ISSN: 2710-4028 DOI: doi.org/10.54208/1000/0006 53
conspiratorial predispositions, marginal and dissident
social status, and desire for enhanced personal
authority. They then enter into and occupy an echo
chamber that reinforces those selective characteristics,
and that screens out contradictory information that
would challenge the group’s messiah and apostle-
in-chief. The principal threat is expulsion and
denunciation, that, for believers, means being thrown
into a highly vulnerable condition, defenceless against
the malevolent and omnipresent New World Order.
The “real world” implications of being excluded
from the MCLR’s promised “Redress” and online
community is, factually, zero. Instead, former
members are now more likely to comply with their
legal obligations, resulting in much reduced personal
risk. That said, study of modern Internet-based social
communities, particularly those based on grievance
and fear, illustrates that one should not underestimate
the powerful affiliations and negative consequences
that result when individuals submerge within online
political/conspiratorial subcultures (e.g., Barkun,
2013 Douglas, 2017 McRoberts, 2019 van Prooijen,
2021 van Prooijen, Ligthart, Rosema, &Xu, 2021).
In summary, a number of factors likely contributed to
the comparative success of the MCLR, and Phoenix in
particular:
1. The Magna Carta is both familiar, and
unfamiliar. The Magna Carta’s allegedly
profound historical impact is broadly taught
and mythologized, but hardly anyone has read it,
or knows there were a succession of English
Magna Cartas.
2. The backdrop to MCLR activity is both
dramatic and romantic, including:
a) an oath of fealty to a rebel lord
b) heroic revolutionary status and
c) empowered participation in an
eschatological conflict between the
oppressive evil “New World Order,” as
portrayed in broadly disseminated
QAnon and other cultic milieu
conspiracies, where the MCLR is
the sole roadblock to terrible personal
and societal outcomes.
3. Low participation thresholds, since:
a) MCLR activity involves no or little
direct expense
b) Robinson’s form documents are
simple and follow a formulaic pattern
where “user input” is negligible, and
opposing responses can be dismissed
and ignored as further “evidence of
treason” and
c) online MCLR forums provided
enthusiastic encouragement, support,
and guidance on how to engage MCLR
processes.
4. MCLR theory promises open-ended
extraordinary authority, including lawful
killing of perceived enemies.
5. MCLR adherents are unsophisticated and
ill-informed, meaning MCLR theory and
materials may appear plausible, at least as a
form of cargo cult mimicry (Netolitzky, 2018b).
6. Nearly unique among pseudolaw movements,
the MCLR has consistent visual branding,
particularly the iconic MCLR shield design.
7. Participants in the MCLR phenomenon
operate in a strictly controlled echo chamber,
where social contact is largely indirect and
impersonal, except for links to the savior figures
of Robinson and Phoenix.
Despite these advantages, the MCLR is now almost
certainly on a terminal trajectory of failure and decay.
G. Plausible Future
A pseudolaw movement is only sustainable so long
as there is a promise of reward or benefit (Netolitzky,
2021). During the Robinson period, the MCLR was
in competition with other UK pseudolaw groups. The
MCLR started off with several selective advantages: 1)
being based on a well-known document commonly
imbued with great historical and political effect 2)
MCLR theory provided a simple rote template document
methodology and 3) Robinson’s unsupported claims
conspiratorial predispositions, marginal and dissident
social status, and desire for enhanced personal
authority. They then enter into and occupy an echo
chamber that reinforces those selective characteristics,
and that screens out contradictory information that
would challenge the group’s messiah and apostle-
in-chief. The principal threat is expulsion and
denunciation, that, for believers, means being thrown
into a highly vulnerable condition, defenceless against
the malevolent and omnipresent New World Order.
The “real world” implications of being excluded
from the MCLR’s promised “Redress” and online
community is, factually, zero. Instead, former
members are now more likely to comply with their
legal obligations, resulting in much reduced personal
risk. That said, study of modern Internet-based social
communities, particularly those based on grievance
and fear, illustrates that one should not underestimate
the powerful affiliations and negative consequences
that result when individuals submerge within online
political/conspiratorial subcultures (e.g., Barkun,
2013 Douglas, 2017 McRoberts, 2019 van Prooijen,
2021 van Prooijen, Ligthart, Rosema, &Xu, 2021).
In summary, a number of factors likely contributed to
the comparative success of the MCLR, and Phoenix in
particular:
1. The Magna Carta is both familiar, and
unfamiliar. The Magna Carta’s allegedly
profound historical impact is broadly taught
and mythologized, but hardly anyone has read it,
or knows there were a succession of English
Magna Cartas.
2. The backdrop to MCLR activity is both
dramatic and romantic, including:
a) an oath of fealty to a rebel lord
b) heroic revolutionary status and
c) empowered participation in an
eschatological conflict between the
oppressive evil “New World Order,” as
portrayed in broadly disseminated
QAnon and other cultic milieu
conspiracies, where the MCLR is
the sole roadblock to terrible personal
and societal outcomes.
3. Low participation thresholds, since:
a) MCLR activity involves no or little
direct expense
b) Robinson’s form documents are
simple and follow a formulaic pattern
where “user input” is negligible, and
opposing responses can be dismissed
and ignored as further “evidence of
treason” and
c) online MCLR forums provided
enthusiastic encouragement, support,
and guidance on how to engage MCLR
processes.
4. MCLR theory promises open-ended
extraordinary authority, including lawful
killing of perceived enemies.
5. MCLR adherents are unsophisticated and
ill-informed, meaning MCLR theory and
materials may appear plausible, at least as a
form of cargo cult mimicry (Netolitzky, 2018b).
6. Nearly unique among pseudolaw movements,
the MCLR has consistent visual branding,
particularly the iconic MCLR shield design.
7. Participants in the MCLR phenomenon
operate in a strictly controlled echo chamber,
where social contact is largely indirect and
impersonal, except for links to the savior figures
of Robinson and Phoenix.
Despite these advantages, the MCLR is now almost
certainly on a terminal trajectory of failure and decay.
G. Plausible Future
A pseudolaw movement is only sustainable so long
as there is a promise of reward or benefit (Netolitzky,
2021). During the Robinson period, the MCLR was
in competition with other UK pseudolaw groups. The
MCLR started off with several selective advantages: 1)
being based on a well-known document commonly
imbued with great historical and political effect 2)
MCLR theory provided a simple rote template document
methodology and 3) Robinson’s unsupported claims
