Conversation with Alma Sommer – Surviving Domestic Violence in the Liberty Community

00:00:03:08 – 00:00:25:10
Catherine
Hi, everybody. This is Catherine Bleish Bonandin with Sovereignliving.com. And today we are doing a very special video with a very, very long term friend of mine. We haven’t done anything like this yet. So this is something unlike anything we’ve ever done through the homestead guru or sovereign living before. Because I do post these on the Homestead Guru channel.

00:00:25:12 – 00:00:58:11
Catherine
Many of you know from what I’ve been sharing on my blog, Sovereignliving.com, that I came out of a domestic violence situation and this was with a Liberty activist, somebody in our community, somebody who still to this day preaches freedom, liberty, sovereignty and makes money. Freedom sells. Your freedom sells. It’s very profitable to talk about freedom. But when it comes down to the practice of living free, our own community has not mastered it behind closed doors.

00:00:58:13 – 00:01:44:20
Catherine
And this is something that many women and men, but mostly women, are learning the hard way in these types of coercive control relationships, where the very things that we are rallying against, testifying against trying to change our lifestyle against in the mass societal level, it’s manifesting inside our homes, in the Liberty community. So this is a really important topic because I believe strongly that if we cannot figure out how to live as sovereign beings in loving relationships within the Liberty community itself, we cannot expect or ask the general population to do the same.

00:01:44:22 – 00:02:12:09
Catherine
So it is our responsibility to hold ourselves responsible and to hold our community responsible, so that we can make the changes that are needed to create freedom in our lifetime, so that our children can actually experience growing up in a world where liberty is a lifestyle and not just a talking piece that makes people money. So the guest I have today, her name is Alma Sommer, and she was with me through a lot of the really, really hard times in my relationship.

00:02:12:15 – 00:02:34:18
Catherine
In fact, I credit her for essentially saving my life. In 2016, I was living in an uncanny boarding school bus with no air conditioning, no running water, no toilet, and she found out about the conditions that I was being left in at the hands of a Liberty leader, and I was too ashamed to tell people what was going on.

00:02:34:18 – 00:02:57:17
Catherine
I was too embarrassed, I was humiliated, and I didn’t want anyone to judge him. That’s what I was protecting was him. And the meanwhile, I was living in abject squalor and poverty, and alma found out about the conditions I was living in, and she arranged a caravan of people from Arizona to Texas, and they helped me to fix up our bus.

00:02:57:17 – 00:03:21:06
Catherine
So we had flooring, we had a kitchen, we had a bathroom. We had air conditioning. We had all the basic essentials that somebody needs to live in a safe way. And for that I will be forever, forever grateful. And we stayed friends for a long time. And then something happened. She met a guy and I saw the warning signs because I was going down the road myself, and I tried to warn her.

00:03:21:06 – 00:03:37:09
Catherine
And what happened is he isolated her from me. And so she had to go down this path by herself. And we’re going to be talking about that today. So I want to start by welcoming you. Alma. Thank you for coming on, and thank you for all of your help and support throughout my life. I am so, so grateful.

00:03:37:09 – 00:03:42:17
Catherine
I will never be able to repay you for what you’ve done for my family.

00:03:42:19 – 00:04:18:10
Alma
That’s amazing. Introduction. You got me in tears already. Oh yeah. You know, like, I feel like ever since I. And you’re a part of the reason I realized I was an anarchist. Because in 2011, I came to the US and had heard about your speech the year before. In 2010, about how you got up on stage and won Soapbox Idol, and at the end was yelling, I’m an American!

00:04:18:12 – 00:04:21:04
Alma
I knew I wanted to be five words were.

00:04:21:06 – 00:04:24:07
Catherine
I think the exact words were I’m a motherfucking yeah.

00:04:24:09 – 00:04:27:22
Alma
Yeah.

00:04:27:23 – 00:04:56:19
Alma
And I just knew, like, I like from a woman’s perspective, just how powerful it is to have those feelings and to want things for the future. And, I mean, I didn’t even have kids until 2014. So, you know, we’ve known each other since pre kids and we wanted to create this environment, this future for them, even before we brought them into this world, knowing how things were going.

00:04:56:19 – 00:05:31:18
Alma
And it’s just it’s crazy. We did have a lot to learn. I like to kind of start off by saying that predators are attracted to freedom more than anyone, more than anyone, and it’s because they have an adverse reaction to authority, which is normal. I think what is happening in the beginnings of this liberty movement and boy, there’s so many puns there with that.

00:05:31:20 – 00:05:57:13
Alma
Is the women in the the anarchist women in the anarchist men are meeting each other. These events, some of them are definitely sociopaths or narcissists or psychopaths or just maybe raised in a really bad environment. There’s like all sorts of different levels to this. But what’s happening is they are meeting each other and the relationships are, transpiring and they’re procreating.

00:05:57:15 – 00:06:10:13
Alma
And when I think this is what I saw the most throughout my experience is that whenever I attempted to hold him accountable for his behavior. I was the enemy.

00:06:10:15 – 00:06:11:24
Catherine
Yeah.

00:06:12:01 – 00:06:42:01
Alma
And that is not at all how a partner should react when you are coming to them with something that is bothering you, something that hurt you, an experience you had that you don’t want to have anymore. You want things to be different. You want things to be better. You want things to be cleaner or whatever it is. They need to hear you and then come to a solution with you.

00:06:42:03 – 00:07:07:10
Alma
But what my experience ended up being was extreme retaliation, physical abuse. Yelling and screaming, threatening my life, wishing I aborted this unborn, this child, unborn child before my child was born.

00:07:07:12 – 00:07:41:11
Alma
Like, I never, in my life. I could bring myself to do something so awful. And then once you’re there, it’s so hard to get out of because they’re your only support. They’ve isolated you from everyone. They’ve damaged all of their relationships. They’ve burned bridges. They’ve screamed and yelled at other people the same that they’ve done to you or whatever, or they did something financially that ruined the relationship.

00:07:41:13 – 00:08:18:06
Alma
And there was like warnings about that, too. For me, that I probably should have heeded. But, you know, and a lot of people like I would say, I like I’m a believer in God, and a lot of people like atheist would see, like, why would a God like, let people suffer, you know, and the thing about suffering is, if you’ve never suffered in that way, you can’t relate to other people who have suffered in that way, and you can’t do anything to help them because you haven’t been through it.

00:08:18:06 – 00:08:49:02
Alma
And and a lot of people are like, you know, you can try, but a lot of people, when you’re able to relate with them, you’re able to help them so much more. And. This what is happening in society is so messed up. Like I knew to leave a long time ago. And when I did leave, I had a partner, who I was with for nine years, and we had two children together, and I’ve known him since I was 16 years old.

00:08:49:02 – 00:09:09:09
Alma
And we have a okay, relationship still outside of the system. I haven’t gone to court with him, but what happened with my youngest? With the man that I met in the anarchist movement. I don’t really need a I don’t feel like I need to talk about names of people. Want to message me privately and talk to me about it.

00:09:09:09 – 00:09:46:23
Alma
They can, but this is more I’m doing this more to help people get out of what I was in, because. It’s not okay to continue doing it, to continue supporting somebody with bad behavior who treats people like they’re below them and talks down to them and uses them and abuses them. And, you know, like, maybe this person is miraculously changed now after all this time and all these experiences.

00:09:47:00 – 00:10:11:01
Alma
Okay, so I’m going to put the benefit of the doubt out there. Just put it in the video. But my experience in January, after being out of this relationship for three years, was. I went to an event called School Palooza, and I dropped off my son in Flagstaff, and after a week, I asked for him to be returned to me.

00:10:11:01 – 00:10:38:02
Alma
And I’ve never been apart from him for longer than a week. And when I’m I’m asking for him to return him, he’s making up all of these reasons why he’s not going to meet with me anywhere and telling me that, our child shouldn’t be in this type of environment. It was camping. We were camping and just deciding to not bring him back to me.

00:10:38:04 – 00:11:03:15
Alma
And so I went up to Flagstaff to attempt to retrieve my son, and I was met with immediate violence. There was no conversation when I got there. He ignored the door for over ten minutes, saw my son in the window and called to him. He opens the door and my son comes to me and I hug him. I kneel down, I tell him I love him, I miss him.

00:11:03:17 – 00:11:32:12
Alma
I ask him if he wants to go with me. I slowly stand up and ask this man to get my son’s belongings, and he grabs my arm. No conversation at all. And and I have my son in my arms and he, grabs my arm and then he sweeps my legs out from under me. I’m still hanging on to my son, and he’s put his hands on my throat.

00:11:32:12 – 00:11:50:14
Alma
He’s trying to take him out of my arms. And and then he lets go and I’m screaming and I’m yelling for help. And his friend, his best friend jumps over the fence, enjoys it. And holding me down and choking me.

00:11:50:16 – 00:12:15:17
Alma
They get my son down my arms and they. He throws him in the house by one arm, not wearing a diaper anymore. It’s just got rid of him. This is horrible. Screaming and yelling and crying. My best friend is there with this he know full thing and she’s on the phone with 911.

00:12:15:19 – 00:12:43:04
Alma
He shut the door on our child and he’s just screaming in the door. And the cops show up and then separate everybody. And then one thing leads to another. He takes statements and they don’t transfer my son back to me in that moment. And now I want to go in to the most important thing a woman can do in this situation if they are not married, because there’s information.

00:12:43:04 – 00:13:11:05
Alma
I have learned that every woman not married situation needs to know if you have a child out of wedlock, you are the only legal parent to that child until you go through court and he proves paternity. If if he’s on the birth certificate, there is no father. You are the only legal person to that child.

00:13:11:07 – 00:13:34:19
Catherine
I do want to give one caveat. At least in Texas, I had children out of wedlock and the midwife had my ex-husband, who I later married, signed a certificate of paternity. So we never went to court. But when the baby was born, he signed a certificate of paternity. So there might be some caveats to this. I just want to make sure that’s fair.

00:13:34:19 – 00:14:03:04
Alma
So like if you’re in a situation where, it’s high conflict when you’re pregnant, like, he’s, you know, telling you you should kill yourself or you’re you, he doesn’t want you and the baby, you should give up the baby or whatever it is. The situation, that you’re in. If he if you aren’t married and you have that baby in a hospital, just like if he’s not there when it happens, he won’t be on the birth certificate.

00:14:03:04 – 00:14:37:05
Alma
So that is your situation? It’s common. More common than people would think. I think at this point. I know that there’s another Liberty activist, a man who helped mediate for us. He had a similar situation where when he had the child at the hospital, the family of the wife basically helped kick him out because he didn’t want the child, I think, to be vaccinated, or he was spouting off about something, and then the family was like, you need to get him out of your life or whatever.

00:14:37:05 – 00:15:01:09
Alma
And they basically, like, helped her get him out. And that’s why he was so willing to help. The, the male partner in this situation, which is another thing I’ll get I’ll get into that part later. But, also the second part of this, if you were in a domestic violence situation in the cop show up, you can ask them.

