# Is there any legitimacy to the Sovereign Citizen argument? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 7, 2017, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097 "2017-05-07T22:25:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/61 "2017-11-15T00:53:28Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > And how would people in this state of nature resolve disputes? I say our property line is here; you say it’s there. No court, no government, no judge, no police. > > We fight it out with knives? > > What happens if I steal some of your sheep. No police, remember? What are you going to do about it? Your sovereignty doesn’t automatically endow you with the power to enforce your rights. That’s the idea, if people reject government they have a right to live without it and enjoy all the benefits and drawbacks that entails. Not within a government’s jurisdiction, of course, but there should be areas outside of any government’s jurisdiction where people can go. One of the things that these types complain about that I actually think they have a legit concern is that governments are banding together to pretty much make the entire universe under some entity’s control. If a nation doesn’t control something, then it’s under international jurisdiction. Just stop! We should protect unspoiled lands from rapacious nations or big corporations, but if individuals just want to live there they should be able to just go and live there. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/62 "2017-11-15T01:53:11Z")
Buy or build a large enough boat and take to the seas. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/63 "2017-11-15T03:54:02Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Buy or build a large enough boat and take to the seas. Where you can prey on people who follow the rules. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/64 "2017-11-15T05:06:16Z")
Keeping piracy illegal makes sense, but one should be able to live at sea or on an uninhabited island if they want to. I also think individuals should be free to live out in our vast wilderness and live off the land. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/65 "2017-11-15T05:34:13Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Keeping piracy illegal makes sense, but one should be able to live at sea or on an uninhabited island if they want to. I also think individuals should be free to live out in our vast wilderness and live off the land. If you live on the island, it’s not uninhabited. If another person arrives and wishes to settle, you have no right to exclude them because, if you did, you would effectively be acting as a government enacting and enforcing an immigration law, and you have stipulated that there is to be no government. But once you have more than one person living on the island, you have the community, and the community can ordain a government for themselves. The only way you can avoid being subject to this government is to leave the island and find another, as yet uninhabited, island, or an island populated by people none of whom wish to set up a government. You have no natural right to demand that such an island exist, or that any which does exist be preserved for your benefit. I think your position is basically self-defeating. We are inherently social animals; the erection of governments is basically a manifestation of our social needs and instincts as human beings. You cannot deny others the right to be human. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/66 "2017-11-15T06:12:30Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Used to be that if you thought your government was unjust, you could go somewhere where there wasn’t a government and rough it. If enough people moved there with you or came later, you’d form your own government. Not for several thousand years in most of the world. Most of the time, there was “government”, just not in a form the incomers recognised or could be bothered to understand; and if by chance some indigenous inhabitants turned up to object to their ways, it was usually settled by force. Which sort of brings us back to the point at issue. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/67 "2017-11-15T06:28:41Z")
To the explanations upthread of what is wrong with the SC reasoning about law, I would add to the list a further two fundamental misunderstandings. The first is a misunderstanding about the proposition that it is a tenet of common law that it is for the courts to interpret law. The fundamental implication of the SCers’ flawed reasoning is that the laws they think exist spring into existence on the force of the say-so of the SC, and his/her view trumps that of the judge, whose only role (in their universe) is to find facts. That, of course, is nonsense. Courts exist precisely to determine what the law is at the inevitable margins that arise, _as well as_ to find facts (whether by jury, judge alone, or whatever depending on jurisdiction). When a determination of the content of the law arises, it is for the judge to make that determination. The second point I would make emerges from the first. In deciding what a statute means, the common law (often modified or codified by statute) contains a body of meta-law about statutory interpretation (which, mutatis mutandis, extends to document interpretation). The SCs seem to think that if they can find _any_ interpretation at all of legal language that supports them, then that interpretation is necessarily correct of its own articulation. But where there are competing interpretations, there are rules courts apply to decide between them, and those rules are just as much a part of the law as substantive declarations of rules like the postal rule or the rules that make it illegal to steal. And the application of those statutory interpretation rules will inevitably (and rightly) never come to the conclusion that the SCs wish. One of the primary statutory interpretation rules is that if a suggested interpretation leads to absurd results, it will be rejected in favour of one that does not. And SCs always advance absurd results. Thus, the assertion that the Statute of Westminster “really” is about HMS Canada is a question of interpretation that falls for determination according to (generally) common law rules of statutory interpretation. Those rules do not have to be expounded at length here to