Although there are always exceptions, from everything I’ve read it’s a very long trip into crazytown. These people genuinely do believe there’s some vast secret bank account which owes them billions, and it’s all tied into their birth certificate.
I recommend the Quatloos forums for an introduction on the topic, among others. A4V is tied into a much larger realm of crazy, as to buy into that belief you generally are part of many others.
RationalWiki has an interesting section on success stories in their article on Freemen On The Land, a movement closely similar to Sovereign Citizens.
The term “transferred for value” is found in the UCC regarding commercial paper, like a check:
Basically it says that when you give someone a check, it is considered transferred for its value if one of the items on the list are true.
How this applies to something like a tax bill, a traffic ticket, or a credit card statement is nothing short of non-existent. I think it has to do with the discredited idea that they haven’t consented to be subject to the law and that these documents are contracts and considered an offer. For example if a FOTL gets a traffic ticket, he considers it an offer to deal by the government, and that (somehow) by writing “accepted for value” on it and the government not responding with a counter offer, then the government has accepted the counter offer of $0 as full satisfaction.
It’s legal gibberish, but as was said above, these types think that the UCC applies to all things.
Gesundheit.
Well, they think they know contract law, but they generally don’t. Offer, acceptance, consideration, consensus ad idem, legality of object–they understand these well enough, as do we all. Where it gets weird is when they try to transpose contract law into the criminal law or family law spheres. Regardless, A4V does not work to settle debts.
A4V doesn’t work. There is no secret bank account, where dollars are backed by citizens. The Canadian government is not a corporation headquartered in Washington DC. A fringe on a flag does not create an Admiralty court. The right to travel in one’s own vehicle on public roads is dependent upon having proper registration and insurance for the vehicle, and a licence for the driver. Magna Carta’s principles have been encoded in more recent laws and constitutions, and for all intents and purposes right now, Magna Carta is ineffective in the US and Canada.
I could go on, but the OP may wish to review the Bible of anti-Freemen-on-the-Land and anti-Sovereign-Citizen documents: Meads v. Meads.
My impression upon doing further reading was that a fair percentage of “sovereign citizen” types were Average Joes who fell on hard times and sought a way out of crippling debt / impending loss of home through convoluted misinterpretations promoted by hucksters with a 0% chance of success in a court of law?
That’s the fun part. Watching a sovereign citizen explaining how the laws of the United States tell us we don’t have to obey the laws of the United States is hilarious.
To a large degree, yes. There are people out there who promote and sell “become a freeman and get out of debt free” kits. As far as I can tell, these promoters don’t follow their own advice; but their customers do, and find out the hard way that it doesn’t work.
What’s even better is when they try to cite American law (most often, the UCC; but also, the US Constitution, and US Postal Service regulations) in a Canadian court, where none of the above apply.
“Some people believe with great fervor preposterous things that just happen to coincide with their self-interest.” Coleman v. CIR (7th Cir. 1986), 791 F.2d 68, 69.
I demand everyone be banned who ever called me Senegold! Search for it on this board . . . there are at least 8 distinct instances!
(But I’d be honored to be called collybeauty. Collies are beautiful, y’know?)
He realized the Great Truth: since the bank didn’t loan him actual gold, he doesn’t owe a “real” debt. ( :rolleyes: )
If we spell it IN FULL CAPS, will it still be you?
There are statutes of limitations for tax fraud and evasion–here’s an article I plucked at random from a search:
How Far Back Can IRS Claim Tax Evasion Or Fraud? Timing Is Everything
But they may be extended depending on circumstances. However, I think the kind of people who try the a4v scam aren’t the types to do it once, then pay taxes afterwards hoping not to be found out. They’d keep on doing it and eventually get prosecuted.
I wonder how one of these jokers would react if you went into their store and gave them a check for whatever they sold with “accepted for value” written on it…
There is a debate whether people who participate in this type of scam (I’m not sure you an call this a scam because most of the time, it’s more of a self scam) actually believe in this type of stuff, or deep back in their mind, they know it’s not real.
However, if you’re committing plain ol’ tax fraud, and you hope to do it once, then not have the IRS find out until the statue of limitations runs out, you don’t have to create a whole alternate legal world to justify anything. You might justify your failure to pay taxes as Everyone does it or I pay way more taxes that <Insert name of favorite multinational corporation> does. Why should they have all the fun?. But, you’'re not coming up with legal theories that are based upon how you punctuate your name or whether or not you use zip codes.
These people do it, and do it until they get caught. They don’t even stop when their friends and neighbors who participated get caught and sent away. They simply assume that these people did the legal incantations all wrong. They used a comma instead of a semicolon when separating their last name from their first name, or they forgot to put they weren’t 14th amendment citizens, but natural born citizens.
I use to follow the machinations of various the Republic of Texas groups (they kept splintering and each becoming more bizarre than the last). At one time, they believed there was this Commonwealth Trust that had a ship filled with two billion dollars of gold floating off the Texas coast. They described this company or organization or group as the largest and oldest trust in the world. They thought that the trust would donate all those billions in gold to their newly found Texas government. You could tell how excited they were.
Then, there’s their case before The Supreme Rabbinic Court of America which heard their case against the United States. This court was headed by Rabbi Herbert Gilner. He worked with all sorts of Christian groups and messianic Jewish groups that were around in the Waco area.
They were always sure that they were just days away from running Texas and that the U.S. were going to give them all billions of dollars (in gold of course), and that the world would once again be run by the righteous according to God’s plan.
Interesting that the US Supreme Court will hear the appeal of Hobby Lobby vs. Sebelius. The question is whether a for-profit corporation ( as a person under the 14th amendment ) is entitled to 1st amendment rights of religion. The 10th Court of Appeals said yes, they do … and now the highest court will hear it themselves.
I seem to detect a common thread in all these “soffern sititen” claims. Comes down to trying to not pay what is otherwise a rightful obligation. If a flesh-and-blood person doesn’t consent to be governed, then they also don’t consent to be protected by such government. If he writes a4v on my invoice, can I break both his knee-caps with a baseball bat?
No no, they’re in square brackets, which means they don’t count.
(I actually had a “sovereign citizen” acquaintance who believed that if you put a ZIP code on a letter, you became subject to Federal jurisdication, but if you put the ZIP code in square brackets you didn’t. Those sneaky Federal no-goodnicks!)
In which case, he should have no qualms about paying off that “fake” debt with worthless Federal Reserve Notes!
There’s a whole idea that you’re a sovereign citizen of your State Republic, but by making you use zip codes, you acquiesce to become a 14th amendment citizen because zip codes do not respect state boundaries. By using a zip code, it becomes evidence that you’re a citizen of the District of Columbia (the only place where the 14th amendment applies).
(I like the list on the end showing you how to avoid this trap. All they’re missing is having to throw a horseshoe worn by a cross-eyed horse over your shoulder on a full moon.)
Back during the 2000 Bush-Gore election dispute, I had a coworker telling me how this was all a secret plot. Congress was using the election dispute as a means of taking over the government.
“So you’re telling me the United States government is secretly plotting to take over the United States government?”
“Well…when you put it that way, it sounds stupid.”
http://www.treasury.gov/about/organizational-structure/ig/Pages/fraud-alerts_index2.aspx
That seems like some pretty stern and serious language to me.