00:15:01:11 – 00:15:32:05
Alma
I guess they could refuse, but you can ask them to do an emergency order of protection for you and your child or whatever the situation is. The cops have the right to do an emergency order of protection, and nobody talks about this. Now, when my situation happened, I went and got all of the court paperwork that I would need to file for custody because I knew at this point that he was not going to stop physically assaulting me.

00:15:32:05 – 00:15:56:02
Alma
After all this time being on the relationship with him, he still wanted to put his hands on me. And like, there are men in this movement that are ignoring this, completely blowing it to the side. And they need this needs to be brought to attention because it’s not okay if they are going to let the mothers of this community go through things like this to support the men.

00:15:56:04 – 00:15:58:07
Alma
There is no community.

00:15:58:09 – 00:16:00:02
Catherine
I agree, and I.

00:16:00:02 – 00:16:00:13
Alma
Would like to.

00:16:00:19 – 00:16:24:22
Catherine
Point right here if it’s okay. I don’t mean to cut you off, but I think it’s really important that we need to know Tate right here. The Liberty community, the libertarian community, the anarchist community, the volunteer community as it stands today, which is November of 2024. There is no existing solution outside of the state for domestic violence.

00:16:24:24 – 00:16:51:01
Catherine
So if we want to live in a world where the state doesn’t exist, we need community solutions for this. Because I went to the community, I begged for help and I got the same response. Nobody wanted to be involved. Well, if nobody wants to be involved, what is a woman to do to protect herself and her children? What is there to do?

00:16:51:03 – 00:17:14:14
Catherine
And in my case, I had the state initiated on me first. Right? And so I was reacting through the state and people were telling me I wasn’t being a good anarchist because I was showing up to court. It’s like, do you not understand that once somebody initiates court action against you, they can literally take your children by the force of the state with guns and weapons?

00:17:14:16 – 00:17:37:05
Catherine
So if we want freedom in this broader sense, we have to take care of the women and children and if there is a mother coming to the community saying, I need help and the community does not help right now, as it stands, the only place to go for help is the state. And I did not do it soon enough and I screwed myself in not going.

00:17:37:07 – 00:17:59:23
Catherine
And what the judge said in my divorce was you never called the police, even though they were witnesses that my ex brought to court testifying about his violence against me and my children. They said you did not contact the state. He gets a fresh start. Let’s see how he does this summer. Okay, so I never went what all my did was the right thing.

00:18:00:00 – 00:18:27:10
Catherine
She did the right thing for herself and for her children. And I want to make that abundantly clear to anyone trying to say, is not being anarchist enough. Almost not being voluntary is enough. There is no solution, and a violent abuser is not being an anarchist or involuntary. Is there being a coercive controller? And the only way to protect yourself from coercive control is to get help from someone who is strong enough to remove that person from you if you can’t do it yourself.

00:18:27:15 – 00:18:48:06
Catherine
And in this instance, Emma was helpless and defenseless, and it was absolutely the right thing to do to call 911. And I wish I had called 911 at various times in my situation. I never did and it was a mistake. So I want to make that really clear to everybody that if we want to live in a free society, women and children need to be prioritized.

00:18:48:10 – 00:19:10:24
Catherine
And when there is a woman coming to the community saying we have a serious problem, ignoring it and shoving your head in the sand doesn’t help anything, and it does not continuous on the path toward freedom in our lifetime. In fact, it sends us in the other direction and it justifies the existence of the state. Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off, but I just needed to make that point.

00:19:11:01 – 00:19:41:19
Alma
No, it’s not all in like part of, you know, being in cop lock was like, you know, not a women of cop walk or ladies of cop walk or whatever, you know, it was like not calling the cops to handle our situations and figuring out things on our own. Well, you know, a jackalope, a 2021, my life was threatened by my child’s father, and a group of men in the community had to surround him.

00:19:41:19 – 00:19:49:17
Alma
Multiple times, and he was never asked to leave.

00:19:49:19 – 00:20:21:15
Alma
And then he did DMT and met God and was, like, willing to work with me without threatening my life. But then later, months later, told me in a baby meetup that he was going to torment me. I focused and he bought a one way ticket to Float Fest and did just that. Came and grabbed the baby out of the stroller without communicating with me.

00:20:21:15 – 00:20:46:15
Alma
I wanted mediation, multiple, people from the community did have to get involved, and that was actually probably the best situation I ever had. And a turnout with him, because Kingsley’s best friend was a cop. He grew up with them, and he was there at the event attending the event. He’s a Liberty activist, but he’s a cop.

00:20:46:17 – 00:21:09:11
Alma
And he called local law enforcement who then came and witnessed this man hold our son in his arm, screaming and yelling at the top of his lungs. And other other anarchists witnessed lots of anarchists witnessed the situation. And at this point, it was.

00:21:09:13 – 00:21:11:23
Catherine
Like 30 minutes after it happened.

00:21:12:00 – 00:21:40:11
Alma
And it was law enforcement who, well, he was trespassed. So they followed him to get his things, and then he left and eventually turned over our son to his sister, who gave him back to me because he had no ride. He had nowhere to go. He had nowhere to stay. He literally came there just to torment me, and then later admitted it in a mediation between me and him and another activist who was helping mediate.

00:21:40:13 – 00:22:00:12
Alma
And this guy was just like, well, that’s not the right thing to say. And I’m like, that’s not the right thing to say. Like, that’s what he told them. Like, that was him. That was like, no, dude, this guy threatened he was going to torment me and came and tormented me and my son, and now has done it as recently as January last.

00:22:00:13 – 00:22:27:06
Alma
This year, it’s been almost a year since I’ve gone through this now, and I currently have an order of protection for me and my older two kids, Leo and Tate. And this is the first time in three years that I have felt somewhat free of him and having to interact with him, and every Sunday I do a child exchange at a police station with the civil standby.

00:22:27:08 – 00:22:44:18
Alma
Cop holds my son Pan every Sunday, and this is the son that I had unassisted. No government forms. I did everything to keep him out of the system.

00:22:44:20 – 00:23:13:22
Alma
And he just drops the suit. Two weeks later, he filed a separate civil suit, trying to own our son in a trust as an equitable asset. So I recently found out that back in March, when the judge ordered him to pay the lawyer fees on that separate civil case, it was also dismissed. Okay. So that case is dismissed and it’s amazing news.

00:23:13:24 – 00:23:42:03
Alma
I’m so grateful. I don’t know why. Like, I was confused. I thought he just ordered him to pay the fees. I never saw the document and I accidentally brought it up to him in a conversation because he’s asking to take our son to Philadelphia for the at the end of this month or a week, because we now have this court order 5050, which he and the whole court, the whole court thing is a whole nother conversation going through what happened in court.

00:23:42:03 – 00:24:12:04
Alma
You know, it gets like you get really into it, you know, and it was months in court and he represented himself. And I got a lawyer spend thousands of dollars on a lawyer. And I’m sure he loves hearing, but I’m just really grateful that the other separate civil case, the judge ordered him to pay those lawyer fees and stop that because I’m sorry, but yeah, my family court judge gave this whole speech about how you can’t own a child as a slave or, chattel or whatever.

00:24:12:04 – 00:24:39:07
Alma
And I was like, okay. But then when we went to the actual hearing and did all the court stuff, like he was highly manipulative in court, especially being able to experience with that. Yeah, yeah. And I’m everyone is going to and it is important to talk about because like, I think you and I have an opportunity to help women who are about to go into the court.

00:24:39:09 – 00:24:40:05
Alma
You know, we have. Yeah.

00:24:40:05 – 00:25:07:20
Catherine
And, you know, if I could make a note on that, I want to say that I functioned in complete naivete until very recently. I would say 2024. And my court situation started in 2019. I left my ex in 2017. And, we ended up in the court system in 2019. Because I believed him, I believed him, I believed he didn’t want our children in the system.

00:25:07:20 – 00:25:26:21
Catherine
Much like you. I did everything I could to keep my children out of the system. We had a home birth with a midwife. We didn’t sign birth certificates. My children were baby boy and baby girl blemish on their birth certificate that the midwife submitted to the state. They were they were protected. Their names were protected from the state.

00:25:26:23 – 00:25:51:12
Catherine
They have privacy in that regard. We were homeschooling, you know, I could go on and on. We were keeping them out of the system we’re keeping now. The medical system we were keeping out of all the industrial complexes that exist, the food industrial complex, the educational industrial complex, the medical industrial complex, etc., etc., etc. and I believed in my heart that he didn’t really want them in the system.

00:25:51:14 – 00:26:16:15
Catherine
I really believed it. And so I walked into court every single time thinking he was bluffing as a negotiation tactic and my heart would break, like literally break. I felt betrayed every single time because I couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that this person who seduced me, who made me believe that we were creating a stateless family, I mean sovereign living is the website that I had to fight back for in court, right?

00:26:16:21 – 00:26:41:06
Catherine
That we were doing a whole show about how to raise sovereign families, how to live in this free way. And I believed in my heart that that’s what he wanted. Like, I genuinely, genuinely believed that. And so every time I walked into court, I walked in with the belief system that he was bluffing before court as a negotiation tactic, and I could not believe that one.

00:26:41:06 – 00:27:04:18
Catherine
He was willing to testify to the courts that having the children in the system would be better for them, but two, that he would tell absolute lies under oath, lies that were provable. But there were times where I didn’t have a lawyer and I didn’t know how to submit evidence. I made an absolute fool of myself. It was so humiliating, you know, super pregnant with my third child, already married to my second husband.

00:27:04:20 – 00:27:27:20
Catherine
And I’m going through this incredibly humiliating experience. Without a lawyer, I can’t figure out how to submit my evidence. And I think it’s really important that people know the family court system is not a justice system. It is a legal system, and you can’t show up expecting them to hold somebody accountable, because that’s not what the family court system is for.

00:27:27:24 – 00:27:47:08
Catherine
It is subjective, and judges are making decisions on what they believe to be true. There aren’t laws governing a lot of this. If the judge feels in their heart that 5050 custody is better for the child, even though the child’s been physically abused by the father and the mothers and physically abused by the father, that’s what they’re going to choose.

00:27:47:10 – 00:28:14:10
Catherine
They’re going to choose a subjective thing because there’s not it’s not a justice system. When I went through criminal court, when I went through the justice system, I was acquitted or my charges were dropped in both cases because I hadn’t broken any laws. So even without breaking any laws going through the family court system, I’m being faced with, you know, losing academic decision making for my children.

00:28:14:10 – 00:28:37:23
Catherine
My children are now in public school. And the person who decided that and used the state to enforce that is the guy out there selling a home school ready workshop promoting freedom styles, excuse me? Class like small group work stuff out yourself. Don’t go to the government. Keep everything out of the system. And that’s why I say freedom cells as cells.

00:28:38:03 – 00:28:59:15
Catherine
Because he has learned how to make money selling freedom as a concept. But in practice, he has forced his family back into the state. So when you’re walking into family court, you cannot walk in with any sort of subjective belief system about what a judge is going to think about your case or about how your ex is going to act.

00:28:59:17 – 00:29:22:18
Catherine
You have to walk in ready, truly ready for whatever can happen. Because I was unprepared and blindsided and it happened time and time again because until 2024, I did not believe that he actually wanted our family in the system. And he does. He wants our family in the system. Our family is in the system, our families in the system.

