I do have a problem though, in that you say this guy shows obvious signs of being unbalanced. A related question about the obvious was asked of me before. I responded by saying that his imbalance was obvious to some because of what he believes re "divine anarchism" and for how he looks - people even posted pictures meant to discredit him, you must have seen the pics. Furthermore, my response to this query was to also say that from my own perspective, nothing is obvious where it comes to people's motivations and what they believe.
What exactly do you see as the "obvious signs of being unbalanced" demonstrated by this man? Is it simply for the reason that he thinks differently - the reason given by the judge himself? Did the man lash out violently in court or something? What am I missing here, aside from the fact that the judge rationalizes his action to submit the defendant to mental competency testing on the basis of this man's different way of thinking?
My concern here is that the same rationale used by the judge could be applied to anyone else who expresses "different" thinking according to the powers that be. On one of the later posts to this thread, someone, apparently joking, equates the circumstances of the defendant to being held prisoner by the Nazis - saying it must not be that bad to be a victim of the Nazis if the experience is similar to the defendant's. This of course is a complete distortion of the point the author of the article was trying to make. (Ooops, forgot, am I not supposed to talk about the (crackpot)author here, among friends?) The fact is, the Nazis did use mental health as a means of disposing of political enemies. Do you honestly believe that this could not happen in America? What happens when political correctness and muticulturalism take further root in the institutions of our society? Teachers and government employees are already being fired for using the word "niggardly." The demands for the enactment of hate crime legislation are growing stronger. How much longer will it be until people in this country are jailed for "thought crimes" a la Orwell? Don't you see how the justice system can be abused where it comes to determining mental competency for people who think "differently?"
Like I said, maybe I am missing something here in this case, and the defendant acted out violently or in some other "crazy" way. But why shouldn't we be concerned about related issues outside the context of this particular case? Our culture appears to have a prediliction for viewing problems singularly - like when we view terrorism as a series of isolated crimes or events instead of as a continuing effort on the part of our enemies to wear us down and kill us. I am afraid that too many people view the issues of this discussion singularly too, literally on a case-by-case basis, and in so doing, lose sight of the forest for the trees.
At that point, the judge has two options: the first is to simply accept and adjudicate the guy's arguments at face value, whereupon the gentleman is now guilty of failure to appear AND the original misdemeanor charge--because he completely ignored both the law of the state of Oregon and argued on an irrelevant tangent. However, the result is that this gentleman can later argue that the judge did not take into the fact that he's off his chump.
However, to simply accept the arguments offered and then adjudicate them is very much NOT in this gentleman's interest, and he should (being a retired police officer) know that his arguments are specious and the consequences thereof. Therefore, to safeguard this gentleman's rights, the judge is going to ask whether he is mentally competent to stand trial and argue his own case.
He's not going to be locked up merely for his political beliefs. Either (a) he's going to be found competent, and he's going to go to trial and lose, or (b) he's going to be found NOT competent, get court-appointed counsel, and he'll have a slightly better chance of getting off. The only way he's going to be locked up is if the court-appointed pshrink believes he poses an imminent danger to himself or others--and that requires this guy to express suicidal or murderous ideation during his evaluation. At that point, the pshrink would STILL have to go o a judge to get this guy committed.
BTW, according to my personal interpretation of the Constitution, you now owe me $2,000,000,000, plus a penalty of $4,000,000,000 for expressing a desire to have this case argued before the corrupt judiciary. There's a common-law court convening in the trailer park tonight; this case will be adjudiated by REAL 'MURICANS, and you'll be found guilty of high treason, barratry, jaywalking, and spitting on the sidewalk.