forsworn its “creed,” which clearly I have not, because the organization calls itself a “religion,” I could not lawfully be prohibited from discussing Scientology, its “scriptures,” other writings about the “religion,” the “religion’s” founder Hubbard, its “ecclesiastical head” Miscavige, and my Scientology-related religious beliefs, experiences and knowledge, since, among other reasons, I could decide to reconvert to Scientology at any time. For the free exercise of religion to exist at all, citizens would have to retain the absolute right to freely leave and reconvert to any religion as many times and as often as they chose.
- Because Scientology has chosen to call itself a “religion,” the “churches,” organizations, corporations, groups, entities, and individuals comprising the Scientology “religion” have necessarily given up any right to prohibit or control the practice or exercise of the “religion,” except on their own premises and among the members of their own, wholly controlled “churches,” organizations, corporations, groups or entities. It would be ridiculous of a Christian church to attempt to prohibit a person from practicing or exercising the religion of Christianity, because he could simply go to any number of other Christian churches that are not under the control of the prohibiting church.
- It is equally ridiculous of this one Scientology “church,” the “contracting” “Church of Scientology International,” and all of the other “beneficiaries” of the “settlement contract,” no matter how many of them there are, to prohibit me from practicing or exercising Scientology, because I do not need any of them to do so. I can practice or exercise Scientology by myself, with any group, organization or “church” I form to be able to do so, or with any Scientologist or Scientology group, organization or “church” already not under the control of these “beneficiaries.”
- Since a person cannot lawfully be prohibited from converting, reconverting or re-reconverting to Christianity, or lawfully prohibited by one Christian church from attending any or all of the other churches in the world, or lawfully prohibited from practicing or exercising Christianity, he could not lawfully be prohibited from discussing God, Christ, Christianity, the Bible, other Christian texts, or his Christian beliefs, experiences and knowledge, since he would have to be able to discuss these things just to participate at all in the Christian religion. Likewise, a person cannot lawfully be prohibited from converting, reconverting or re-reconverting to Scientology, since it calls itself a “religion,” or lawfully prohibited by this set of Scientology “beneficiaries” to a “contract,” from practicing or exercising Scientology, and consequently he could not lawfully be prohibited from discussing Hubbard, Scientology, its “scriptures,” other writings about the “religion,” Miscavige, and the person’s Scientology-related religious beliefs, experiences and knowledge, because he would have to be able to discuss these things just to participate at all in the Scientology religion.
- Because of human beings’ innate desire for religious liberty, which was a major factor in the early settlement of the U.S., and which the framers and ratifiers of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution certainly recognized, it is natural, and almost inevitable, that the hypothetical Christian parishioner who was conned and threatened by his hypothetical Christian church into signing a “contract” that prohibited him from discussing Allah, Mohammed, the Koran or Islam, would, even just because of that proscription, search out people with whom to discuss these prohibited subjects, and discuss them.
- Because of the same innate desire for religious liberty, it is natural and inevitable that the hypothetical person prohibited by the hypothetical Christian church’s “contract” from discussing God, Christ, Christianity, the Bible, other Christian texts, or his Christian beliefs, experiences and knowledge, would risk being assessed $50,000 per utterance in liquidated damages penalties, and risk being jailed and fined, to exercise his religious freedom and discuss these “contractually” prohibited subjects. There have in fact been Christians in recent years who have chosen to discuss these subjects in repressive third world countries where the Christians knew such discussions could be punishable with execution.
- It was therefore natural, and, God being What He is, inevitable that, out of my own God-given desire for religious liberty, and a growing understanding of what religious liberty is, brought about in no small part by my “religious” persecution at the hands of the Scientologists and their agents, I would come to discuss and speak out about the very subjects the organization sought, by “contract” and extrajudicial fair game, to prohibit me from discussing. It was also natural, God-given and inevitable, since, after leaving Scientology, I had been brought to reconvert to Christianity, that I would be brought to speak out about Hubbard’s and Scientology’s anti-Christian teachings. Because such a reconversion is entirely in God’s Hands and cannot be predicted by terrestrial hominids, and because what God will call a person to do as a Christian is also entirely in His Hands, it is not rational to try by “contract” to proscribe that conversion or what the convert will be called to do, and such a “contract” cannot be lawfully enforceable because it necessarily proscribes the free exercise of religion.9
If it is lawful to judicially prohibit citizens from mentioning their religious beliefs or religious experiences, then it must also be lawful to judicially compel what citizens must say about their religious beliefs or religious experiences, and judicially compel their religious activities. So Muslims could create a contract that compelled their small children to remain Muslims, praise Allah, pray five times daily, and go to the mosque every Friday for the rest of their lives. If the children disobeyed, the Muslims get a court order, and a warrant, and the County Sheriff drags the child off to jail. Fortunately, such a contract is still lawfully judicially unenforceable.
Although comparable to the Nazis’ judicial treatment of Jews and the American Whites’ judicial treatment of Black Slaves, there is a significant difference in the Scientologists’ judicial treatment of me. In the Nazi period, the enslavement and punishment of Jews was lawful by the Nazis’ laws. During the slavery period in the US, enslaving and punishing Blacks was lawful by US laws. But the Scientologists’ enslavement and punishment of me is not lawful by US laws. The Scientologists and their collaborators claim their orders against me are lawful, and act as if they are lawful. But they know that not only are their orders unlawful, but they are evil and indefensible.
US officials also know that the Scientologists’ court orders and conspiracy against me are unlawful and shameful, and that the US’s participation against me with the Scientologists is also unlawful and shameful. The evidence to date leads me to the conclusion that key, powerful US Federal Government officials, just like the Scientology hierarchy with whom they interface, enjoy victimizing people. Like the Scientologists, they’re enthusiastic or in action doing evil to good people. Like the Scientologists, they do most of their evil in secret. That is the message of the IRS’s deal with the Scientologists, and what has to be confronted. It’s a game to them.
Notes
- From ESMB: http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?32262-The-Suppressive-Doctrine-on-Trial-Opening-Statement-by-Gerry-Armstrong/page14 #137 ↩
- From Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th edition. (1979) West Publishing. ↩
- From http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/02/27/a-duty-to-disobey-all-unlawful-orders/ ↩
- Letter to Mark Rathbun http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archives/297 ↩
- Letter to Dan Sherman: http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archives/1082 ↩
- Appellant’s Opening Brief http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a4/3100.php ↩
- From Bill of Rights http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html#amendment ↩
- Creed http://www.scientology.org/world/worldeng/corp/creed.htm ↩
- From Armstrong 8 Complaint report http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/a8/complaint-rpt-doj-2004-02-16.html ↩