00:29:22:18 – 00:29:45:21
Catherine
My children are in public school right now. As we do this interview, they are sitting in public school and if I don’t deliver them, I can go to jail. I can be held in contempt of court. So here I am, this hard core freedom activist, this hard core libertarian, this hard core volunteer. Yes. And at the hands of a liberty leader, so-called.

00:29:45:23 – 00:30:08:04
Catherine
And I’m using the word con con artist because I was convinced that this person was a freedom activist, and that person convinced me of it with their words over and over and over the course of years and ripped that away from me. And it, you know, put on my conspiratorial hat and it’s like, whom are these men that have something to hide?

00:30:08:08 – 00:30:25:15
Catherine
Is this a Cohen’s Pro operation going after the most consistent women? I don’t know, I have no evidence of that. But it is mighty interesting that the most philosophically lifestyle living consist. Women in our community get dragged back into the system by the men who preach the same stuff.

00:30:25:17 – 00:30:35:16
Alma
Yeah, I think on that note, I would like to say for any man watching this video, if you are a predator, you are not welcome at jackalope.

00:30:35:18 – 00:30:54:06
Catherine
Or anarcho pro quo. And, you know, let’s let’s take a minute. Let’s take a moment here and mention some really cool that you mentioned earlier, the Porcupine Freedom Festival. I got my live for Your Guys sticker right here, for New Hampshire. That’s up in New Hampshire. I’ve been going since 2009. It’s where I learned about limited government, anarchy.

00:30:54:06 – 00:31:20:22
Catherine
Anarchy, voluntary ism, Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, like so much stuff. And they’ve been established for quite a while. The jackalope freedom fest. Alma runs. I’ll let her talk about that in a minute. You all know I produce an archipelago down in Mexico. And I will say there was a while where an archipelago was riddled with predatory ill people. And when I took over as the producer of the event, my first objective was to remove anybody causing drama.

00:31:21:01 – 00:31:54:21
Catherine
Whether or not you’re a paid government agent, you’re a provocateur of some sort where you’re just an unwell person that can’t play nice with others. You can’t come to an archipelago because I will have you removed. I have a strong policy against any type of a ethical violation or ethical breach against other people, and we don’t do drama and energy is so clean and pure, and it’s one of my favorite weeks out of every year, because I get to be in a group of six, 700 people that are just wonderful to each other.

00:31:54:24 – 00:32:18:12
Catherine
And it wasn’t that way. If you want to watch The Anarchist, the HBO series that depicts the lowest or lowest point in anarcho archipelago’s history. I mean, there was murder. There was. It was awful. Right? And so we’ve done what it takes to hold our event accountable and to clean up the vibe and rise it up. And I like to say I put a dome of protection over an archipelago.

00:32:18:14 – 00:32:39:13
Catherine
That’s the role that I have played. I have put a dome of protection over anarchy, and I do not allow corruption at all in any way, shape or form. So come to an archipelago and our Crypto.com. It’s in February. If you want to get away from the cold weather and come visit the tropical oasis of archipelago, we would love to have you and alma.

00:32:39:13 – 00:32:57:14
Catherine
If you’d like to talk about the Jackalope Freedom Fest. She’s the founding mother of Jackalope Freedom Fest, which takes place every summer after the Porcupine Freedom Festival. So some people like to migrate from New Hampshire all the way to Arizona, where the weather’s wonderful as well. You could just follow nice weather by attending all of these events year round.

00:32:57:16 – 00:33:00:08
Catherine
Anyway, tell everybody about jackalope.

00:33:00:10 – 00:33:31:10
Alma
There’s Midwest Peace and Liberty Fest in Michigan, and then there’s Midwest in Oklahoma as well. And they have Oklahoma. The Midwest has it twice a year. So if you’re interested in doing the whole nomadic traveling to Liberty event, that’s definitely the two other ones you want to look into. Jackalope has gone through a lot of transitions because like, like I think one of the most challenging things moving forward also will be when people make self-destructive decisions.

00:33:31:12 – 00:33:57:16
Alma
And that’s what I’ve done. I did that multiple times. I did that with my child’s father. I did that with jackalope two years ago, and I’m now dealing with the repercussions of that. I have friendships I’ve had for over 12, 15 years because of what happened to jackalope, and it was, just to say it, it was, rave loud music all night.

00:33:57:16 – 00:34:20:00
Alma
A very dismissive person dismissing people feelings about turning it down and this person I had had asked to help organize the music part of the event. Now, the main stage that I plan every year was awesome, but it shuts down at like 11 p.m., you know? And so the ravers over the last few years have come in. And now that part was unstoppable.

00:34:20:02 – 00:34:47:06
Alma
They were always going to come in because it’s a freedom event. And this is the challenges I’ve had because it’s a freedom event. It’s free. It’s not organized, no registration, no fees. Predators have come in and I need that to not happen. Everyone needs that to not happen. And how that’s going to go moving forward I’m not exactly sure.

00:34:47:06 – 00:35:11:22
Alma
Like I have some different ideas for that. You know, I could start working. Then I become a money making organization in the US and l want taxes and all that stuff. They’ll come after me if I start making a lot of money off of jackalope, the IRS would most likely. Maybe not. Maybe I’d fly under the radar, but I no, it doesn’t have to be you.

00:35:11:22 – 00:35:18:15
Catherine
You can always start a nonprofit or some other protective entity to shield you from the tax liability.

00:35:18:21 – 00:35:42:12
Alma
Just know that that’s true. There are a bunch of (501) 365-6769 whatever. There’s like a bunch of different ones for different things. I could do something like that. I also thought about doing a mandatory gift of like $300 per person, because Ron Gibson does that for his land Patton classes. It’s a mandatory gift. You actually have to pay the gift in some way, shape or form.

00:35:42:12 – 00:36:02:17
Alma
And when there is a financial obligation to go to an event, it does eliminate the riff raff. It doesn’t stop them completely from coming because predators come in all financial shapes and forms. You know, there’s ones with no money, there’s ones with lots of money. And so that’s not really the thing I think that would fall people.

00:36:02:19 – 00:36:30:13
Alma
But what I do think would stop people is having a very solid community. And even though things went the way they went a couple of years ago, it actually weeded out some of the people that I really thought would stand by me during hard times that are not going to. They’re not the anarchists that are going to go through the hard times, like they are going to opt out, run away and find a cave, which is fine.

00:36:30:15 – 00:36:56:24
Alma
Everybody has the freedom to dig a cave and live in it. Is that, you know, how we are going to have a community in the future? Maybe, like we’ve already segregated ourselves so far into the state and the system by private property. Is that a personal property? And, you know, taking care of your own stuff, not relying on the state to protect you from everything, which is how it all began.

00:36:56:24 – 00:37:15:23
Alma
It’s just like it started like that because, I don’t know, maybe groups of people were getting murdered by the state. They had to rely on the state to protect them. It was like a trick. So anyway, here we are now, though, and there aren’t a bunch of anarchist men that are willing to step up and handle an abuser, an abuser in the movement.

00:37:16:00 – 00:37:38:21
Alma
But I do have some solutions that I’ve been told over the years. One of them is violence, and it requires men to be violent with the man who’s been the abuser and, the name of it. I’m just going to throw this out there because honestly, there’s nothing else at this point. And somebody told me this once and I’m just going to repeat it, but it’s called a loophole.

00:37:38:23 – 00:37:57:07
Alma
But when a man in the community is in abusing his wife, what happens is, is all the other men in the community dress up wearing Hawaiian shirts and masks, and they kidnap this man and they beat the crap out of him. And they say, don’t ever lay a finger on your wife again.

00:37:57:09 – 00:38:07:15
Alma
And then when the guy goes to the cops saying, oh, kidnaped five masked men in Hawaiian shirts, the cops know he’s a woman beater.

00:38:07:17 – 00:38:32:13
Catherine
You know, he’s like this system that allows and enables and perpetuates the abuse in the family system because the family court system is ultimately designed to make money. That’s the bottom line. It is a business entity that is designed to make money. It is not a justice system. If you want justice, you have to go through the criminal justice system, which is where orders of protection and things like that take place.

00:38:32:17 – 00:38:51:02
Catherine
I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that I’m going to the family court system, thinking of the justice system. And, you know, my husband absolutely agrees with this. He’s like, you know, obviously he wouldn’t do this because he would get in trouble here in the United States. But to him, the solution is fairly simple. People act like this.

00:38:51:04 – 00:39:20:02
Catherine
Make them stop. Just make them stop, because that’s not coercion to protect yourself. Right? That’s self-defense. And it’s community defense. And we should be standing up against violence, against women and children. I would love the men in our community to be more supportive of the women and children in our community. But, you know, we do live in a society armor where men have been feminized and women have been masculinized.

00:39:20:04 – 00:39:47:13
Catherine
That’s just been, a product of of media, of government, of all these things, food that we’re eating, you know, estrogen in the plastic and, you know, blah, blah, blah. I could go on and on. And so it’s going to be really hard to make this shift. And I think if we can start in the Liberty community and really empower and trust our men, our masculine men, to stand up and defend us, that would be a good place to start.

00:39:47:13 – 00:40:07:18
Catherine
And they could lead by example and show the rest of the world you know what’s possible, because right now, the family court system is just completely out of whack. And, you know, it’s a topic for another time, but you’ve got children being forced back into homes with abusers. And there’s this whole movement of young children on TikTok.

00:40:07:20 – 00:40:36:01
Catherine
I would love you guys to go down the Maya and Sebastian rabbit hole on Instagram. Maya and Sebastian barricaded themselves in their home, refused to go back with their abusive mother, refused to go back with their abusive mother. There’s video of them being kidnaped and shoved into a car, court ordered, and the girl’s face just gets slammed into the door of the car and she, like, almost passes out for a second.

00:40:36:06 – 00:41:00:00
Catherine
And then she talks about how they drove them overnight. They didn’t know where they were. They were forced into an Airbnb with these, Oh, there’s a word. Hold on. Sorry, guys. A phone call was just coming in. There’s a word for these, reunification therapies. And, you know, these children were being forced and brainwashed to basically say, I made it all up.

00:41:00:01 – 00:41:24:24
Catherine
My mom wasn’t sexually abusing me. My mom wasn’t physically abusing me. I’m a liar. My dad planted it in my head. So, anyway, the family court system is enabling this type of crazy stuff. And the kids finally escaped. They ran away. They escaped. They were in hiding. And finally a judge said, okay, enough is enough. And they let the kids go live with their dad and they’re all, everything has been resolved.

00:41:25:01 – 00:41:46:14
Catherine
But this is just one example of children who are taking to social media and saying the family court system is failing me, I am, I am refusing to go, and they’re doing civil disobedience and in the end, in that example, the kids won, but they had to fight physically, physically for their freedom from the family court system.

00:41:46:14 – 00:42:01:02
Catherine
So you know, we really need to change things in the libertarian and liberty community. And I don’t I’m not claiming to know the solutions. I think this blue owl idea is freaking brilliant.

