Sovereign citizens - again

Economics Political Theory
1

http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/sovereign-citizens-radicals-next-door-28558482.html

This is why AnCaps reject violent methods to achieve anarchy. Because the media gets an easy piece like this out.

It’s pure propaganda and equivocation from beginning to end. They found a few sovereign citizens who killed people out of stupidity and suddenly all these people are dangerous. Now, I don’t know much about the movement, but it does appear that they are some sort of anarchist movement.

I can easily create a video about “statist citizens” who believe they have the right to take people’s money and who also happened to have killed a few people - “Statist citizens - claim to be nonviolent, but a some statist citizens are murderers!”

2

As I understand it, the Sovereign Citizens integrate the teachings of the Austrian School and the Hogwarts School, in that they believe that a free society can be achieved by saying a few magic words in a courtroom.

3

Lol. I found this article on them:

http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/SCM.asp?xpicked=4

It appears they have a hodgepodge of ideas, but apparently common law, non-fiat currency, anti-Fedism, and anti-tax are strong with them.

4

A foolish strategy by all means, and also a simplified and wrong conception of the government as far as I see. Basically what one would expect from a young, angry lad reading Rothbard.

5

Instead of knocking them I suggest you go try to make some new friends and then come back and share your first hand experiences instead of absurd speculations.

6

If anything the news reporting this will cause a bigger divide. Some will now want to learn more and become active in the movement. While others (statist) will use this to discredit anyone that argues for less government, constitution, gold, etc…

7

If many people see this at all.

8

I really do not see how getting to know any of these guys will change my opinion on their strategy or conception of government.

9

I know. Some people are willing to take no risk for freedom. Some people suggest geographical organization. Some people say the path to freedom is educate people and miracles will happen. Now it appears people can be educated without even getting to know them. What will we think of next… it appears freedom is already on autopilot… what is there to talk about, at this pace I should be waking up in a free market any day now.

10

I see. Well I must insist then: it a shame to notice what impatience and a wrong conception of the state can lead a few to.

11

Explain how or why you think they have some kind of unenlightened view of the State. They are simply…extremists and Last resortists. If you’ve read your Rothbard, which you imply in an earlier post, then you’d know that he says revolutions happen in all factions of society. How they manifest is the difference. You and I, and everyone on here, knows that their strategy is a literal interpretation of the natural rights theory and a direct reference to early American colonization. The State threatens them and they are the faction of society that is ballsy enough to stand up to it with things other than words (or ironically if they are in court, haha).

Our realm seems more, not to sound like a douche, intellectual than gun toting gung ho.

They stand for the same things we do and your political posturing around it is pathetic. Trying to distance yourself from them because of a few idiots is cowardly at best. Own up to it. We are their intellectual defense, they are our military defense.

12

I am not sure I want to defend the guys who killed the cop who merely pulled them over.

13

“because of a few idiots” is how i refer to them. I’m obviously not trying to defend them. The sovereign citizen movement needs us to prevent them from behaving like animals.

14

As for the video. True, but as things here continue to shift into a further Orwellian State actions that these people are doing will only grow. As will the people that cling in defense of the State.

15

You don’t have to. This compares to the issue of meting an execution to a trespasser. It is not justice. Just as it is not justice to execute one who trespasses against you whilst wearing a badge and sunglasses.

That being said, who are these people? In my opinion, they are the people who have realized that the game, wherein democracy is the protector of the people’s rights, is up. Economic turmoil is coming, and with it most likely is the fist that accompanies the one holding the leash. This is another example of MSNBC types trying to paint the Paulites as atavistic racist types.

The mindsets of these different groups of people, sovereign citizens and statists, are irreconcilable. The sovereign citizens are just better prepared. Maybe when the statists are hungry and there’s rioting in the streets, they might start to understand.

16

Aristophanes,

The ‘issue’ with this kind of action, as I see it, is that 1) it attacks a given social structure without offering an alternative and 2) are they seriously thinking they can play the violence game with the largest state that ever existed and win?

As to number one, it’s all well that many (if not most) libertarians are certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that if the state died tomorrow (Rothbard’s famous ‘red button’) after a short turmoil a libertarian society would spring up. I no longer think so, yet this is clearly implied in their modus operandi.

Every nut out there has an alternative conception of how society can be structured: the Caliphate, a new Inquisition, socialism? Should they all go on and start a terror campaign? What if they (at most one of them, to be precise) succeed, and it turns out that the turmoil that follows the state’s collapse doesn’t yield the kind of society they like? They should go on with terror campaign until their peculiar vision of society is realized? Does it matter how strong their belief is?

