Talk:Strawman theory

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BON has a comment

Don't necessarily believe these information bits, I am freely able to change these words, as are you, or anyone else. Strawman "theory" is a plausible scenrio, wherein our government has denied our capabilities to "pay" any debt by removing the gold standard, thus making our monies less valuable, as well as allowing them to create more out of "idealogical" money rather than tangible monitary goods. ^{— Unsigned, by: 67.182.244.20 / talk / contribs} 05:55, 25 July 2017

This is honestly a great example of crank magnetism. Strawman theory is true because we left the gold standard -- I love it. FᴜᴢᴢʏCᴀᴛPᴏᴛᴀᴛᴏ, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 11:16, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Some of the origins of the theory

Most people can see the need for 'corporate persons' and 'notional persons' as in eg the legal usage of 'the reasonable (wo)man' - and we have all come across 'X Bloggs trading as ABCD' and sole traders who have become limited companies as it is convenient; while most of us have our 'ordinary name' and 'the name we enter in the forms' (so Paddy Ashdown or 'Jeremy John Durham Ashdown.'

These people have extrapolated from such 'reasonable ideas' into illogical consequences. 86.146.100.41 (talk) 11:34, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Shouldn't this apply to lawsuits as well?

(wasn't sure how to title this.) Shouldn't this apply if a sovereign citizen or member of a similar group attempts to sue? If a believer in this nonsense (say, Kent Hovind) sues someone for defamation or something, they would have no legal right to sue that person because "KENT HOVIND" and "Kent Hovind" are legally seperate people, and thus "Kent Hovind" has not been wronged in any way. --151.188.137.191 (talk) 14:58, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Elaborating on the comparison to demonic possession

I just came up with what I think is a decent extension to the statement about demonic possession, but I need a second opinion. Here goes…

It has been observed that strawman theory shares parallels with demonic possession, serving essentially the same purpose — namely, a lame attempt to evade responsibility for anything a person doesn't want to deal with (such as criminal activity and its consequences). Instead of saying "I'm not responsible for that shit, the asshole spirit(s) hitching a ride on my soul and jerking it around like a puppet are", pseudolegal strawman advocates are saying "I'm not responsible for that shit, the imaginary persona that the government fabricated and attached to my identity is". (Obviously, rational people take both arguments equally seriously, e.g. not at all.)

Note that there is a citation after "demonic possession", but I took it out in this proposed extension for simplicity's sake. Anyways, what do you think of this? Any suggestions to make it better? --Luigifan18 (talk) 20:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

If you read the cited source, it says very similar things. Ioe bidome (talk) 20:49, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

That is not surprising. I personally think that improves the merits of including my statement (as a summarization of the citation if nothing else), but I'm still on the fence because I think it could be written a bit better than it currently is. --Luigifan18 (talk) 21:02, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Capitis deminutio

@Ioe bidome I… uh, I'm not sure what to think about you removing the paragraph on capitis deminutio. On the one hand, the direct connections between the Roman concept of capitis deminutio and the modern [pseudolegal mangling of] strawman theory are… tenuous at best; at best, it's like comparing a modern bird to a prehistoric dinosaur (you can see the similarities if you look for them, but saying that one is just like the other is absurd, especially when the dinosaur in question is, say, a brontosaurus or stegosaurus rather than a velociraptor or T-rex). On the other hand, if the legal concepts that pseudolaw practitioners mangle into strawman theory originated in the concept of capitis deminutio, then we ought to mention that and explain what it is and how it's relevant to modern law and pseudolaw. I don't want to say that you don't know what you're doing, since I don't believe that to be the case, but I do think a bit more caution should be exercised and the community should talk things over before removing a big chunk of an article like this. --Luigifan18 (talk) 18:26, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't think strawman theory originates directly from roman law. Rather, strawman theory promoters use an originally unrelated roman concept as "proof" of their claims.

I also found a source stating that strawman theory originated within the redemption movement. It does not mention capitis deminutio https://albertalawreview.com/index.php/ALR/article/view/2485 Ioe bidome (talk) 18:38, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

That's… kind of what I meant with "tenuous connections" and being more like comparing a stegosaurus to a modern bird (completely different body plan) than comparing a velociraptor to a modern bird (there is a very noticeable resemblance); that pseudolegalists don't know what they're talking about and will cite legal concepts that sound like whatever woo they're pushing, even when those legal concepts aren't actually related to the "legal theory" they're formulating. Pseudolawyers may claim that their strawman theory is descended from Roman law, but that doesn't automatically make it true if there's little to no actual connection. But then anyone trying to refute them would be well-off to actually know what the Roman law in question was actually about. --Luigifan18 (talk) 18:50, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I looked up pseudolaw and Capitis deminutio on the wikipedia library (requires an account to access), but found only one source, which doesn't discuss origins.Ioe bidome (talk) 19:26, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I looked up Capitis deminutio on wikipedia and found this beautiful piece of vandalism:

I add: When you got to court and your name is read off, if you agree that you are that person, then you voluntarily agree to represent the CORPORATION that the name refers to and are then subject to fines & imprsonment! You simply state that I am NOT JOHN DOE a corporation and I do not represent JOHN DOE in any regard! Britian, Canada and the US all follow Admiralty law, this is a BritishCommercial Venture, and we are US Citizens, we do not have to subject ourselves to the courts in such a regard!

Ioe bidome (talk) 17:23, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

There's moreIoe bidome (talk) 17:25, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Of course the freemen are on Wikipedia… 🙄 --Luigifan18 (talk) 18:16, 20 September 2024 (UTC)