00:42:01:04 – 00:42:10:18
Alma
I think that’s great that those kids are doing that. That’s really cool. That’s going to them.

00:42:10:20 – 00:42:36:21
Alma
Right now, I’m, you know, like, when you get court ordered, you’re not supposed to say, like, negative things about the other parent. And so what I’m dealing with currently is, my son will come home and be like, my dad, give me the best food. And I’m like, why? Like, why are we saying it like that? Like, is he saying that, like, your mom didn’t give you the best food?

00:42:36:21 – 00:43:03:22
Alma
You know, I’m questioning like, you know, because I’ve learned about some things throughout this whole process too, like loyalty bonds and stuff like that, like these, predators will create loyalty bonds with their children. And that can be very damaging to them if it’s not. Like, if it’s not good, if it has no good faith, I’ll find it.

00:43:03:24 – 00:43:35:15
Alma
And, so what I’m, you know, kind of trying to manage right now is that because, you know, he’s vegan? I’m not vegan and vegetarian, and I want my kids eat whatever they want. And I know that my ex does not appreciate that because he wants to control the situation. Yeah. Oh, freedom. And so right now I’m like, you know what?

00:43:35:17 – 00:43:45:20
Alma
Your mom and dad love you so much. They both give you the best food. Yeah. You know.

00:43:45:24 – 00:43:46:05
Catherine
I’m.

00:43:46:06 – 00:43:49:02
Alma
I’m.

00:43:49:04 – 00:44:19:14
Catherine
I do want to reassure you, my kids are older at this point, and I am very well aware of not only the horrible things that my ex and his current wife have said about me to the children. I’m very well aware they report it back to me. And in fact, the new wife says the most horrible things and she spreads absolute lies on the internet about me as well.

00:44:19:16 – 00:44:49:15
Catherine
And what I have found is that as the children get into teenage hood, they really are small adults and their logical faculties are really strong and they’re brilliant. And as long as you stay consistent and what they feel from you is love, it’s the feeling because the words can make you believe things. But the feeling is what makes you know things right.

00:44:49:17 – 00:45:25:02
Catherine
So I have made the choice to one. I’ve always been honest with my children, and there have been things where in our court order it says, I’m not allowed to talk about this with the children. I’m not allowed to talk about that with the children. I’m not allowed to say this. I thought I was going to go to jail for teaching my dyslexic child to read against the court order, because I didn’t have permission from controlling father who knew our child, was diagnosed with dyslexia and was not getting him any support at the time.

00:45:25:04 – 00:45:50:08
Catherine
And so I sat down with my son and I said, me and you, you want to learn to read? And he said, yep. And I said, all right, here’s the deal. I bought this curriculum. We’re going to sit down and we’re do it. And it didn’t matter to me what dad said. And you want to know what the judge said in the end, in court, when they tried to get me on my injunctions that I’m not allowed to talk about in my own home, guess what, mofos?

00:45:50:10 – 00:46:14:18
Catherine
Freedom of speech exist in your home. And it doesn’t matter what family court says on a piece of paper, the Constitution trumps it. The constitution trumps it. So I learned, even though I didn’t follow proper procedure and I should have appealed my case, but instead because when I had no lawyer, I backed myself in family court. I should have appealed my case, I didn’t.

00:46:14:24 – 00:46:39:06
Catherine
I tried to go back a different way and, you know, file a modification. That was the wrong way to do it, apparently. So the judge said, I can’t rule on this. You didn’t follow proper procedure. But I will say this, dad, if you come after mom for contempt of court, it’s gonna be really hard for you to make a case because I agree with her lawyer.

00:46:39:08 – 00:47:03:20
Catherine
Free speech. First amendment Constitution protects her speech. So in the end, I’m super grateful that even though we’re on the tail end of this patriarchal system where men are the rulers of the families, right? We’re on the tail end of that. And that’s the vibration that you and I are feeling, alma, is that even though, like legally, things have changed and intellectually things have changed.

00:47:03:20 – 00:47:12:22
Catherine
There’s still this feeling and a lot of men that it’s okay for them to overpower and control and rule over women and children. That is a long.

00:47:12:23 – 00:47:14:00
Alma
Standing.

00:47:14:02 – 00:47:38:08
Catherine
Thing in our culture. It, you know, comes from Europe, and it moves all the way here to the United States. And we’ve been raised in this, and we’re at the end of that system, but it still has the reverberations and the practicality and the functionality of our life and in our families. And I’m so grateful that I have an enlightened husband who sees me as an equal and treats me as an equal and treats me with dignity and respect, because I know the difference.

00:47:38:10 – 00:47:53:05
Catherine
I know the difference. I married one guy who was an abusive, controlling. I shouldn’t have said sorry, that was mean, I didn’t I that was not being impeccable with my word. He was abusive and controlling. I redact.

00:47:53:07 – 00:47:54:11
Alma
The word.

00:47:54:13 – 00:48:11:21
Catherine
But look, I’m self-correcting in the moment. I’m holding myself accountable. I’m sorry that I said that. I shouldn’t have said that he was abusive and controlling. I got a little animated there. He was abusive and controlling. And then he married a second man who’s loving and kind. And sometimes he gets a little defensive when it comes to accountability conversations.

00:48:11:21 – 00:48:31:00
Catherine
But the two of us can tell each other what’s not working, and we can work through it and we can talk through it. We’re human beings. We’re not perfect, right? We have to have those conversations. And I think, you know, this system, the way it’s designed, a lot of people think, oh, if you’re a mom, you automatically get custody of your children.

00:48:31:00 – 00:48:52:15
Catherine
No, no no no no no. That applies with deadbeat dads who don’t show up. It does not apply for self control situations where a judge says, oh, this dad wants to be involved. That’s unusual and it’s really hard for the judge to see that. Oh my gosh, there’s all these warning signs of abuse. A lot of them are not trauma informed.

00:48:52:21 – 00:49:21:20
Catherine
I mean, honestly, the family Court system is very accustomed to people coming in and not having to go to trial. It is a very rare, rare. It’s like less than 1% of divorces go to trial. And my trial took four court hearings to get divorced. I can’t even tell you how many tens of thousands of dollars my parents had to spend to get me divorced, because this guy would not let go, and he chose to fight and fight and fight for the kids.

00:49:21:22 – 00:49:41:21
Catherine
And so I chose to stand up for them the best that I knew how and fight. But I didn’t want to fight. I just wanted to raise my children right. Like I would have come to a voluntary agreement. But the only thing that this guy, the only thing that he would offer a mediation, is that he got full custody.

00:49:41:21 – 00:50:10:19
Catherine
I paid him child support, and I didn’t see my children except two weekends out of every month. That’s the only offer he would make. Meanwhile, I’m there like, let’s try it. Five, five, two, two schedule. It’s, you know, whatever. And he would not negotiate with me. And so this is the guy that is out there teaching people how to create small bottom up societies where coercion isn’t a thing, and when you don’t have to turn to institutions.

00:50:10:19 – 00:50:45:19
Catherine
And yet he’s completely institutionalized our family. So, you know, we’ve got a lot of room for growth, obviously. I do you know, I don’t sit here and feel like, oh, we women are victims of men in general. I don’t feel like that’s true. I think there’s amazing men out there. But I think when it comes to coercive control dynamics, when it comes to, cluster B personality types, when it comes to abuse and trauma, the courts are not informed on how to handle that, and neither is our community.

00:50:45:24 – 00:51:11:17
Catherine
And so that’s why for me, it’s really, really important that we’re having these conversations. And we are teaching people the reality of what it’s like if you are not careful who you open yourself up to as a woman, and you had children with somebody who is not in a line met with your lifestyle, beliefs and values. Even if they speak the words, even if they say that they are.

00:51:11:22 – 00:51:35:09
Catherine
If you’re not paying attention to their actions and I know there were warning signs about my ex because my friends and family were warning me, and I know that were warning signs about your ex because I know I you right. And so we as women need to support other women in learning what these warning signs are. And I wanted to mention this earlier, but you were on a roll says letting you go.

00:51:35:11 – 00:52:01:22
Catherine
Corruption does not happen in isolation. People do not just wrong one person. It is a chronic thing. And in my situation, there were signs of misappropriation of funds, downright theft, all sorts of things like that. That happened over and over and over and over that I watched and I witnessed. There were emotional things that were warning signs.

00:52:01:22 – 00:52:31:02
Catherine
There were all sorts of other warning signs. Right. And so really vetting who we are choosing to bring into our lives and to become the fathers or mothers of our children. It’s super important because even though we want freedom and we want to not be in the system, situations like this can force us into the system. And so if you are not careful and you are not diligent and you are not picking a partner wisely, you can screw yourself for the next 20 plus years.

00:52:31:04 – 00:52:54:06
Catherine
And that sucks. And it’s exhausting. And you know, I don’t know what to do to undo my situation. If there’s some sort of crypto millionaire that wants to see some of these guys held accountable, I’m willing to start a legal defense fund to help women get out of these situations. So that we can hire lawyers to actually know what’s going on and undo some of this stuff.

00:52:54:08 – 00:53:21:12
Catherine
I screwed myself without a lawyer. I didn’t have a lawyer. I didn’t have the resources my parents paid for the divorce. They did not pay for the cases, after which we were in multiple times after, as I was trying to protect my children. So if you guys have any ideas, if the audience has any ideas, I mean, really, I would like for this to be a brainstorming workshopping type platform where we can come together and come up with creative ideas and all.

00:53:21:12 – 00:53:35:06
Catherine
My, I don’t know if you have more that you want to share about the situation with your ex and your child, but I do want to talk about one of the solutions that you’re creating, and I don’t know if now’s a good time for that. Do you want to talk about terms for women right now?

00:53:35:08 – 00:54:06:09
Alma
We can talk about that. So okay. Don’t for moms is basically a NGO that I’ve created. It’s at the ground floor. So I am of course looking for people who want to be involved with it. But basically we will start with my dream. I still have not finished my dome. We we will be finishing it. I don’t know when I have to acquire all of the materials and the things that I need, but I’m getting pretty close.

00:54:06:09 – 00:54:33:10
Alma
So basically, this geodesic dome, can be created in Phoenix by a group of people, and they’re fairly affordable to me because the equipment to make them is already there. It’s just like cost the material. And then, the depending on what type of foundation the domes, you know, are going to have, like, you know, that’s a different cost as well.

00:54:33:12 – 00:55:01:20
Alma
But basically I want to include these domes with land. So I’m looking for like moms who want to get out of the valley or the cities or whatever and go off grid or just, you know, get out of the whole flames system altogether, like they’re done and and they’re they’re awake. They get it. If they’re almond, like, working in the system, you want to, like, help, like donate their time or finances for these projects.

00:55:01:20 – 00:55:27:10
Alma
Like I’m down for that, too. I’m down for anybody who wants to help. Basically just be a geodesic dome. There’s different types of coverage you can have, like a concrete covering or a cob covering. It just depends on what people want. The land. I’m working with, a friend of mine, who has been acquiring land for a while now, so I’m hoping that there’ll be a connection there that will be able to help women get all done.

