By David Tulis
I have a driver’s license. So do you. So why my interest in that user of the road who refuses to obtain a driver’s licenses from the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security?
Why do I care about him and spill ink on his behalf? Because they are defenders of the free market and of the right of self-propulsion and the right to travel. The right to travel and the right of movement I lump together, though one appellate court ruling in Tennessee intends to separate them. The right of moving from Point A to Point B, either within the state or out, is a property right. I understand it as inhering to you as a citizen of a free state, that being Tennessee (despite 150 years of obscurantism of our rights under federal “supervision.”)
The defenders of the right to use the public road as a matter of right, and not by permission as a matter of privilege, interest me greatly and are an encouragement. Transportation is an area over which constitutionalists and so-called patriots have long fought.
A 1997 case in Tennessee says the right to travel is not the right of locomotion, that the two are distinct. The right to travel is constricted to relocating your home from one address to another, with the intention to reside. Middle Tennessee lawyer Stan Pierchoski says the Booher case by the court of appeals in Nashville is conclusive; my own doubts remain in having studied that decision.
The main argument of “free drivers” is that they are not in commerce and are exercising constitutional rights of innocent movement that injures no one and is not for profit. The main argument of the state is that the licensure apparatus is required because motoring affects the public health, safety and welfare. As it causes injury and death, it has to be regulated. Using a car is not free and not a right, but a privilege for which one must make application and pay fees. The apparatus operates under police powers, and requires an application for a benefit, which puts the jurisdiction of the driving concession in equity, or in commerce. Once the activity is in equity, or in commerce, constitutional rights are irrelevant.
Today I offer an interview that lets you listen your way into this subject. Rob Wornell lives in Mobile, Ala., and has worked as a recruiter in the energy sector. He is 38, married, his wife Cory working at a university mental health office under the BP oil spill settlement. He variously in houses and on sailboats, and is looking for work in the paralegal field. Rob has been in court 11 times. He says he’s had nine wins, one loss and one case in Texas that has been in the court of appeals for three years without issue.
His remedy to attacks by state actors: Use your state’s uniform administrative procedures act to force government to “exhaust its administrative remedies” in processing errant motorists who have fallen into their police patrol traps and whom are being charged with either driving on expired licenses or driving without a license.
This phone interview, the two parts of totaling 50 minutes, explains the main premise of the free market in motorcar operation. Mr. Wornell says he refuses to apply for a license because he is not operating in commerce and is not using the highways for profit, unlike truckers and carriers whose profit comes from the tarmac and its commercial use. Generally, a privilege is when a right is dnied to exist, is seized by the state, which allows people to exercise that activity through its regulatory system. What once was a right is now a privilege, and it is made illegal to perform that act apart from state licensure and payment of fees.
Mr. Wornell’s essay “To travel by right, defy citation under administrative procedures act” is the most-read post on this website. My interest as editor is in local economy, free markets and the genius of Christianity to bring order, lubrication and grace to the marketplace. The depth of interest in this material does not distract me from other topics, but suggests an abiding interest among Americans for ancient liberties we have surrendered to the total surveillance and caretaker state. I bring up the issue — and bring Mr. Wornell to you — in an effort to get more people to say “NO” to the state and its agents. If I want them to say no to roadside interrogations by cops and to demands to search the trunks, I have a duty to suggest remedies.
A word about UAPA. Tennessee’s uniform administrative procedures act is Tennessee Code Annotated 4-5-101. To find it online at LexisNexis, just google “Tennessee code” and it’ll pop up. Bureaucracies have refined this byzantine area of American law, the law internal to a given agency. Agencies have internal courts run by administrative law judges where cases are tried by these officers who are judge and jury. Verdicts within an agency are appealable to a real court, a judicial setting either in state or federal jurisdiction. Mr. Wornell and his friends across the country have hurled back upon the state a demand. The officers demands one’s license. They go to the antecedent point to this power: The point where they, allegedly, are ordered to get a driver’s license when they put their four tires onto the public roadway. They insist the state prove jurisdiction over them in their claim that they are in commerce and that they have to have driver’s licenses to ride their cars.
David Tulis hosts Nooganomics.com on Hot News Talk Radio 1240 AM in Chattanooga, a show that airs 1 to 3 p.m. weekdays and covers local economy and the free market. A deacon at Brainerd Hills Presbyterian Church, he is married and the father of four children.