Of course not. If you think you can do better than the current statist order, you prove it in practice (my idea of a libertarian strategy). How? No one cares how you do it, but most people are sound enough to demand tangible proof of the viability of what you seek before you start down a road that, if successful (it won’t be, but let us dream) will tear society apart. But again, I half understand them because this road is but the logical implication of the Rothbardian view (“no state, all libertarians from day one”) and because they probably never actually witnessed what the abrupt collapse of a state means.

As for the second point, their ‘strategy’ strikes me as foolish, and foolishness does a lot to tarnish bravery . There is nothing that the violent institutions in a state would like better that for us to go to their level in the game. You really like trying violence with the police? You think you can succeed in that? You fancy some kind of guerrilla action that will force the state to wither away? Good luck, but excuse me if I’m not cheering, for if there ever was a foolish strategy, I think here we have it.

All in all, I strongly disagree with their implied idea of a state, and even more strongly with their means.

17

There is no such thing as a sovereign citizen. Even alleged “sovereign citizens” will tell you the very phrase conflates concepts. If you are going to be a collectivist at least do your own research and don’t buy media verbaige hook, line, and sinker. There is a sovereignty which all human beings inherintly posses. This is not an alien concept. Many people around here call it rights or natural rights. Citizenship is a creation of the state and like all state creations it is not a tangible good only an abstract concept.

Second this so called movement you refer to is not a militia movement. It is a legal movement. What may have started as a tax protest movement several decades ago has evolved at light speed with wide spread use of the internet. Legal research and theory has advanced so rapidly that much learning from trial and error has resulted. Lets take the mortgage foreclosure crises and courts being clogged up over bogus documents. Where do you think the legal theories for debt validation came from for such a thing to even be an issue?

The fool demands proof of a victory by judgement. The fool says show me a case where someone won over such and such. The wisdom of this movement you speak of is knowing no such legal case exists nor will ever exist. Wisdom knows real vicotry for any legal controversy is never reaching adjucication because a matter is dismissed. Dismissed cases are not included in case law.

If you want to discredit the so called movement you speak of how about dissecting and disproving the merit of legal theories. Since driver licensing was mentioned in the video linked by the OP, I will throw up something that has been around a while that is readily accessbile on travel:

http://www.barefootsworld.net/sui_juris/right_to_travel.html

Disprove the argument or citations in that old brief. I’d link to something more current such as a motion to validate a debt but a lot of this kind of material is not readily available anonymously online anymore.

What I find ironic is the sentiment in this thread that self defense = initating violence. If you are going to make such a claim in ignorance I am going to call such a claim what it is… BS.

18

I see it was my fault that I did not make myself clear: I am referring just to their aggressive action, not at all to their legal action. I have nothing at all against the later, and all against the former.

19

“2) are they seriously thinking they can play the violence game with the largest state that ever existed and win?”

Who ever said anything about winning? “Give me liberty or give me death!” You, along with most of the pussies on this forum and on the internet (even my friends in real life) are looking for a way “to beat the state and win.” There is no possibility of this without sacrifice. Consequence free revolution is what is idiotic. Pretending like you are superior to strangers when you cannot even articulate their position correctly is the most childish tactic I can think of. liberals use this when they have no argument.

“Should they all go on and start a terror campaign?”

You’re asking leading questions, which is tantamount to puttiong words in my (and their) mouth(s). If you aren’t going to actually argue my points then don’t bother. Nothing in my post said that the two in the article are representative of a sound “strategy”…

“(“no state, all libertarians from day one”)”

Another inaccurate assumption. Putting words in Rothbard’s mouth this time. There are plaenty of examples where Rothbard assumes State control before he theorizes.

“their ‘strategy’ strikes me as foolish”

You are a fool! They are a fool! Obama is a fool! Etc.! Nothing comes from conjectures and singular opinions. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

“You really like trying violence with the police?”

Nowhere did I say that. STOP PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH YOU LITTLE IDIOT.

Read my post before you start implicating me in crimes on the internet douche. YOUR STATEMENTS on this thread could put me on a list you little s***head.

“All in all, I strongly disagree with their implied idea of a state, and even more strongly with their means.”

There is no "state’ concept in their “strategy.” I don’t know what in the hell you are talking about.

Your whole post is building on your initial misconceptions; a pathetic and desperate attempt to involve yourself in a conversation that you have no clue about.

20

“The fool demands proof of a victory by judgement.”

I cannot agree with this more.