00:55:27:10 – 00:55:55:24
Alma
But for women to go and affordable, they can either paid in full or make very small payments. They can be a part of building their dome, too, for their kids, can be a part of building the dome. But basically, they’ll have everything you need for living off grid, like a wood. So a solar set up, composting toilet or alternative to that?

00:55:56:01 – 00:56:21:06
Alma
Some of them might end up having subjects, depending on the situation, but it’s pretty, pretty simple. Build a pretty simple set up and a pretty simple way to get mothers for showing, you know, a better situation, whether, you know, they lost their job or their husband or a boyfriend loved. And, you know, they got one kids, you get three kids, five kids or whatever the situation is.

00:56:21:06 – 00:56:40:21
Alma
I know what the overhead is like in the Valley. You know, rent is $2,000 a month or more, depending on where you are, just to have like a house to home, your kids that you’re having to work and be away from them all of the time. Unless you run your own business and you’re having to put them in somebody else’s care.

00:56:40:23 – 00:57:05:07
Alma
And so you’re you’re no, you’re just never with your family or family’s are so segregated, so divided. And I knew this was coming a long time ago, and that’s why I decided to get off grid. Now. I’ve owned my land for two years, and I was kind of pushed into that situation, getting out of a relationship I had with a boyfriend of mine who owned his own land and had give me an acre of his own, and then when I broke up with him, decided that he didn’t want to give me that land.

00:57:05:07 – 00:57:26:20
Alma
And so I was upset and I cried. And 24 hours later found my land on Facebook Marketplace. And I bought it that day. And I’ve been in payments now on my land for two years. I paid 216 a month and I got my phone bill. I have two phones, 100 bucks a month, and then it’s just gas and food.

00:57:26:22 – 00:57:49:09
Alma
And so now that I’m 5050, because before I went to court, I wasn’t 5050. I always had my youngest son 90% of the time. I had my youngest son. And when we went through all this, he fought as hard as he could fight in court to get him 5050. Well, he tried to take him, take him completely, which was ridiculous because I had been primarily taking care of him.

00:57:49:11 – 00:58:18:03
Alma
And it was a crazy court thing. My lawyer definitely underestimated how smart he is because he’s not dumb. He’s ever not. They are very smart, and they will convince their current partners that you are the worst person in the whole world, and they’ll believe them.

00:58:18:05 – 00:58:40:02
Alma
Like I had, you know, his new girlfriend testifying, his best friend who assaulted me, testifying, his landlord testifying in court. There was nobody else. And then my lawyer didn’t call, like four of my witnesses who witnessed him threatening to murder me and threatening, like, while holding the baby, screaming and yelling. And it’s like my lawyer didn’t call the right witnesses.

00:58:40:02 – 00:58:55:17
Alma
So, like, there’s all kinds of things that can go wrong with having a lawyer, too. And it really quickly you got to pick a good one, like, you got to pick somebody who has extreme narcissistic experience like it.

00:58:55:17 – 00:59:18:07
Catherine
Yeah. And this is, this is something I really, really want to clarify on. You don’t want a lawyer who specializes in high conflict because these situations are not high conflict. They are coercive control. You want a lawyer who has experience with cluster B personalities and coercive control. And when you are interviewing lawyers, I found they’ll be like, oh yeah, I’ve dealt with narcissist before and I’m like, tell me about that.

00:59:18:09 – 00:59:41:13
Catherine
Because the reality is they don’t know. I would like everybody to check out my most recent lawyer, Carl Knickerbocker. You can find him on Instagram, which is where I found him. Unapologetic parenting. He has a book called The Parallel Parenting Solution. It is awesome. It is completely created a de-escalation in my situation. The judge asked both of us to read it.

00:59:41:13 – 01:00:06:18
Catherine
Of course, I had already read it like three times, which is why I hired the guy, right? And I think based on the way my ex is now behaving for the past 6 or 7 months, I think he’s read the book. If he hasn’t, something else has happened. You some God or something, I don’t know. But other than the kids being in public school, he’s completely de-escalated his meaning a little flare up last night where he was trying to insult me a little bit, and I was like, that doesn’t work anymore, dude.

01:00:06:20 – 01:00:33:24
Catherine
So anyway, Parallel Parenting Solution by Carl Knickerbocker. And the book is Unapologetic parenting. Check it out. You really have to interview these lawyers intensely. I did a narcissistic abuse recovery program that my father helped me pay for. And there’s a woman on Instagram called doctor Angel storm, and she’s who I worked with. It was a year long program, and this helped me to rewire my brain and to learn about court strategy.

01:00:33:24 – 01:00:59:16
Catherine
I didn’t have a court strategy before. I now document everything. I have spreadsheets with dates and screenshots of evidence, so I may not be able to use all of this stuff in court because those court dates have already happened. But I can use them in my book that I’m writing memoirs of a radical. And when I’m looking for community accountability, I’m telling you I’m going to win in the court of public opinion.

01:00:59:19 – 01:01:20:17
Catherine
I may not have won in family court, but I will win in the court of public opinion and I have now learned how to document. And this is something else that is super, super important that we absolutely have to mention. If you are in a situation where somebody is harming you or your children, you need to start documenting it immediately whether or not you have left the relationship.

01:01:20:17 – 01:01:49:20
Catherine
If you are still in it, use an encrypted file on your phone and you need to start documenting this stuff. You need dates. You need photos, screenshots, audio recordings, videos, whatever you have, and keep it organized in a spreadsheet that you can sort by date. And you can also look in your law or excuse me, in your state there is a, best interest designation in your state.

01:01:49:20 – 01:02:11:22
Catherine
So in Texas, they say the best interest of the child includes this, this, this, this and this. And so if you want to build a best interest case for you while you’re in court, what I did is I started tagging, I made a column in the spreadsheet for what section of the best interest does this qualify? It’s in the best interest of the children that they’re not physically abused.

01:02:12:00 – 01:02:33:24
Catherine
Right? It’s in the best interest of the children that they have access to, you know, clean food and water. Whatever it is in your state, it’s going to be different. So you need to look up the code in your state, but you start tagging these things by what best interests category. Then your lawyer can sort them and say, okay, here’s all of the physical abuse best interest things, right?

01:02:33:24 – 01:02:55:02
Catherine
Here’s all of the, educational best interest things so you can sort them by category. And I know this sounds crazy and super OCD, but when you are dealing with somebody who is so obsessed with taking your children from you and destroying your life and family court, you have to take extreme measures to protect yourself. And not all lawyers are the same.

01:02:55:02 – 01:03:15:05
Catherine
Just like I was saying, like they they don’t understand. I had a high conflict divorce attorney. She did pretty well. She’s a judge now. I couldn’t use her in the past. She still didn’t understand what we were in for because this wasn’t high conflict. I wasn’t trying to fight with him. I just wanted the kids to be safe and stable and to maintain our lifestyle.

01:03:15:07 – 01:03:36:23
Catherine
That he was taking away the lifestyle. He continues to make money preaching and selling classes on the lifestyle. He still preaches online. He has done everything in his power to take that away from me in family court. Through that system, I was unprepared for it. My lawyer was unprepared for it. And I do think that if I had walked in, knowledge is power.

01:03:37:00 – 01:03:56:16
Catherine
If I had walked in knowing one, that he actually wanted the children in the system, and I wasn’t so naive, and I got out of my belief system that he had programed into my head, and to how to actually protect myself in family court. My results would have been different. And to be clear, we’ve got 50 over 50 custody.

01:03:56:16 – 01:04:17:22
Catherine
But I have no choice on what school my children go to now. And he’s enrolled them in public school, and it takes an hour and a half to drop off. It takes an hour and a half to pick up. So every other week I spend three hours a day, a part time job, 15 hours a week, just simply delivering my children to an institution that I philosophically do not believe in.

01:04:17:24 – 01:04:42:06
Catherine
And who stood up for me in the Liberty community, not the men I went. I begged for help and they all said they wanted nothing to do with it. And in fact, a lot of them still work with him or take money from him. That’s what I found. He goes and he pays people who are supporting me. He gives them money, gives them jobs, and all of a sudden they stop talking to me or they distance themselves from me.

01:04:42:12 – 01:04:52:24
Catherine
So y’all don’t be bought and sold. Don’t be bought and sold. Protect your community. Go ahead.

01:04:53:01 – 01:05:24:24
Alma
So, my son is three and he’s not of age to go to school yet, which I’m very grateful for because I don’t know. What this person is going to try and do in the future. And my lawyer Berry status. He’s not an anarchist at all. You know. You know, and he’s said some stuff for me I don’t really want to talk about.

01:05:24:24 – 01:05:57:16
Alma
But I do think about this in the future. The school thing. And I don’t want my child to go to an indoctrination camp. I want to keep him. Oh. And all I keep thinking about is, I hope this crazy person also wants to keep him out. Because if he tries to manipulate the situation and put him in school in Flagstaff, does he have more control over our lives?

01:05:57:18 – 01:06:26:03
Alma
I will know that all it is about I already know and maybe like, that’s the group everybody needs to know, but it’s ridiculous that it would have to get this far. My son holds a coffee and every Sunday we’re already there. Like, how much further does the Liberty community want my son to be involved in the system?

01:06:26:05 – 01:06:53:23
Catherine
It’s so messed up. My daughter, who’s 13 now, she went to one of the speakers at conference and asked for help getting out of public school. My children are witnessing crazy violence. They have seen children beat each other with chairs. They’ve seen children throw trash cans at teachers. They have witnessed stuff that I never would have wished upon them to witness.

01:06:54:00 – 01:07:25:05
Catherine
But I will say this they’re brilliant and they’re resilient. And whatever reason they chose the two of us as their parents, they’re getting the lessons. I believe that they need to be amazing human beings as adults, and I have never stopped telling them the truth and supporting them. And I’ve told them, if you want to try this school and go to it, I’ll stop fighting against it.

01:07:25:05 – 01:07:49:16
Catherine
If you want to get out of this school, I’ll keep fighting against it. You tell me what you need. I have your back because at this point they’re 13 and 11. And while I don’t want to fight, I’m exhausted by it. I think going through this experience has been good for the kids. They’re learning what institutionalized education looks like.

01:07:49:22 – 01:08:26:12
Catherine
They’re learning what statism feels like. They understand on a deep level who their father is. And I haven’t had to tell them. They come to me and they say, mom, why does dad talk about homeschooling while forcing us into school? Mom, why does dad talk about these things while doing this to us? I don’t understand, so providing them with love so that they feel good in my presence and they know the difference between high control and high love.

01:08:26:14 – 01:08:50:10
Catherine
That is the best thing I believe we can do for our children. So even if your child does end up in the institution in institutionalized education, your child will know the difference between high control and high love. If you continue to give that love, if you continue to give that love, and your child will start to ask questions and they reach an age where they can decide for themselves.

01:08:50:10 – 01:09:15:13
Catherine
It happens in Texas. They never get to choose, but they kind of do, you know what I mean? They’re small adults and they have a lot more influence now at this point. And I think when my kids are ready to speak up for themselves, they’re going to and they’re going to get what they ask for because they’re reaching that level of autonomy.

