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this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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Out of all the segmented degenerate hiveminds in the US, I think sovereign citizens often baffle me the most.
The most profoundly puzzling thing to me is their insistence that magic words will somehow make authorities back off.
Like, they believe that there is this grand conspiracy involving the Federal Reserve and maritime law and birth names and whatever else. And yet they also believe that the forces behind this conspiracy must acquiesce if you just invoke the right language.
Do they never consider that an entity powerful enough to do all that could also just ignore their demands? Like, even if the conspiracy is true, why would its perpetrators just give up because some random person told them to?
Check out The Freemen. This is pretty much where this stuff came from, whackos in Montana during the 90s who pulled off the longest standoff with the FBI in American history (may have changed since).
They had their own currency (which some locals would actually accept), and they were very, very good at painting themselves as innocent victims.
I believe that because of them and other groups like The Montana Militia are one of the prime influences for this movement.
It's the same impulse that made medieval people believe they could defend themselves from fairies and demons by saying the right things the right way. Some part of the insanity demands that a person who sees through the illusion can somehow win against the evil conspirators
My guess would be that by using the right words they pretend to be part of that power, because how else would one tell apart the laymen and true sovereign citizens.
Don't know if that even has anything in common with what they say their reasons are, that's too crazy to read 😅
We have a similar bunch of wackos in Germany, the Reichsbürger. They claim that the modern German constitution is illegal because the German Empire was never officially disbanded as an entity and therefore they don't have to follow the current laws. Many also dream of reinstating a monarchy and are - surprise! - fascists.
Similarly same is happening in Czechia. Sovcivs claim Czechoslovakia splitting wasn't constitutional or something like that. Similar idea, same bunch of dumb fucks.
Was the split better for Czechia than for Slovakia? (My uneducated general impression’s been that Czechia has more GDPs).
I'd say, economically, we were both equal. Minor differences really, neither country is "more profitable to live in".
Wasn't it a group of Reichbürgers that got arrested last year for planning a coup in a partnership with right wing military officers?
Is there a royal family in Germany? Like that monarchy lasted about a hundred years... And it's been that same amount of time since then!
No royal family but Reichsbürger often have people as their leaders who call themselves King
One of their figureheads is a self-declared prince and actually comes from a minor noble house. The family of the last German emperor are the Hohenzollern though, which still exist but are not associated with the Reichsbürger movement.
I used to be baffled by Flat Earthers until I realized it was just a religious thing.
I find them baffling, what's their deal?
Is it like a religion for them or is there an actual religion?
No, one of their core arguments is that language in the bible heavily implies that the earth is flat. Nevermind that the bible is a collection of stories from uneducated iron-age fanatics...
There's nothing in the Bible that implies the earth is flat... but most people who use the Bible to excuse their behavior don't actually read it, so it's not wild to hear they think the Bible is the basis for their beliefs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament
Isaiah 11:12 - And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
Ezekiel 7:2 - Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD unto the land of Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land.
There is actually plenty of language in the bible that implies a flat earth. I found these examples with 5 minutes of searching.
Four corners of the earth usually refers to the cardinal directions, north, east, south, west. It doesn't mean there are actual corners at the edge of a plane.
Well sure, but only if you interpret it like a reasonable person, which they don't.
Wow, TIL, but it made more sense before I learnt of this fact
Edit: to be clear, it's not that I believe Earth to be flat, it's that this "argument" makes even less sense than an assumption that flat earth was just a trolling
Flat earth= god is beyond a doubt real.
Round earth= god may be real? We are not sure, probably not.
It's just a rehashed deep fried form of proselytizing as the people who fall for that shit, will surely fall for other shit, and you can even milk some money of out them like that guy who used them to build his own rocket.
I'm guessing somewhere up the chain is a person making money from it, probably a book or class that teaches the "secrets." And of course when your sovcit crap fails to work you didn't follow the program to the T.
I mean, that's basically Great Value Scientology.
Sovereigntology? Their book "Dianetrix - how laws actually work" is the, supposedly, seminal work of their founder L Ron Bubba. In reality the book is 75% plagiarized from "How to act batshit crazy at traffic stops, so the cops will let you go, for dummies"
I'm completely out of the loop, what is this "sovereign citizen" nonsense?
