'Sovereign citizens' sentenced to prison term in Western Australia for defiance of court order (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 3 days ago by hanrahan@slrpnk.net to c/australia@aussie.zone

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Two 'sovereign citizens' have been sentenced to a month in jail, with a judge warning their "extremely dangerous" ideas would not be tolerated.

The cohort are becoming an increasing burden on the Australian courts, a New South Wales Magistrate told the ABC.

In this case, Mr and Ms Martin argued that the court is a "corporate entity" and "cannot instruct the living being".

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[-] eureka@aussie.zone 6 points 2 days ago

I'm late to the thread but shout out to Tom Tanuki's deepdive into the surprisingly unique world of the Aus SovShit movement.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ea_7jUU489g

[-] Nath@aussie.zone 6 points 2 days ago

It's taken all day, but I've managed to listen to this in the background at work in between stuff.
I finally got to the end, and realise there's a part 2! Oh man. I'm not entirely positive I can take another hour of talking about these loonies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIrcWtuLkdA

So far, the tl;dw is "These people are wrong. None of their bullshit actually works, and some have lost homes or ended up in prison over their idiot ideas".

Which brings us full-circle to this article of two guys being imprisoned over their mistaken belief of being outside the law.

[-] eureka@aussie.zone 2 points 2 days ago

Yeah part 2 is about a different subsection specific to niche indigenous groups trying to play the same kind of "well technically" game with fake laws instead of actual effective resistance strategies, so while I think it's interesting too, it's less relevant to these news stories we see so it's alright to hold off on.

Which brings us full-circle

Yeah, interesting to see that the legal system (at least that judge) has finally stopped with the initial toleration of these SovCit-style claims. When the system ignores or shows the restraint to tolerate this flavour of SovCit pseudolaw, it can validate them and (as you pointed out) some have lost homes or ended up in prison over their idiot ideas. That really puts context into the judge's quote below; it's not just the harassment or gun-holding compounds to worry about, but the danger this delusional arrogance can do to themselves.

Mr and Ms Martin have told me more than once they are not dangerous people," he wrote. "The ideas they express, however, can be extremely dangerous"

[-] Nath@aussie.zone 13 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

My employer is a corporate identity that is giving me instructions all the time. I often even follow them.

Perhaps I'm not the living being?

[-] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 3 days ago

I suppose the argument would be that you explicitly agree to that, and your employer doesn't have any possible response if you choose to if kre it other than to sever your relationship.

That, of course, is assuming they've even thought about it that much, which is probably giving sovcits too much credit.