About the Author

      I was born in Los Angeles and graduated High School in 1987.  By the time I graduated High School, I realized that information was being kept from me instead of being presented to me. This made me want to learn all I could about what was really going on in the world, politically. Figuring that I could do some good for a while, I went off to work for Greenpeace in the L.A. Office. I worked there for two years as a canvasser, which was enjoyable and this was my first experience with activism and what it takes to get things accomplished and changed.
      I attended a Grateful Dead show at Shoreline in 1990 and met Jack Herer for the first time. I told him that I had heard of his book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes, and that I was interested in reading it. I explained to Jack that I was short on money at the moment but would like to read it soon. To my surprise, Jack handed me a copy of his book and told me to go home and read it and bring him the payment next time I see him.  This indicated to me right away that Jack was serious about his activism. I read the book immediately and paid him for it at the next Grateful dead show just a couple months later. In January, 1991, Jack started a Hemp Marijuana Legalization drive to collect signatures to place the issue on the ballot that year. I volunteered and collected almost 4000 signatures, which I believe was the most for any single volunteer that year. Then, at the same time, I started a hemp / marijuana information booth on the Venice beach boardwalk to complement the existing two booths run by Jack and his organization of assistants.
      In 1994, we ran the next initiative in California for complete legalization. Again, I collected thousands of signatures for the initiative. Together, my girlfriend Ginger and I collected almost 4500 signatures from our booth on the Venice beach. After working two initiatives, I began to realize something very important about state ballot initiatives. Only a couple of initiatives that have been “volunteer” have made it onto the ballot in California. The reason for this is because there are not enough volunteers to go out and collect the signatures. There are more than enough people out there willing to sign the petitions.
      Alongside the information about cannabis, I had information on the “new world order” and secret societies. Many people didn’t understand why hemp was illegal and it wasn’t enough to just say, “it’s the corporations.” So, I taught real politics to people for several years on the beach and got a very good, but somewhat unenlightened response. This all changed however after the Oklahoma Federal Building bombing in 1996, and then it seemed like people started waking up to what was going on within our own government. Actually, people had been waking up for years, but this was what history would later call the “rise of the militia movement.”
      Around 1993, I was approached by a nice, clean cut, but hip person who asked me if I had ever heard of “sovereignty” or “State Citizenship,” to which I replied “no, what’s that?” This person, Jared Held proceeded to tell me about a class of people who drive around without licenses, who don’t have social security numbers, and who can grow all the pot they want without fear of the authorities. Well, it goes without saying that this interested me. This led me on a new pathway to freedom, along with studies on the new world order, I delved into law studies on contracts and Constitutional law and how the courts operate.
      This is also where things got really tricky.  Some people won, some people lost, but the one thing I learned was that there seemed to be no consistency. It could be up to the judge to give up and let you go or push to railroad you, depending on his or her mood that day. Well, I soon discovered that there was no such thing as a “class” of individuals that are “sovereign.”  I learned the courts do not respect anyone at all, and this was a big problem. Even if you are in the right, it doesn’t matter unless you can get someone to listen. But, along the way, I learned that there are instances where individuals have won, even facing tremendous odds, because they knew what they were doing. Some were “sovereigns,” some weren’t, but the one thing they had in common was a desire to be free and to win in the courts. The ones that walked out of court were truly “sovereign” and some of these people are studied in this book
      I went through a Prop. 215 defense and my case is cited here and explored as well. The judges and the prosecutors had nothing but contempt for the law. So, when someone tells me today that “sovereignty doesn’t work,” I respond, “neither do the lawyers or the system.”  Now, you just have to figure out what you trust more, your own intuition and the real common law or a lawyer’s lies.
      This book is a culmination of my learning and experiences along the road to Freedom.

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