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Mr. Kiesche, tootling about in auto, insists not ‘driving a motor vehicle’
Judges’ trick on ‘right to travel’ defied by hard-of-hearing motorists
Preserving your rights in city court; judge fields my odd liberty queries
1997 Tenn. case says you have right to travel, but not by car
You can travel by foot, but if you are going to drive then it should be — and is — regulated by the state, unless you are on your own private property. The public via state government will decide the laws and rights that are not specifically guaranteed in the U.S. constitution (10th amendment).
I have a question regarding liability while in commercial transport services. I have heard it said that if you are transporting something commercially on public roads, and an accident happens and you’re involved, you’re liable for everything even if you didn’t cause it.
I think it should be that you are only liable for what you caused. The rationale for being completely liable is the idea that if you hadn’t been there, the accident wouldn’t have happened. Supposedly, then, you didn’t have to be there. But if you are in commercial service, you are providing service for someone else, plus you are earning a living for yourself. Both of these things are necessary for both you and the person you’re serving to provide for yourself, and you certainly have a right to provide for yourself and pay others to provide for you.
Therefore, some vehicles absolutely NEED to be on the road. So going back to the argument that the accident wouldn’t have happened had you not been there, actually, you can’t NOT be there. You NEED to be there. And the other guy, who violated the traffic laws and caused the accident is the one who should be liable.
Focus in on the driving license issue/problem so as to see the big over all picture of this matter. Fine tune the focus till you see that driving a motor vehicle on the road is a “PREIVILEGE”. Focus in a bit more and what you see is this issue is dealt with administratily and not leagaly..Little if any DUE PROCESS OF LAW, NO PROBABLE CAUSE, A JURY TRIAL FOR SHOW PURPOSES ONLY, GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT and so on. Now you can begin too see the big picture. Here you have what you can call a HEAD ON COLLISION with what is known as GOVERNMENTAL EXPEDIENCY. Included in this big picture is millions of drivers and millions of autos. Wrecked cars by the thousands, thousands of people being killed, millions of dollars in property damaged and so on. Some things that aggrevate this problem is, you can sell your liability to a insurence company. And then to help out the GOVERNMENTAL EXPEDIENCY scheme pay the government bureaucrat a few dollars, sometimes more that a few dollars so you can buy your way out of any problem you might have caused. What you see here is MONEY. Pay off the administrater and everything is hunky- dorry again. What do you think might happen if you could not sell your liability and was responsible for your own actions? What do you think would happen if instead of paying off a government bureaucat you had to answer to the LAW for damages you caused? The way I see it is the government is the number 1 cause of all the bad things that happen on our roads and highways. But hey the government is making millions and millions off of the bad things happening on our roads. Cut off the governments ill gotten gaines, making people more responsible for their own actions and watch our roads and highways become more safe to drive on.Make driving a vehicle a privilege is nothing more than helping the governmental expedienct scheme a cash cow for the government.
Sovereignty, is that a law? Is there more than one sovereign? Is man sovereign? Is law sovereign? If man is sovereign we are ruled by man. Is law sovereign? Whos law? What law? Can’t be man made law unless man is sovereign. Man made law is law made under the theory that there is no higher source of law than man. Sovereignty means, the highest authority/no higher auhtority. Tell me how this is relivent to the issue of drivers license. The law of Driver License is man made administrative law. Administrative law is like all other kinds of law including Constitutional law. It can’t be used to deny people their inalienable rights.The BILL OF RIGHTS, a part, of the 1870 Tennessee Constitution; Article 11 sec. 16: “The declarations of rights hereto prefixed is declared to be a part of the Constitution of the state and shall never be violated on any pretense whatever. And to guard against transgression of the high powers we have delegated we declare that everything in the bill of rights contained is excepted out of the general powers of the government and shall forever remain inviolate”. If the government operates on the fact that when you volunteered to make application for the drivers license you waived any and all protection the bill of rights guaranteed you the government violated your constitutional rights. …” and forever remain inviolate!!! There can be only one sovereign.If you want to be ruled by law you will be ruled by God and God’s law. A higher authority than man. The administrative law is used for one purpose. Governmental expedience. The government and the people are two different things. The government is not the people and the people is not the government. Will “WE THE PEOPLE” ever take back our government? What is the remedy for the governments abuse of expediency against WE THE PEOPLE?