Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 March 29

= March 29 =

What are the differences between a freeman on the land and a sovereign citizen?
There's a merger proposal at Talk:Sovereign citizen movement that looks like it's going to end with a "not done", as all six editors who commented oppose the idea. This is because, according to them, the freemen on the land and sovereign citizen movements are significantly different. I have read about people encountering them and I have recently had the misfortune to come across one of them in my profession. This is a person that I identified as a sovereign citizen based on the writing style and his arguments, but now I'm less certain.

To me, it looks like they employ much the same arguments and some reliable sources discuss them together or appear to consider them the same. Given that there is no strict organization or regulating authority i guess that their beliefs vary and that there is considerable overlap between the beliefs of the two groups. But what are the differences and similarities and does it matter when dealing with one of them? Sjö (talk) 13:47, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The main similarity is that they're both bogus. <-Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots-> 14:23, 29 March 2020 (UTC)


 * It appears that sovereign citizens are American cranks, and freemen are English nutters. They both appear to believe pretty much the same bullshit. A merger would be appropriate. Temerarius (talk) 21:02, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * From what I've read, it seems the Freemen are mostly harmless, while the Sovereign Citizens are often dangerous terrorists. Which would be a good reason to keep them separate - we wouldn't normally merge a terrorist movement from one country with a non-violent movement from another, even if they shared the same ideology..  Iapetus (talk) 09:24, 30 March 2020 (UTC)


 * To answer your immediate question, they're both the same: invented concepts with a similar goal, but nothing legal to back them up.
 * But in terms of our articles, we're not looking at the concept, we're looking at the campaigns. Those are different. So should the articles be. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:27, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree -- if there's no real organizational connection between the movements, then a broad similarity in overall concept is not enough reason to merge... AnonMoos (talk) 22:47, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Each with a "see also" to the other one. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:15, 29 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Do sources describe them as the same movement or separate? Even if they otherwise behaved identically (which they don't) and made the same arguments verbatim (close but not exactly), we can't combine them until other sources connect them. Ian.thomson (talk) 10:23, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It varies, hence my confusion. Some sources treat them as part of the same movement, others treat them as similar but mostly don't detail the differences    . Sjö (talk) 11:47, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've removed or changed a couple of statements on our Freemen on the Land article that were guilty of synthesis and/or making claims not supported by the cited sources. Iapetus (talk) 09:25, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

