Who will Win "UK Freeman of the Year" Award?

This spoof video (complete with laugh track...) is a good summary of the potential winners in the "UK Freeman of the Year" award -- those UK "Freemen" who were the most annoying, amusing, or generally absurd. For more details on all of them, see the appropriate Quatloos! forum.

Facebook Conspiracy Theories

Credit: "Know Your Meme"

In the last few posts we noted the views of conspiracy theorist / scammer Peter of England, the seemingly truly insane "Baron" David Ward. We noted previously the action of many other conspiracy theorist 'Freemen' and similar persons, who think there is a massive conspiracy to hide the fact the government has no power to tax them.

Conspiracy theorists can be dangerous: "freemen" like John Paterson, a vile antisemite who thinks everything he dislikes is the fault of the Jews, can (say many groups) engage in terrorism. He is mentioned here not because he is an antisemitic conspiracy theorist per se, but because sued JOHN PATERSON, his government strawman corporation, for 10 billion pounds. As is so often, the belief in one conspiracy (the 'strawman' and 'birth bond' ones) leads to belief in others (here, the perennial favorite 'Jews control the world'). What would Mr. Paterson do with the money, considering that it is all worthless fiat currency, is rather unclear. But at least the Jews won't have it, so that it some consolation.

As you can see, they all use Facebook to spread their beliefs. Why is Facebook (and similar social media) such a haven for conspiracy theorists? The main reason is confirmation bias. As one repeats lies or stories to oneself and only hears the same lies from similarly-minded people, no wonder it becomes a truth in one's eyes, and all contrary evidence is dismissed as "false flag misinformation" and the like.

The Internet and social media did not invent this phenomenon, of course, as every cult in history attests. Conspiracy theory belief is in fact much more prevalent than commonly supposed, with people all across the policial, ethnic, and educational spectrum believing in conspiracies.The difference being more, research shows, in the exact conspiracy believed in, but not in the conspiracy theory mindset itself. But with social media allowing direct "producer to consumer" (so to speak) spread of conspiratorial ideas, people can -- and do -- surround themselves only with those they agree with, those who know THE TRUTH(TM), and literally block out all dissenting information.

No wonder conspiracy theories on social media proliferate.

Inexplicable

Image Credit: Baron David Ward's Facebook page

Above is the passport of David Ward, who likes to call himself "Baron David Ward". Naturally he is one of those "sovereign citizens" who, of course, considers himself -- as a Baron -- immune to the law. Incidentally, there is a David Ward who really is a peer, the Earl of Dudley, and Barons and Peers are subject to the law, but never mind.

From what one can understand from his blog, he had freed himself from the evils of the illegal corporate UK government by sending a bunch of self-made documents to the Queen, she had not replied, and therefore he decided that he had "won" by forfeit and she admits all that he claimed to be in those documents.

This sort of thing is rather common among the sovereign citizens' movement -- both the declaration of being not subject to the law and the claim that if some authority figure had not replied to one's letters they "agree" to whatever the letters say about one's sovereignty, freedom from taxes, or whatnot.

But this one is even weirder than the usual. First of all he is the Baron "Off" the House of Ward "Off" the Warrington Burg. He claims to be dyslectic, but you'd think that he would at least check the spelling twice on such an important document. Also, the code at the bottom of his self-made passport appears to be, for some strange reason, a widely-pirated activation key for Office 2007. He also photoshopped himself as he wants the world to see him:

Sovereign Citizens' self-made documents and claims are often incoherent, but seldom like this.