understand that they will never support the SC interpretation. In saying all this, I do not overlook the existence of the rule of statutory interpretation conveniently named by Americans the lenity rule. This is the rule that says that in matters of interpretation of criminal laws, the interpretation that favours the accused ahead of the State is to be preferred. But that shorthand expression of the rule overlooks that it is very much a rule of last resort. Other statutory interpretation rules come into play first. It must be this way, otherwise any madcap, tortured interpretation of rules conjured up that favoured the accused would always win. Just as SCers attach idiotic and undemocratic primacy to common law ideas that the common law itself does not (for example, as said by posters above, the common law accepts that statutes trump common law), so too SCers fail to even acknowledge the existence of the body of statutory interpretation rules and document interpretation rules that exist to shut down their nonsense at the get-go. These rules were developed by the much-vaunted common law that they seek to call in aid to support their nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/68 "2017-11-15T14:59:24Z")
That is not always the case for the rule of lenity. In some states, it has been codified and thus becomes more than a canon of last resort. _E.g._, §775.021(1), Fla. Stat. ("…the provisions of [Florida’s criminal code] and offenses defined by other statutes shall be strictly construed; when the language is susceptible of differing constructions, it shall be construed most favorably to the accused.”) ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/69 "2017-11-15T15:30:51Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > That is not always the case for the rule of lenity. In some states, it has been codified and thus becomes more than a canon of last resort. _E.g._, §775.021(1), Fla. Stat. ("…the provisions of [Florida’s criminal code] and offenses defined by other statutes shall be strictly construed; when the language is susceptible of differing constructions, it shall be construed most favorably to the accused.”) That rather depends on how you construe “construe”: the primary clause “strictly construed” rather implies that “differing constructions” wouldn’t include “any old nonsense derived from torturing language beyond reason”. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/70 "2017-11-15T15:57:37Z")
From 6 months ago: > [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > The idea there’s “magic phrases” which SovCits can utter that act as a “Get out of everything” card is what’s particularly amusing. > > “Well, we were going to throw you in jail for decades on account of all those unregistered automatic weapons and the shooting at the postman and the drug lab, but you correctly noted the gold fringe on the flag in the courtroom and further said that you weren’t John Smith since he was a legal fiction, so we’re going to have to let you go.” > > That’s about as realistic as waving a stick around, chanting “Denariius Infinitus!” and expecting to suddenly find yourself going for a swim Scrooge McDuck style in your very own Money Bin. Well said. Peeling the onion down a layer … Like most human silliness, it depends deeply on the idea of cognitive dissonance: the ability to simultaneously believe two deeply contradictory things. On the one hand, the government and courts are deeply cynical, using widespread subterfuge to illegally suppress the citizenry. On the other hand, the courts in general and today’s judge in particular are scrupulously honest and work with total integrity. The SovCit expects that once confronted by the SovCit’s arguments, the judge will read the relevant law carefully, then bop his forehead and exclaim “By Gosh, I’ve been doing it wrong all these years! Thank you, Mr. SovCit for peeling the scales from my eyes. You’re free to go and with my apologies and my blessings. I salute you!” The combo of childlike faith in the honest and just gosh-darned niceness of the system overlaid with the deep-seated cynicism that it’s all just a con out to get me is just a wonder to behold. ======== Yesterday: > [@adaher](#): > > … > I’d argue that if climate change makes Antarctica habitable, people should be free to settle it. Same goes for other planets if we ever get that far, or just hanging out in a ship in space. Or a boat out on the water. No need to wait for Antarctica. Yemen (and a few other nearby areas) are already government-free zones. You (any you) are welcome to experience the Libertarian version of paradise any time you choose. Strong-form Libertarianism: You’re entitled to all the freedom you have the might to enforce. In fairness, there \*is \*a special corner case where this works. The one wherein the population density is so low that you can roam the land and sea at will for your entire life without ever encountering another human or any consequences of their prior presence. Shame about not getting to reproduce. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/71 "2017-11-15T16:17:31Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > The SovCit expects that once confronted by the SovCit’s arguments, the judge will read the relevant law carefully, then bop his forehead and exclaim “By Gosh, I’ve been doing it wrong all these years! Thank you, Mr. SovCit for peeling the scales from my eyes. You’re free to go and with my apologies and my blessings. I salute you!” I think it’s more “Grrr! You have cleverly unraveled the secret workings of The Law and, having enumerated and claimed your True Rights which we have endeavored to hide from you, I therefore have no choice but to acquiesce to your demands.” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/72 "2017-11-15T16:43:01Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Child molesting former Subway spokesman Jared Fogel has now decided he’s a sovereign citizen and so the government has to let him go now. > [https://wonkette.com/625786/jared-fogle-decides-hes-sovereign-citizen-so-he-gets-out-of-prison-now-right](https://wonkette.com/625786/jared-fogle-decides-hes-sovereign-citizen-so-he-gets-out-of-prison-now-right) He’s claiming his conviction is invalid because that twelve year old was wearing gold fringe. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/73 "2017-11-15T16:44:58Z")
