# 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:** 5
**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, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/81 "2017-11-16T23:05:18Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Sure, government works on brute force. All of life works on brute force. When a fox eats a rabbit was it because of the government? Was it because the rabbit wasn’t invoking its “self-ownership”? No, it was because the fox wanted to eat the rabbit and it was able to do it. Might may not make right but might does work. > > So how do you keep from getting eaten by somebody who’s bigger than you? You form a society that has rules that forbid unauthorized eating of its members. And society uses force when necessary to make people follow those rules. > > Government isn’t the mindless bully that anti-government theorists argue it is. It’s the mindful application of a controlled amount of force in order to prevent a much greater amount of mindless force. > > Nor is government the enemy of freedom those same people claim it is. Government is a tool people use to protect freedom. And, yes, protecting freedom is like protecting anything - you have to have at least a threat of force to back it up. But without some protection, freedom wouldn’t exist. > > Government is what creates the protection that allows libertarians and anarchists and objectivists and sovereign citizens to run around in safety as they argue that they don’t need any government. The US government plunders, kills, and imprisons more than any organization in the world, but yet “government” is a tool to protect freedom. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/82 "2017-11-17T01:53:31Z")
Both are true. There is no contradiction. The U.S. has extremely strict laws…and also some extremely deep and profound protections for individual liberty, in some instances exceeding a huge majority of all other countries. (You also might have had a better case if you’d added “per capita” to your statistic. The U.S. is a big country, and it is not at all surprising or depressing that we have more people in prison than Luxembourg, New Zealand, or Chad.) ---
**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 17, 2017, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/83 "2017-11-17T02:59:48Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > The US government plunders, kills, and imprisons more than any organization in the world, but yet “government” is a tool to protect freedom. The US government plunders, kills, and imprisons far less than the lack of a government would. So the US government is a positive alternative. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/84 "2017-11-17T10:07:18Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > And the government will be Helpless to do anything about it! Polite applause. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/85 "2017-11-17T15:25:26Z")
> [@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) To digress a moment, between Fogel and Kushner I expect that “Jared” is going to drop out of the top-10000 names for at least a generation. ---
**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 17, 2017, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/86 "2017-11-17T18:12:55Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The US government plunders, kills, and imprisons far less than the lack of a government would. So the US government is a positive alternative. In some cases, the government has increased some individual’s freedom at the expense of someone else’s freedom. Even in this case, government is not a protector of freedom as you claim, but a distributor of freedom. During the process, the government must infringe on someone’s freedom. > [@Trinopus](#): > > Both are true. There is no contradiction. The U.S. has extremely strict laws…and also some extremely deep and profound protections for individual liberty, in some instances exceeding a huge majority of all other countries. > > (You also might have had a better case if you’d added “per capita” to your statistic. The U.S. is a big country, and it is not at all surprising or depressing that we have more people in prison than Luxembourg, New Zealand, or Chad.) The US government was able to grow itself and extend its reach through plunder of the resources of its productive citizens and conquest. This is relevant. When comparing criminal organizations do we say that MS-13 is actually a great protector of freedom in comparison to the Manson Family? No, large criminal organizations are able to initiate huge amounts of violence. It is the total amount of violence that is the relevant issue. Those “deep and profound” protections of liberty are actually protections from the government itself. They perform the function of casting a veil of legitimacy onto the millions of aggressions they commit everyday. If we were to severely curtail the power of the government to commit aggressions, “deep and profound” protections from the government wouldn’t be such a big deal. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/87 "2017-11-17T18:56:23Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > . . . Those “deep and profound” protections of liberty are actually protections from the government itself. . . . Not solely, but, yes, you’re quite right: a good part of the mechanisms of our freedom consist of limitations on governmental power. It’s like having a really big electrical generator in your basement: it’s nice to have light and heat…but it’s a bummer to have your house burn down. The power (governmental or electrical) is concentrated in one place, and safety precautions are absolutely necessary. The problem is that, without “government,” the local street gang and petty warlord would take over, and his rule is a lot scarier than anything Washington or Sacramento are likely to do. By protecting me against them – and regulating industrial pollution, providing a social safety-net, maintaining a system of roads and highways, and establishing a military/diplomatic relationship with other nations – the benefits of government hugely outweigh the detriments. No libertarian/anarchist fantasy has ever come up with a way to provide those benefits. ---
**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 17, 2017, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/88 "2017-11-17T20:33:32Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The problem is that, without “government,” the local street gang and petty warlord would take over, and his rule is a lot scarier than anything Washington or Sacramento are likely to do. Hmm, I don’t know about your area, but the street gangs here in Baltimore so far have failed to commit genocide against a race of natives, initiate mass starvation in Yemen, or firebomb Tokyo. Even in the absence of government, these things would never make sense from the point of view of a local warlord. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/89 "2017-11-17T21:18:29Z")
They haven’t done so, in part, because they have been crowded out by the “government gang.” Give them full local autonomy, and I’m quite certain they would engage in those sorts of behaviors. Ethnic cleansing is quite popular when power is distributed to very small groups of people. You (correctly) point out the evil things that governments have done. What you cannot do is propose an alternative that would not be much, much worse. Many libertarians/anarchists have a fantasy that “the free market” would solve all the problems, but the evidence of history is (horrifyingly) against that. It is my opinion that representative democracy is the single most wonderful thing the human species has ever devised. If we’re supposed to throw it away, you must, at very least, propose a superior alternative…and no one, in eight thousand years of human history, has done that. ---