01:09:15:15 – 01:09:38:12
Catherine
You can’t physically bully a child that’s looking you in the eyes anymore. So that’s all stopped, you know what I mean? They grow up and things start to change and my greatest hope, my sincerest hope, if your ex is watching this, is that he makes the right choice by your son and doesn’t fight over education because my ex made the wrong choice.

01:09:38:14 – 01:10:05:08
Catherine
He fought and he fought hard and I have email evidence. If anyone wants a copy of the article I wrote up that shows this with screenshots and quotes. He colluded with the private school that he had court ordered, and he coached them on what to say so that he could win educational rights. And when he got those educational rights, in the end, they’re in public school.

01:10:05:10 – 01:10:29:00
Catherine
So he made the wrong choice, and he still has a chance to correct it. And I will know that my ex has truly changed when he goes to the state and voluntarily gives my rights back. So to the world, if you want to know that my ex is truly changed, if you’re like, wow, he seems so nice and he seems so freedom loving and he does so much for liberty.

01:10:29:02 – 01:10:49:16
Catherine
If you want to know he’s changed, he can show us by going to the courts and voluntarily giving me my rights back. And your ex can show the world that he’s changed by laying down the sword and no longer fighting over this stuff, by being a good dad, by no longer being violent, by getting the help that he needs.

01:10:49:18 – 01:10:58:10
Catherine
And one thing I will say, the state does help these guys become less violent. I know it in my experience, so.

01:10:58:12 – 01:11:01:12
Alma
I hope so. I want to tell one more part of the story.

01:11:01:14 – 01:11:03:21
Catherine
Yeah, tell it.

01:11:03:23 – 01:11:34:00
Alma
So after he assaulted me in January and I went and got the court paperwork to file for custody, I also went to the hospital and got checked out, and I was I was given a advocate from victims witness, and this was one of the best things I could have done. If you are in a domestic violence situation, I highly recommend going to the hospital and getting victim witness involved because they will help you on so many different levels.

01:11:34:02 – 01:11:57:00
Alma
This is a nonprofit organization in Coconino County, in Navajo County, where I live, it’s actually run by the government. So there’s different, there’s different ones. They work together with the shelters and things like that, too. And the shelters are another very interesting concept because there’s different ways to go about doing those as well. But anyway, I got the help that I needed.

01:11:57:00 – 01:12:18:06
Alma
They helped me get on the phone with the judge the very next morning, and that judge issued an order of protection for me and my son, and then they attempted to serve him. And the day went on and they couldn’t find him. And I get a call from the judge and he says, oh, you’re on your way. I was on my way there to go, filed the custody paperwork.

01:12:18:06 – 01:12:26:18
Alma
And he goes, oh, well, you know. So I was here to try and get an order of protection against you. And I’m like, what?

01:12:26:20 – 01:12:58:08
Alma
And then when he showed up at court, he was served with my order of protection, which was probably a shock to him because he literally. Okay, so let me back up. So then the judge said, well, can you come in and we’ll just do a, impromptu hearings like right then and the judge was very good at convincing me that it was in all of our best interest to move this case into family court.

01:12:58:08 – 01:13:20:07
Alma
And in order to do that, I needed to lift the current order of protection. And he would turn over my son to me immediately in court. What if I don’t turn them over? And the judge said, well, then this order of protection will be in place for the next two years and you won’t see your son.

01:13:20:09 – 01:13:33:06
Alma
And so, unfortunately, in that moment, I agreed to give the order protection just to get my son back when I should have said no. He’s dangerous for the both of us, and we need to be protected.

01:13:33:08 – 01:13:34:07
Catherine
Yes.

01:13:34:09 – 01:13:54:05
Alma
But you’re so freaking traumatized after stuff like that that all you’re thinking is protect your son right away. And so he did turn him over to me. And I said to the constable, I’m like, you need to follow him out of the car. Like he could just take off right now, you know, and you have all these other fears that maybe are real.

01:13:54:05 – 01:14:23:05
Alma
Maybe they aren’t. You never know. And so the control comes back and I get my son, and then I go and I file all the paperwork. I had filled out everything, and I filed the paperwork, called my dad. You help me pay for the filing fee right there and then. And then it was two weeks later where he filed the trust paperwork, trying to own our son in a trust with a vital demand letter to return said estate to the trust.

01:14:23:05 – 01:14:48:10
Alma
So I will be forced to enforce the trust. And I went right back to my family court judge and I got another order of protection, and this time he contested it and he had the other guy that voted me there, his landlord and his girlfriend. He wasn’t even at the incident. All testified. The judge dropped the order for my son, but kept it for me and you know, and take.

01:14:48:12 – 01:15:12:16
Alma
And then we went into the family court stuff. The reason that I brought it, I brought up this part of it, though, is because I wanted to talk about how important it is to get the help you need. And victims witness was able to get me, counseling, six sessions of counseling, and I did them, like, every few weeks.

01:15:12:16 – 01:15:36:12
Alma
I think I had one, and it was so helpful going through this because he was on the phone with me, you know, while I went through this court stuff. And victim’s witness actually came to some of my hearings because they were so intrigued by this case. Normally they only go to the criminal defense cases where if they press charges, then they’ll go to those cases.

01:15:36:12 – 01:16:02:04
Alma
They don’t normally go to the custody hearings. It’s not a normal thing for victims witnesses to do that. But they came because they were like, this is for this guy’s next level. They never seen anyone like like him before, you know, and he’ll probably be all like, happy hearing about anyway if he does listen. But, you know, it’s like it’s a very interesting thing because I started a group on Facebook called Land Patents.

01:16:02:04 – 01:16:22:14
Alma
Like they’re going on 13 years ago. And over the last year I changed it to land patents and the right to travel. And and now I’m like over 15,000 members, like thousands pending. I need moderators of anyone who wants to come to me and moderate that I know and trust because this group is out of it. It’s crazy.

01:16:22:16 – 01:16:50:14
Alma
And there’s so much talk about everything freedom, right to travel, learn patterns, and then all the trust stuff. The trust stuff is going nuts. So I see like where he jumped on that bandwagon. But you still can’t own a human. That’s slavery. I don’t care if you gave the seed to a woman who grew that human in her body for nine months while you did what?

01:16:50:16 – 01:17:02:20
Alma
Hey, like if anyone actually owns a human, not the father.

01:17:02:22 – 01:17:27:00
Alma
But get real. Like one night of a good time, like now you’re own this human I grew. No, nobody does that. That’s not okay. And so, like, you know, I, I definitely after going through this, I just know how much I want to help other women get out of it. I want to help them, leave their abusive situations.

01:17:27:00 – 01:17:59:01
Alma
I want to help rehouse them. Rehome them. I want to help them. You know, counsel them even through some of this. I, of this is kind of an old story. I don’t know if I should go into this, but I am attempting to help other people. And I decided to help this other anarchist woman in the community who actually dated her ex, five years ago, in between Mr. C and Mr. C, and then he wanted to come and move here and have a baby.

01:17:59:01 – 01:18:23:22
Alma
So that happened. But she needed help getting her kids back from him because he was withholding them from her. After all this time. They’ve been going through this many years in and out of court. And so she gets a trailer and, like, you can keep it on my land. You can stay here with your kids. Or he is so adamant about controlling her life that he got an order of protection on me.

01:18:23:24 – 01:18:35:16
Alma
There was no crime committed. There was no domestic violence. But because we dated five years ago, he was able to attempt this order of protection, I contested it, I was was me.

01:18:35:16 – 01:18:49:08
Catherine
How did he do it? Because I had a tutor hit my daughter and they told me I couldn’t get an order of protection because we weren’t family or intimately involved. So because you dated five years previous.

01:18:49:10 – 01:19:21:06
Alma
Okay. So he so I go to court to contest it and I have this whole, like, defense built. I’m ready now. I’ve been through court right like this. And since the custody stuff. And so we’re in court and my boyfriend at the time came with me, was sitting behind me, which I thought was really great because having that masculine presence there when another anarchist man, hey, anarchist man, is using the state against an anarchist woman to control her.

01:19:21:06 – 01:19:46:21
Alma
It’s his ex. I was so grateful to have a man sitting in court with me, because that man gives this vibe to the other man, like, what are you doing, dude? What you’re doing is shenanigans. Like, I’m watching you. None of this is manly. None of this is right. You’re just trying to control the women in your life.

01:19:46:23 – 01:20:15:12
Alma
You know? He doesn’t see any of that. Just his presence alone. Give the other man. And if if the anarchist men in the Liberty community were even doing something that that people think would be way better for us women. Thank God I had some great guys from float willing to testify if wish they had, because things would have been way different if the judge got to hear those testimonies and oh, that was one thing.

01:20:15:12 – 01:20:18:01
Alma
I wanted to talk about this real quick in court.

01:20:18:03 – 01:20:19:24
Catherine
Logs howling sorry.

01:20:19:24 – 01:20:22:13
Alma
If so again.

01:20:22:15 – 01:20:29:08
Catherine
My dogs are howling because an airplane went over. So sorry. If you can hear that you’re like howling.

01:20:29:10 – 01:20:57:02
Alma
That’s a good thing. But in court you only have like two hours, sometimes a lot a longer allotment, and that is split between you. And then you have a minute amount of time to talk about the most important things you need to talk about. So it is very important that you know what they are and that your lawyer, if you have one, is on the same page like Harry.

01:20:57:04 – 01:21:25:18
Catherine
That’s the experience we had most recently. You know, my other court cases, we had a lot of time, like in the divorce, for example, we had multiple days. It was a two day trial, the final trial, and the rest of them were half day trials. But most recently, this judge gave us both 45 minutes. That includes opening testimony, closing testimony, and when they say something and you need to counter it, it counts.

01:21:25:20 – 01:21:54:15
Catherine
Your time is clocked encountering them as well. So, you know, in my situation, for example, the wife of my ex-husband got up on the stand and told a completely made up story. She said that she came to pick up the children from an ice cream social here at Greenbrier. I live in an intentional community. It’s a homeschooling, intentional community where we run a school that offers homeschool enrichment classes.

01:21:54:20 – 01:22:15:14
Catherine
The kids went here for two and a half years, and he used the courts to pull them out while selling homeschool workshops. I just can’t you can’t make this the up. So she says she came to pick up the kids and then I yelled at her that I confronted her. She stood up on the stand. It was like pointing like this and got really aggressive and like, completely reenacted.

01:22:15:14 – 01:22:40:10
Catherine
It. But thankfully, thankfully, I had friends who came to court. You see, in the in the at the beginning, I was really embarrassed that I didn’t go public about what was going on. Like, I was mortified about what was happening, and so I had some girlfriends that came. But this time I told the community what was going on because these were the people that were the kids, teachers in the homeschool enrichment program, and they live with us and they know the children.

01:22:40:10 – 01:23:06:07
Catherine
And we all have cabins here on this, you know, 173 acre property that we’re on. And so she tells this very theatrical story. I mean, really, she could have won an award for Best Performance. It was incredible. I mean, she was yelling, pointing, had this like, aggressive thing going on. The reality is I never spoke to her. She showed up without announcing she was coming because she won’t talk to me.

