Rope Climbing
By Anna Von Reitz
Back during the Kennedy Administration there was a big push to promote physical fitness and even a program to distribute Presidential Awards to young people who met and exceeded certain fitness goals. Virtually every school in the country had one of these fitness programs and tests that went with it, and so, you find me as an eighth grader perched tenuously on the knotted end of a large rope, staring up at the gym ceiling probably twenty feet above my head.
It looked like twenty miles.
With despair in my heart, I watched Terry Bonneville, one of our local gifted athletes, scamper up the rope like a Rhesus Monkey, so nimble and quick about it that I envisioned a grand career for her in the navy, the circus, or alpine rescue. Then, with a flourish, she slid down the rope with an easy swoop to the end of the rope and hopped off the knot, landing straight as a pin. Just a tiny bit flushed.
I was still staring up at the ceiling, trembling. But I gathered my courage and reached upward for the next handhold and slowly, maybe four inches at a time, clenched my teeth, bruised my feet, and clung on for dear life ----and true to form, like an inch-worm, grimly kept my focus on the ceiling.
My classmates laughed themselves sick. When I finally got to the ceiling, and despite Terry's fine demonstration, I had no idea how to get down. There ensued a frantic conversation with the gym teacher, and if possible, my even more agonizing descent back down the rope began.
Now, instead of maybe four inches, I was making progress an inch at a time, and every time I let go, it felt like I must certainly go tumbling to the polished wood gym floor so infinitely far below.
By this time a very large crowd had gathered.
Not only my classmates but a really large audience from the school cafeteria, too. I was sweating profusely, red-faced, and every time I inched down another click, my butt bulged out of my gym shorts as I tried to adjust to my new position on the rope.
I stared hopelessly at my short skinny forearms. If God had intended me to climb ropes...
The laughter was no longer a dull roar. The mere sound of all those people laughing at me was overwhelming by itself, but instead of trying to quiet the riot, the gym teacher was convulsed, too, clutching her ribs and her muffin-top belly like she'd never seen a scholar climb a rope before.

I forgot momentarily or never knew that you technically didn't have to climb the rope. This was all voluntary, like Federal Income Taxes. Technically, all you had to do was make a good-faith effort to jump on the knot.
I hung there paralyzed between heaven and hell, clenched around that rope like a python. Inch by inch by inch I made it down. When my feet finally touched the big knot at the end of the rope, I just hung there gasping for a full thirty seconds, dimly thinking I might live after all, too exhausted and disoriented to even drop the rest of the way to the floor, listening to the laughter still breaking out in guffaws and giggles.
Finally, I launched off the knot and landed with no grace at all on the tiny padded mat, still clinging to the rope with one hand to prevent a total collapse in front of my friends and detractors.
The whole school, some 130 students and the Principal, had gathered for The Unannounced Event. Plus the Guidance Counselor. Plus the gym teacher, still red-faced and with eyes wet from tears of laughter. I was completely drenched, soaking wet, in sweat. I could feel the back of my gym suit smacked flat to my skin, fore and aft.
I didn't even think about the fact that I had actually made it back to Earth again.
I certainly didn't expect what came next, when all those people who had been laughing so uproariously went silent, nor was I prepared when they started clapping. I was so dazed I didn't realize that I had suddenly merited all this adulation and looked back over my shoulder to see who they were clapping for. Terry Bonneville wasn't anywhere in sight. I was confused.
No amount of applause would ever convince me that this was a good experience, but in a way, it was. It taught me a lot about myself, about the strength of my determination and ability to persevere, and also a lot about human nature. People often laugh at you and then end up cheering. Not that you do whatever it is for their applause.
All over this country, people are rope climbing -- not physically rope climbing, but intellectually and spiritually rope climbing as they come to grips with what has happened to their churches, schools, and government.
I hear the Prophet Isaiah's voice saying, "If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all." (Isaiah 7: 9b)
The predatory courts still caught up in their endless quest to collect war reparations that are not owed by the people standing in front of them, still wrapped up in the delusions of a long-dead and illegal Mercenary War, imagining that we are Enemies and they are Victors, still continue to misaddress American civilians on a daily basis.
The basics of the situation come down to this--- your public employees have occupied your country. They have no authority and no contract to do this. When they misaddress you and entrap you into their courts, what do you do?
1. You make sure that before you say anything that it is on the court record, by asking if it's on the record, and you bring as many Witnesses with you as you can.
2. You ask, "Where is the contract obligating me to obey you? Bring it forward, if it exists." They don't have a contract with you, but they will probably cite some State of State Constitution or Statute, some County Code or other legislative doggerel.

3. You ask, "Where is my signature on any of that?" They may try to put a front on it and invite a conversation about Social Contracts. You listen politely.
4. You say, "I am not a member of the City or the District, and there is no evidence otherwise before this court. I do not wish to be impersonated or misaddressed by anyone."
In some cases they might bring car registrations or copies of other documents you did sign -- in which case you mildly observe, "I was misinformed and coerced to sign that under color of law and conditions of deceit and non-disclosure." And then you clam up and give them nothing more to discuss.
There will be an eerie silence if you have a competent court. If not, they will push their way onward, and try to sentence you or fine you or so whatever they were told to do according to their instructions. But if they do that, you fall silent, too, waiting to appeal.
I have done this many times and so have many others. In all but one case we have never had to go to appeal court, and the one time that happened, it came back against the lower court with extreme prejudice. The cases vanish and sometimes the whole courts shut down and lock the courthouse doors. Vanished overnight.
The thieves flee the light.
This is because they have no valid contracts; the two valid contracts they could have with the People of this country, The Constitution of the United States of America and The Constitution of the United States, they have evaded and dishonored.
The sword of truth and the perseverance of the people prevails as inexorably as my slow progress coming back down that rope. It may be slow, it may be painful, but the safety of the solid ground awaits you, and a life lived in freedom, too.
By ninth grade I could prove that the rope climb was voluntary. I sat on the bleachers and smiled. Even the good faith effort to jump on the knot was voluntary.
Freedom from harassment. Freedom from forced registrations. Freedom from foreign taxation. Freedom from unsought citizenship obligations. Freedom from racketeering.
Freedom, sweet freedom that our forefathers fought for, not mere liberty.
Yes, freedom and a country where every American sleeps snug in his bed and our schools teach science instead of political dogma, where our newspapers provide useful news, where our religious institutions no longer live in fear of the government, and our health and safety is not undermined by commercial corporations trying to sell us solutions to the problems they have created.
Well, there's the knot, and there's the rope. We all have our Public Duty and our part to play.
Go to: www.TheAmericanStatesAssembly.net. Get started today.
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