@ **Johnny Bravo** : IOW, “Curses! Foiled again!” while twirling the tip of your long thing handlebar moustache. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/74 "2017-11-15T18:49:59Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > No need to wait for Antarctica. Yemen (and a few other nearby areas) are already government-free zones. You don’t have to even go that far. If you’re American you needn’t even leave the country. There remain enough parts of the United States that are sufficiently uninhabited that you could build a log cabin and live as a hermit away from society for the rest of your life. You are technically under the sovereignty of the United States but in any practical sense no one will bother you. If the mountains of Oregon or northern forests of Minnesota are not remote enough, Canada is more remote still, and the border can be crossed without anyone seeing you do it with rather minimal effort. You needn’t go as far north as the Territories. You can get a lakeside property in northern Ontario, where there are so many lakes so far from anyone that most of them don’t have names. You can literally have your own lake, and no one will ever find you. You could move to Hudson’s Bay and have a whole island to yourself. Trodely Island could be the Kingdom of You if you moved there; no one lives there and I doubt anyone would notice you. That few “sovereign citizens” elect to do this is rather telling. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/75 "2017-11-15T18:56:01Z")
That’s it. You have to isolate yourself from any other humans to do it. As long as there are other humans around, you’ll need to work out a way to get along somehow. There’s a word for that … Or you can avoid working out a way to get along, and simply acquiesce to the neighborhood bully, or become one. But that’s a form of government too, isn’t it? Hell is other people. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2017, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/76 "2017-11-15T21:43:06Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Child molesting former Subway spokesman Jared Fogel has now decided he’s a sovereign citizen and so the government has to let him go now. > [https://wonkette.com/625786/jared-fogle-decides-hes-sovereign-citizen-so-he-gets-out-of-prison-now-right](https://wonkette.com/625786/jared-fogle-decides-hes-sovereign-citizen-so-he-gets-out-of-prison-now-right) Here is a video on Youtube of a lawyer [reading and breaking down](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxTvl48fa2g) the pro se filings. Rather amusing. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2017, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/77 "2017-11-16T19:29:29Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > I think it’s more “Grrr! You have cleverly unraveled the secret workings of The Law and, having enumerated and claimed your True Rights which we have endeavored to hide from you, I therefore have no choice but to acquiesce to your demands.” There is a strange sort of belief among sovcits that laws are independent of human beings. The law isn’t what legislators and judges and cops and prison guards say it us, there’s some sort of higher law that they all must follow. And somehow the cops and judges know the real law, even though it is kept secret from everyone else, and are obligated to follow it. Except that’s not how fascism works. The way it really works is that the authorities don’t give two shots about what the law says, they just care about what they can get away with. They aren’t accountable to their inferiors, but only to people higher up and with more power. When the fascist judge tells the cops to drag you out and shoot you in the head and dump your body in a mass grave, telling him that the law doesn’t grant him this power won’t work. Because it’s not the law that gives him the power, it’s men with guns who agree to follow his orders that give him the power. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2017, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/78 "2017-11-16T19:58:50Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > You can get a lakeside property in northern Ontario, where there are so many lakes so far from anyone that most of them don’t have names. And the government will be Helpless to do anything about it! ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2017, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/79 "2017-11-16T22:08:37Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Except that’s not how fascism works. The way it really works is that the authorities don’t give two shots about what the law says, they just care about what they can get away with. They aren’t accountable to their inferiors, but only to people higher up and with more power. When the fascist judge tells the cops to drag you out and shoot you in the head and dump your body in a mass grave, telling him that the law doesn’t grant him this power won’t work. Because it’s not the law that gives him the power, it’s men with guns who agree to follow his orders that give him the power. The Weimar constitution was never overturned by the Nazi government. It was, technically, the law of the land until Germany was conquered in 1945. The Nazis violated the constitution about a jillion different ways, but they had the guns and they had the support. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2017, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/80 "2017-11-16T22:59:13Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Yemen and a few other nearby areas) are already government-free zones. > > You (any you) are welcome to experience the Libertarian version of paradise any time you choose. > > Strong-form Libertarianism: You’re entitled to all the freedom you have the might to enforce. > > In fairness, there \*is \*a special corner case where this works. The one wherein the population density is so low that you can roam the land and sea at will for your entire life without ever encountering another human or any consequences of their prior presence. Shame about not getting to reproduce. No, the Yemen people suffer under the yoke of the US government to even a greater extent than most individuals in the United States. Same for Somalia, another cliche for statists. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097.md?page=5)