01:23:06:09 – 01:23:26:16
Catherine
So she didn’t tell me what time she was coming. She showed up. The kids had stuff at my house that they needed to run up and get, and my son could feel her stress because she’s like, nope, you don’t have time to go get it. We got to go. And so my son started yelling at my oldest daughter and I said, hey, son, stop yelling.

01:23:26:16 – 01:24:03:02
Catherine
She’s going to go get her stuff. She’ll be right back. All right. Take a deep breath. And she went to go get her stuff and she came back. I stood, maybe 200ft away from the vehicle in a group of people, there were like 50 or 60 people are children and adults. I did not interact with this woman, not once, let alone go up to her window, point my finger and yell in her face like that’s what she told the courtroom is that I came up, approached the car window and told her off.

01:24:03:04 – 01:24:25:01
Catherine
Did not happen. Everybody there knew that didn’t happen, and so I turned and I look at my friends and they’re looking at me and they’re like, what? They knew it was a lie. And because they were there, my attorney, we didn’t have a lot of time to spare. Right? It had to be really quick, but he pulled my friend B up onto the stand.

01:24:25:02 – 01:24:30:03
Catherine
It was like, did that happen? And she was like, no, no, it did not. Like, can you tell?

01:24:30:03 – 01:24:31:00
Alma
It happened?

01:24:31:02 – 01:24:49:17
Catherine
And everybody had seen the same thing. I had told Bill to chill out a little bit because he was stressed, because the car arrived without warning and my daughter walked off, got her stuff, came back. I hugged her goodbye and sent her off. Everybody in the room had seen the same thing. But if my friends had not shown up, if my community had not shown up, it would have been my word against hers.

01:24:49:19 – 01:25:10:05
Catherine
But because it wasn’t my word against hers, it was the people in the courtrooms. Word against her. She looked like an absolute fool because she was lying. She was telling lies. So it really is important to show up for your friends and your family. Having that presence there is so important. So if you know someone going through this, please show up for them.

01:25:10:06 – 01:25:26:16
Catherine
Be there in the courtroom. It makes a huge impact. And I’m not saying you need to get up and testify, but just like what always said, just having that presence behind her there made her feel supported. And the people in the room know that accountability is being had.

01:25:26:18 – 01:25:27:07
Alma
Yeah. And that’s.

01:25:27:07 – 01:25:32:09
Catherine
Really important. Eyes and ears on everybody.

01:25:32:11 – 01:25:59:01
Alma
Yeah. In this in this situation, just to finish the story real quick, so I go into contests, the order of protection, and he spends the next hour attempting to tell the judge that there was a crime committed. And the judge. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to talk. They gave him that much time just to try and convince the judge that there was a crime committed.

01:25:59:01 – 01:26:18:14
Alma
And after an hour of him talking to her, there was no proof that a crime had been committed. And so the judge dismissed it based off of there was no proof a crime had been committed. And then he was like, I want to appeal. And she’s like, you have every right to do that. But I haven’t heard anything since that.

01:26:18:14 – 01:26:39:15
Alma
I’ve checked and stuff and all I see is the dismissal. She ended up moving off my property, though, so technically he kind of won that battle because he didn’t want his kids around me. Because I speak the truth. Yeah, but he was like, trying to say, you’re not allowed to do this, and you’re not allowed to do that.

01:26:39:15 – 01:27:09:10
Alma
You can’t say all the bad things, you can’t say anything bad. And it really is important to not talk badly about them because like what you’re saying, the kids will see the truth themselves. After I got in the back, almost three months went by before we had another hearing, and not once did he ask my lawyer to see his son, and he was not surprised.

01:27:09:12 – 01:27:23:15
Alma
And so he didn’t ask the whole crime. He could have heeded the order of protection had been dropped on LaSalle. He could have asked to see him. He didn’t ask the whole time. Is is preparing the case, preparing the case, preparing the case to go to court. That was what was important to him.

01:27:23:15 – 01:27:29:07
Catherine
Because it wasn’t about seeing your child. It was about winning. Yeah, yeah.

01:27:29:09 – 01:27:56:07
Alma
And then once the he got the 5050 in court, it’s like a really intricate story. But Mateo didn’t want to go because he remembered what happened. He was in my arms, and I don’t know what the heck anyone would be thinking. But his son saw everything and remember everything. And every time I had to.

01:27:56:09 – 01:28:01:15
Catherine
Oh, my. You had just cut out. Can you repeat what you said after he got 5050 in court?

01:28:01:17 – 01:28:42:15
Alma
I said, our son remembers everything that happened in January. He was in my arms. He talks to me about it. I have to communicate with him and still follow court orders. My son knows what he did. He knows it was wrong. He knows I was hurt. He was hurt. It hurt. The both of us. What happened was an assault on a mother and a child.

01:28:42:17 – 01:29:01:07
Alma
And it’s completely wrong. And it’s not okay for. It’s for it to ever happen again or continue or any of that. And that’s why I like, really hope that anyone getting out of it, you know, gets out of it. I want to help anybody you want to get out of it. My son, you know, now it’s been months.

01:29:01:07 – 01:29:33:02
Alma
It’s been we’re still in temporary order, which is really interesting. It’s been since March, so. Or. Yeah, March. I think. And so we’re still at temporary orders. Things are going okay, actually. We use the the Our Family Wizard app to communicate, and it has very. Are you still there? I am it has very specific it has very specific rules about communicating.

01:29:33:04 – 01:30:06:22
Alma
And I appreciate it so much because it eliminates any talking down to it eliminates name calling. It’s all monitored and regulated now like a judge can go and look at that conversation at any time you want. So yeah, I mean it’s all for the courts now. And so I’m really grateful for that because. Having just been in the Liberty movement, it didn’t really allow the protection in conversations that I know.

01:30:07:00 – 01:30:32:03
Alma
Like for he was still free to say all these awful things that are not even related to organizing whatever or exchange or anything, you know, is this completely unrelated this morning to still attack, attack, attack, attack. And so I really am grateful, for the court system, even though they were obviously tricked. But I am glad that it’s protected me.

01:30:32:05 – 01:31:01:09
Alma
The anarchist men were able to do that. I, I do fear for my son because I know that he’s in a highly manipulative situation. I worry about the the loyalty bond, that I’ve recently learned about. And I feel like, you know, this person will use any information he can against me and our son. He will use our phone to hurt me.

01:31:01:11 – 01:31:24:04
Catherine
So, I will say there was a time period where my kids were, I think, experiencing this loyalty bond situation that you’re describing. And they would say things to me like, dad says, you’re not allowed to talk to me about that, or dad says, I’m not allowed to talk to you about that. Because he was highly manipulating the situation.

01:31:24:06 – 01:31:43:15
Catherine
And I just want to know that I have in writing him emailing the kids school with made up court orders. So he’s making up court orders in writing that I was able to get through the discovery process to schools. Can you imagine what he’s making up to the children verbally? I mean, they’re reporting stuff to me, right?

01:31:43:17 – 01:32:05:02
Catherine
And so I don’t ever call him names. I don’t say bad things about him. But in one example where when he enrolled them in public school, he held my daughter back a grade and he blamed it on my home schooling. So they were undereducated that, you know, that that I did. And it was really affecting her self-esteem.

01:32:05:04 – 01:32:28:11
Catherine
And I decided, I don’t care what a court order says, I’m going to do what a mother should do. I didn’t say he’s wrong. I didn’t say he’s a screw up. I didn’t say anything negative about him. I said you should be in sixth grade. I was involved with all of your school staff. I saw your school work.

01:32:28:11 – 01:32:50:19
Catherine
In fact, you’re already doing seventh grade math. You should not be in fifth grade. You should not be in fifth grade. You should be in sixth grade. You should be in sixth grade. I wasn’t talking about him. I wasn’t talking about his decision. But I was building up her self-esteem because I saw it floundering. And on the fourth day of public school, she went to the principal.

01:32:50:19 – 01:33:09:06
Catherine
And you know what? She said I should not be in fifth grade. I should be in sixth grade. And they moved her up, and she used the exact words that I had repeated to her all summer. And those are the words that he tried to use against me in court, unsuccessfully, because I have free speech in my home.

01:33:09:08 – 01:33:36:12
Catherine
So it is absolutely possible for you to build up your child. If a child is hit by an adult caregiver. And let’s say you have injunctions on your speech where you are not allowed or even just ethically, you’re not supposed to talk negatively about this person, right? One of the things I learned in, in, parenting, court ordered parenting classes that we had to do were that, children are half their mom and half their dad.

01:33:36:12 – 01:34:00:03
Catherine
And if you’re saying negative things about that, then they’re internalizing that is, something’s wrong with me. If you’re saying negative things about mom, they’re internalizing that thinking it’s about them. I wish their stepmother, in my case, would take a parenting class so that she would internalize this and understand, because that made me say, whoa, I’m not going to say negative things, but I am going to say you did not deserve to be hit.

01:34:00:03 – 01:34:23:19
Catherine
It wasn’t your fault. That’s not saying anything. He’s a bad guy. He screwed up. He messed up. You did not deserve to be treated like that. It is not your fault. Is not saying anything about the other parent. It is building up their self-esteem as a child and it is being a leader, as a parent, making sure that they know it’s not their fault.

01:34:23:21 – 01:34:45:18
Catherine
And there was something that a Nonviolent Communication teacher said when my ex and I went through nonviolent communication, training, I guess we we paid for support on this from a woman named Betina Valero. If you’re in Austin and you want Nonviolent Communication training, she’s amazing. She’s coming here to do it at our school very soon, next week.

01:34:45:20 – 01:35:20:16
Catherine
She said to me, now she’s a pediatrician. She’s retired now, and a nonviolent communication expert. And she said, as long as there is one adult, one adult in a child’s life saying, you didn’t deserve that, it’s not your fault. They will turn out okay. But they need somebody to say that whether it is a parent, a teacher, a church leader, a next door neighbor, an auntie, a grandmother, a sibling, whoever is in a in an older authority kind of caregiver role in their life.

01:35:20:16 – 01:35:45:20
Catherine
As long as there’s one person saying, you deserve to be loved, you deserve to be treated well, they will grow up knowing that it is the children who do not have a mother like you, that grow up and are unable to resolve this psychological issue because every single adult in their life was reinforcing this. So if it only takes one adult, let it be me.

01:35:45:22 – 01:36:08:15
Catherine
It only takes one to do it. Let it be you. But if it only takes one, why not let it be all of them? Why don’t we all speak up and help our whole community when we see something like this going on, tell the child it’s not their fault. I saw a child got hit in the grocery store last week, and I came up and I said, hey, you didn’t deserve to be hit like that.

01:36:08:15 – 01:36:26:10
Catherine
That’s not your fault. I said that to a stranger’s child. I choose to be the one to do so. Anyway. I think that’s it’s really, really important. Our words are super powerful. No, you don’t want to talk negatively about the other parent, but you need to tell the children the truth about who they are and what they deserve.

01:36:26:14 – 01:36:43:01
Catherine
And if that other parent is doing something that is causing that child harm, you don’t need to talk about the other parent, but you do need to talk about the child and make sure that they know they didn’t deserve it. And the way they do deserve to be treated is with love and dignity and respect.