It's mental illness and wishful thinking all wrapped up together. They believe whole heartily that if they don't agree to the rules of society they are under no obligation to follow societies rules unless a rule benefits them then they should also benefit. I'm sure there are some who are just using it to grift but I believe a majority of them honestly have some form of mental disability because I watched the trial for Darrel Brooks who decided to drive through a crowd at a parade killing six people and injuring several others and he was literally dumbfounded that he was found guilty because he believed the law didn't apply to him as a sovcit.
You know how some people think that a good lawyer can get anyone out of anything if they find the right loophole? SivCits take that to an extreme using completely made up rules. For example, your name printed in ALL CAPS refers to a legal corporation, while normal case refers to you as a human being. If your name is ever printed in all caps, such as on a summons to appear in court, that doesn't actually mean you.
Oh jeez, I forgot about that one! My brother tried explaining this crap to me once, about how you can buy your identity back from Italy or something and how it's worth millions.
They claim they don't have to follow laws because the flag has fringe on it and something, something, maritime laws. So US law doesn't apply to them.
If that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, it's because Sovereign Citizen doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
I think it's a wild and varied and disorganized mess dreamed up by people who have left the very idea of being reasonable far behind them long ago.
However, a crucial part of it is certain specific capitalization of words. I think some of them had been using caps lock to post rants on discus for too long and think that it has some magical meaning under law...
I say all that to say that they believe that there's a "legal entity" that is invoked when you capitalize versus plain case someone's name (amongst other things)...and that there is a difference between this "legal entity" and the person in a body...which there frankly plainly and obviously isn't.
Despite being told in court by multiple judges that the capitalization of things does not matter, they persist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen_movement#Immunity_from_laws_and_taxes
I thought the capitalization stuff was kind of a side show, but have since realized that not only is it crucial to their belief system, it also serves as a way to identify them on the Internet. If someone strangely insists on capitalizing certain words or phrases every time they use them and is otherwise very unreasonable, there's a good chance they're a sovcit (or should I say SOVCIT? 🙂).
Congrats! You're one of today's lucky 10000!
One of those rarer instances where a congrats should be in scare quotes tho
I think it appears from a fundamental misunderstanding of the social contract. They disagree that they are bound by government and it's laws because they never agreed to it explicitly. They are wrong. Being born in America means your are a citizen and bound by it's rules... they still live here and utilize the infrastructure, they never renounce their citizenship and they don't leave, so it's all crappy entitlement shit to try and get out of tickets and bills and taxes
Munecat i think did an amazing video on sovcits. And hey now, we only started this problem but weve apparently exported it everywhere else.
Yes I've heard of at least 1 person in Western Europe trying this. They did not get far and are now way deep in debt. But luckily the government they resisted against assigned them a keeper to help get out of the debt. In an anonymous interview they said they regretted the whole thing and were mislead by others. They are now actually really grateful for all the help the government offers to people in shit, even though they got themselves there.
I've seen bodycam footage of a sovtard confronting Irish police officers (garda or something?) spewing his bullshit and invoking the US constitution. The officers looked completely lost, like they were untrained to deal with such degeneracy.
We've had one person here as well. She lost her house because she didn't believe debts are real: https://www-nrk-no.translate.goog/vestfoldogtelemark/ingunn-_50_-kastet-ut-av-_egen-stat_-1.11996057?_x_tr_sl=no&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=no&_x_tr_pto=wapp
It's a sad story, but I can't stop thinking about this vibe:
Australia's working on it and getting pretty far. Heck the original Q-board-owner-guy was Aussie. You'd figure that in the land of Rupert Murdoch though eh.
I will admit, sometimes I start to think, maybe they are on to something....
My best friend from childhood sometimes slips into SC territory. We don't talk often but when we do, it can be a doozy. HE was never like this before COVID.
They're high on their own supply, is what they are.
COVID hit hard on mental health for many of us
I know right. To be absolutely convinced that there are loopholes in everything and that only the rubes are playing by the rules is one thing. But to maintain that belief in the face of what must become a long string of failures… takes a certain mental toughness to be kind.
I suppose if you look around and everyone else seems to be doing better than you, maybe you assume they must all be cheating and you start looking to get in on the game. A few YouTube holes down the road you think you can pay your child support with secret legal incantations.