**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 17, 2017, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/90 "2017-11-17T21:38:00Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > To digress a moment, between Fogel and Kushner I expect that “Jared” is going to drop out of the top-10000 names for at least a generation. # When that mall diamond retailer changes its name you’ll know the other shoe has finished falling. Ref the various **WillFarnaby** comments it’s clear most of us are talking about what the US government does internally to the benefit of (most) US citizens, while he’s talking about what the US government does externally to the detriment of (some) non-US citizens. So there’s a bunch of people here talking past one another. His underlying point being that any complete analysis of Good and Evil needs to put both of these elements on the scale. IMO there’s a valid moral point there, but it isn’t relevant to the larger political digression we’re on which is “Is anarchy a decent environment to live in?” ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/91 "2017-11-17T23:31:50Z")
Well, he’s also (and not wrongly) noting some of the wrong the government does to U.S. citizens, such as the very large number in prison. Being critical of government’s power, and demanding reforms, is always valid. Wanting to scrap it entirely and go back to some mythical “state of nature” or free-market gold-standard sovereign citizen utopian fantasy is…batshit cray-cray. The closest we’ve ever been in human history was the early Soviet Union, when the ideals of dismantling the state seemed vaguely possible. History showed, terribly clearly, nuh-uh, not possible at all. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge also gave a heroic effort at doing away with “government” as it is commonly practiced. The results were even worse. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2017, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/92 "2017-11-17T23:53:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **adaher** : > > 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. Just what do you think “rapacious nations” and “big corporations” are? They’re groups of individuals. If this hypothetical unspoiled land has some exploitable natural resource, what’s to stop one “rugged individual” from moving there with some tools, and another “rugged individual” moving there with some more tools, until this group of “rugged individuals” is cutting down the whole rainforest and knocking the tops off the mountains for coal? Is there some line where it’s said “enough”? And who says it, some government? If so, then that government already had jurisdiction over the land when the first settler moved there, too. ---
**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 17, 2017, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/93 "2017-11-17T23:59:26Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Hmm, I don’t know about your area, but the street gangs here in Baltimore so far have failed to commit genocide against a race of natives, initiate mass starvation in Yemen, or firebomb Tokyo. It’s almost as if there’s something that’s keeping criminals in check and limiting the amount of harm they do to society. ---
**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 18, 2017, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/94 "2017-11-18T00:25:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It’s almost as if there’s something that’s keeping criminals in check and limiting the amount of harm they do to society. There is nothing magical about police that requires state action. Private police focus on deterring actual violent crimes, and they are much less likely to kill people while doing it. ---
**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 18, 2017, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/95 "2017-11-18T00:31:58Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, he’s also (and not wrongly) noting some of the wrong the government does to U.S. citizens, such as the very large number in prison. > > Being critical of government’s power, and demanding reforms, is always valid. > > Wanting to scrap it entirely and go back to some mythical “state of nature” or free-market gold-standard sovereign citizen utopian fantasy is…batshit cray-cray. The closest we’ve ever been in human history was the early Soviet Union, when the ideals of dismantling the state seemed vaguely possible. History showed, terribly clearly, nuh-uh, not possible at all. > > Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge also gave a heroic effort at doing away with “government” as it is commonly practiced. The results were even worse. Most of human interaction is basically anarchic in nature. Still, society does not collapse, but instead grows stronger and develops institutions that will make government irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/96 "2017-11-18T00:35:38Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > There is nothing magical about police that requires state action. Private police focus on deterring actual violent crimes, and they are much less likely to kill people while doing it. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2017, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/97 "2017-11-18T01:28:19Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > . . . Private police focus on deterring actual violent crimes, and they are much less likely to kill people while doing it. In part, because they are licensed and regulated. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2017, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/98 "2017-11-18T01:51:42Z")
On the question of the violence of the state, Weber may not be the last word, or the first word (and you can grill someone else with the BBQ jokes) his argument needs to be considered: the state is that “human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence within a given territory.” ---
**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 18, 2017, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/99 "2017-11-18T02:02:56Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > There is nothing magical about police that requires state action. Private police focus on deterring actual violent crimes, and they are much less likely to kill people while doing it. They’re less likely to kill people because it would be murder; a crime for which they would be punished by the government. As for your idea of private police - I’m thinking about a group of armed men who work for wealthy people and enforce a set of laws presumably written by those same wealthy citizens and I’m not seeing any way that would work out well that doesn’t require a belief in magic. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2017, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097/100 "2017-11-18T02:27:31Z")
> [@Shamozzle](#): > > Do Sovereign Citizens’ actually have any legal claims considered legitimate by anyone who isn’t even remotely insane? I would be even more sweeping, not only are the specifics about what they claim completely wrong. The concept is completely weird, bizarre and unlike anything I have heard of in any western legal system (certainly in the historical Anglo-American legal system). The concept of a soverign citizen, and secret laws, or any of the other weird things they claim has never existed at any stage in the western world’s legal system, not in an empire, feudal monarchy, absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, republic, democracy or any other form of government. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legitimacy-to-the-sovereign-citizen-argument/786097.md?page=6)