01:36:43:03 – 01:37:04:22
Alma
Yeah, yeah, it was really hard after the court order came in and we went to 5050 because Mateo didn’t want to go, he cried and bawled, and I would have to tell him that the day before so that it wasn’t like a shock at the exchanges, because if I didn’t tell him the day before, then that would be happening at the exchange.

01:37:04:22 – 01:37:23:02
Alma
And that would just be so much more traumatizing for him not wanting to go and be having to. It’s thrown on him that he has to go. And so for months I would be comforting him, not wanting to go. And I had to make him up too. It’s so hard.

01:37:23:04 – 01:37:27:01
Catherine
It’s so hard.

01:37:27:03 – 01:37:31:09
Alma
To go to this person who just harmed us.

01:37:31:11 – 01:37:55:05
Catherine
And this is where the state is a double edged sword. I wish the anarchist community had a solution because there is no good solution. The state is not a great solution. It can protect you, but it also causes harm. I mean, when my daughter was calling me sobbing and crying and begging to get away from that place, I took screenshots of it to show the judge.

01:37:55:05 – 01:38:17:17
Catherine
And then dad made a rule she can’t call me crying, and if she does, he’s going to take the door off of her bedroom, you know? So like me reporting what was happening got her in more trouble and made it more and more hi control. And it’s we don’t have a perfect solution right now. Not through the state and not through the anarchist community.

01:38:17:19 – 01:38:54:05
Catherine
But, man, we’ve got each other and we can support each other and we can love each other. And I’m really hoping that people who are watching this are becoming informed. If you don’t already know about some of the problems that we face in our own community, in our liberty community, in our libertarian community, in our voluntary community and our freedom communities, there are people who use physical, psychological, emotional, sexual and financial abuse to control and manipulate women and children.

01:38:54:07 – 01:39:37:24
Catherine
They use the court system to cause harm. It is aggression. It is not nonviolence. It is not peaceful. It is not liberty. There are other solutions. So if you’re going to spend money to support a leader in our community, buying their workshops, attending their conferences, you might want to make sure that they are walking the walk. Because every time you participate in a conference put on by my ex, you are putting money in his pocket that he has used in the past repeatedly to pay for lawyers to legally oppress the children and I, I currently live under legal oppression.

01:39:38:01 – 01:40:02:13
Catherine
I am required to spend half of my weeks driving to an institution that I do not believe in, to deliver my children to an institution that I do not believe in, or I can go to jail. This is legal oppression. I don’t have a right to opt out of that. My choice is opt out, go to jail, lose my children, or just do it or don’t spend time with my kids.

01:40:02:13 – 01:40:25:21
Catherine
Those are fucked up choices, and they should not be choices that my family is facing. And those are not choices that all men should have to face in the future. Either. We need a community accountability. We need to stop giving money to people who do not walk the walk. The person that all my ended up committed financial, I don’t want to.

01:40:25:21 – 01:40:48:07
Catherine
I don’t let is not the right word, but misappropriation with our organization, with an archipelago and I had to hold them accountable. It was horrible and it caused a lot of drama within our organization. This does not happen in isolation. Domestic abuse does not just happen to the wife and the children. People who behave this way are coercive controllers.

01:40:48:07 – 01:41:03:17
Catherine
And it is out in the world. And I and I know that because people came to me the whole time I was with my ex, he owes me this money for this, he did this to me, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was the person who held them accountable. And I didn’t go tell everybody what he did, but I made him fix it.

01:41:03:17 – 01:41:39:05
Catherine
Every single time I knew about something, I made him fix it. And there’s some things that I still know that haven’t been fixed. So we need our community to come together and support the community. We cannot just believe in lip service to freedom and liberty. We can’t just listen to people. We need to be shoulder to shoulder, standing together, working together to solve our common problems, or we will forever be dependent on a state for support.

01:41:39:07 – 01:42:05:09
Catherine
Moms like alma and I should not be in the system. There’s no reason for the two of us to be in the system. And who put us there? Libertarian men? Fraudulent liberty activists forced us into the system. That’s coercion. That is violence.

01:42:05:11 – 01:42:31:18
Catherine
It should not be tolerated in our community. It’s wrong. We did not walk into this voluntarily, and no other woman in the Liberty movement should be forced to. Or man, if the violence goes the other way. It’s rare, but it happens. Like in the case of Maya and Sebastian, they’re not liberty families. They’re just a family from California.

01:42:31:20 – 01:42:57:05
Catherine
But they took to the internet and they showed the world what the family court is willing to do. And they are exposing the reunification camps. And we are so lucky, Emma, that our exes didn’t have judges that believed in parental alienation and forced our children into these indoctrination, reunification camps with with our exes. I mean, it could have been freaking horrible.

01:42:57:07 – 01:43:03:09
Catherine
So anyway, we’ve been going quite a bit. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

01:43:03:11 – 01:43:16:11
Alma
Not right now. I’m sure I’ll think of a bunch of more after we’re done talking. But you’re right. It is lengthy already, and I know people’s attention spans. But if they if they’re going through this, they are going to listen.

01:43:16:13 – 01:43:43:11
Catherine
Yep. And what ultimately matters to me I don’t care about big numbers, big followers. I care about reaching the right people. And to me, a small, connected, intimate group that loves each other and takes care of each other is way more important than a high viewer count. And what I have found is I have started to speak out, is that the support I am getting is so much more meaningful.

01:43:43:16 – 01:44:02:14
Catherine
I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me and said, if you had told me six years ago, I would have been there for you. But I was ashamed, I was embarrassed. It’s humiliating when you build a whole reputation on being a freedom mom, and then all of a sudden you don’t get to be a freedom mom anymore.

01:44:02:16 – 01:44:27:19
Catherine
It causes an existential identity crisis within yourself. And it’s humiliating. And I really was protecting my ex. I didn’t want people to know what he was doing, because I didn’t want them to judge him, because I believed that he had had things happen to him that caused him to behave this way. But you know what? At some point we have to become adults and take responsibility for our past and for our childhoods and what we’ve been through and how we’re treating other people.

01:44:27:21 – 01:44:51:21
Catherine
And so this is me taking accountability for my codependency and for my silence, because I realize silence is violence. And so coming out and being brave and speaking up and doing things like this, to me, this is the best way that I can support my community. So if you guys have any awesome ideas for alma or you want to support her domes for mom, sorry, I called it domes for women earlier.

01:44:52:00 – 01:45:10:06
Catherine
If you want to support her domes for moms project, or you want to be involved in any of the awesome stuff she’s got going on at Jackalope Freedom Fest. If you have ideas on how to create a more safe and protected environment for Jackalope Freedom Fest, these are things we need to be talking about. So please reach out.

01:45:10:08 – 01:45:13:03
Catherine
How can people get Ahold of you? If they want to be in touch?

01:45:13:05 – 01:45:37:19
Alma
They can find me on Facebook, alma, Summer, Aso, MPR. And I just want to add one more thing, to the dome for moms. Since I started this project, I have just been gifted things. I posted a picture on Instagram that my my charge controller wasn’t working, and a guy sent me a box full of charging folders, inverters, and other solar parks.

01:45:37:21 – 01:46:18:15
Alma
Oh yeah, and a childhood friend of mine that I grew up, like you saw a picture of my my sad looking water tank that I posted, and he gifted me to 275 gallon water tanks, just the other day. And so I just I’m so grateful for the way my life is going right now. And definitely getting an abuser out of my life was a very big part of me finally being at peace, you know, because I have a previous, you know, relationship with my older two kids, father of two, who I, you know, still interact with, and I’m, I’m, I’m grateful that that one has not entered the system.

01:46:18:17 – 01:46:36:23
Alma
I don’t think he wants it to either. So I’m glad there that. But I’m just really grateful we’ve kept neo and out of the system. So that’s pretty much all I have to say about that. But yeah, I want to help other moms. If they have to go to the system, I want to help them through it.

01:46:36:23 – 01:46:41:01
Alma
And if they can stay out of it, I want to help them through it that way, too.

01:46:41:03 – 01:47:13:21
Catherine
Awesome. All right. I’m going to be posting this episode on Sovereign living.com. You can read the transcript there. You can go through my personal story there. And if there’s anything else that you ever want shared with the world, please let me know. I didn’t mean for sovereign living to turn into a page about coercive control. My original intention back in 2010 was like a Martha Stewart living, like, here’s how you slaughter a chicken, and here’s how you install solar panels.

01:47:13:23 – 01:47:56:16
Catherine
And instead it has turned into this amazing exposé on what coercive control is. And it’s followed my journey on, on reclaiming my life. So, one of the things I’m working on right now is a book called memoirs of a radical, and this talks about not only my personal journey in this situation with coercive control, but all the cool activism stuff that I’ve been able to participate in over the years from the frontlines of the Ron Paul campaign, the police accountability movement, the states rights movement, cryptocurrency adoption in the early days, like, oh, it was so contentious to support altcoins.

01:47:56:18 – 01:47:57:18
Alma
I remember was.

01:47:57:22 – 01:48:16:17
Catherine
Like, oh my gosh, Bitcoin maximalists were like, how dare you support Monero and Dash? And so, you know, there’s been a lot of really cool things in the history of our movement. And so I’m working on putting that story together. I’m 140 pages in. So hopefully all my you can be one of my early readers and give me some feedback on that.

01:48:16:19 – 01:48:18:07
Alma
And,

01:48:18:09 – 01:48:38:04
Catherine
I think as we share our stories, the more powerful we become. I’m having a similar experience, the more I just put it out there into the world, the more comes back to me. So if you need help, whether it is a, water tank or charge controllers or you need legal advice, you know, put it out into the world.

01:48:38:04 – 01:49:00:06
Catherine
I found my lawyer on Instagram. Truly. So. So put it out there, tell the world what you need and the people who can help. Well, and you’ll find that support shows up in the most mysterious of ways. And as long as we stay quiet, it’s impossible for people to know what we need. So when you speak up and you tell the world what you need, I’m going to tell the world right now.

01:49:00:06 – 01:49:20:05
Catherine
I would love a really awesome, powerful appeals lawyer who could help me undo what I did, or at least let me know if it’s even possible because I don’t want to go the next ten years under legal oppression of somebody who has a completely different lifestyle belief system than me. So putting it out there, let me go.

01:49:20:07 – 01:49:23:17
Alma
Batteries. I’m looking for batteries.

01:49:23:19 – 01:49:43:16
Catherine
Batteries? She needs batteries. All right. So let’s put it out there into the world. And, gosh, if anybody knows about installing solar systems, we’ve got like ten solar panels to install. And I don’t think we thought through the whole like building a place to put them thing. So anyway, thanks for tuning in. I’m super, super grateful man.

01:49:43:18 – 01:50:06:13
Catherine
I love you so much. Your journey has been amazing to witness unfold over the years, and I’m glad that we found our way back to one another. I know being isolated in a domestic violence situation, it sucks, but true friends stay around and will be there when you come out of it. Just like you and I are here for one another.

01:50:06:15 – 01:50:12:22
Catherine
I love you, you. Peace, love and anarchy y’all.