I Heard You Paint Houses
This is the kind of question that should really be raised on the article's talk page, but I've learned that this is essentially pointless as questions I've left on article talk pages have often gone unanswered for months or even years. So this is the best place, really. The article on the book I Heard You Paint Houses quotes the full title of the book as I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran and Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa. This is also the correct title of the book according to Amazon and all the other sources I've seen. However, on the cover of the book used to illustrate the article, the title is slightly different (it ends with...the Last Ride of Jimmy Hoffa). So which is the correct title? If the first title is correct, the image of the cover in the article should be changed. --Viennese Waltz 15:36, 29 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Usually, the book title page is more authoritative than the book cover. What's on the cover is often chosen to be attention-grabbing... AnonMoos (talk) 16:13, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * See this thread from last year - "Which is the correct book title?". Alansplodge (talk) 18:56, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That thread doesn't answer my question, which is what is the correct title when a book has two covers and they both show different titles. --Viennese Waltz 19:01, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * For
 * HV6446 .B73 2004 CABIN BRANCH "I heard you paint houses" : Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran and the inside story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the last ride of Jimmy Hoffa
 * HV6446 .B73 2005 "I heard you paint houses" : Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran and the inside story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the last ride of Jimmy Hoffa 
 * ISBN 9781586420895 Streetforth Press
 * cover #1 TRUE CRIME BEST SELLER "I heard you paint houses" : Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran and Closing the case on Jimmy Hoffa UPDATED AND WITH A NEW EPILOGUE BY THE AUTHOR CHARLES BRANDT.
 * missing title page at amazon look inside
 * HV6446 .B73 2016 Irishman : Frank Sheeran and closing the case on Jimmy Hoffa
 * ISBN 9781586422387 Steerforth I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa
 * bunch of mass market paperbacks such as ISBN 9781586422479 mostly 2019 with the LC title
 * sorry, had to change response as got confused between the 2005 and 2016 editions. fiveby(zero) 20:29, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Fiveby -- theoretically, both covers could be wrong, if neither one accurately reflected the title page... AnonMoos (talk) 22:43, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I was expecting the title page would remain the same within an edition. For the 2016 edition, the title page changes from I Heard you Paint Houses...Closing the Case... to The Irishman...Closing the Case... after the 2019 movie, but the copyright remains 2004,2005,2016. I couldn't find anything showing a title page for the 2005 edition to see if it has Closing along with the cover or last ride per the Library of Congress MARC record. fiveby(zero) 01:40, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Kennedy assassination's effect on weapon manufacturers
This web auctioneer claims that: "About the time that Winchester was seriously considering entering production [of the 1959-63 prototype, inexpensive double action revolver], President Kennedy was assassinated and Winchester immediately scrapped the idea for fear of political repercussions." I don't get it. Kennedy was shot with a Carcano 91/38 rifle. What does this have to do with a new type of Winchester revolver? --KnightMove (talk) 17:40, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It's a gun. If someone loved by the people is shot, the image of all guns would logically go down. Marketing a new gun of any kind in such circumstances would be an unattractive proposition. HiLo48 (talk) 00:09, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The city of Dallas also suffered a tarnished reputation for a while. There was a popular song called "Big D" (little a double l a s) which disappeared for some stretch of time. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:23, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * "Disappeared"? How did a song from a 1956 musical "disappear"? Cite, please, asks this longtime student of musical theater. --jpgordon&#x1d122;&#x1d106; &#x1D110;&#x1d107; 14:23, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * What I originally was going to say was "disappeared from the airwaves". Obviously the song itself did not disappear. And after some years had passed, the Dallas Cowboys resumed playing it during their halftime shows and the like. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:59, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * You could say the city's name was "Mud" for a while. In the movie Dr. Strangelove, they cut out some ironic references to Dallas. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:00, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Note that in 1963, John M. Olin retired as chairman of Winchester; the new management quickly discontinued their traditional lines and switched to mass-produced models in order to cut costs (resulting the foreseeable side effect of cutting sales as well). This seems to be a more likely explanation for abandoning a prototype, although I can't find any reference online. A rather tenuous connection with the Kennedy assassination was that the spent ammunition recovered after the shooting had been manufactured by the Western Cartridge Company,  which had acquired Winchester in 1935 under Olin's leadership. Alansplodge (talk) 17:21, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * You can thank people like DH Byrd and LBJ for songs like that. The hospitality they extended to Kennedy wasn't exactly "neighbourly" after all... Earl of Arundel (talk) 16:41, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

The number of Mugwumps in New York state in 1884
Does anyone here know just how many Mugwumps there were in New York state in 1884? I'm asking because Democrat Grover Cleveland only won the 1884 United States presidential election in New York by a little over 1,000 votes--or slightly less than 0.10%. Many Mugwumps declined to vote for 1884 Republican candidate James G. Blaine due to them perceiving him as being corrupt--instead preferring to support the more honest Cleveland in spite of him being a Democrat. I'm curious as to just how many Mugwumps there actually were in New York state in 1884 considering that, if one speculates about alternate history, one might want to try figuring out what the odds of a surviving US President James A. Garfield (assuming, of course, that he'd have actually lived in this scenario) would have been of carrying New York state in 1884 and thus winning the 1884 election. A surviving President Garfield probably wouldn't have had the same problem with Mugwump defections as Blaine had in real life due to the fact that AFAIK Garfield was perceived as being more honest than Blaine was. (Indeed, there was no Mugwump defection problem in 1880 in real life--which is when Garfield initially ran for the US Presidency.)

So, yeah, any thoughts on this? Futurist110 (talk) 21:34, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I found some good resources to help you research the answer to your question. The Library of Congress has a wealth of information on the election of 1884.  I didn't read this article, but it also looks promising .  Just some starting points for you.  -- Jayron 32 13:45, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much, Jayron32! Futurist110 (talk) 21:54, 5 April 2020 (UTC)