Is there any legitimacy to the Sovereign Citizen argument?

There’s a fundamental difference. Saying “The states are supreme autority not the federal government” or saying “no form of government has the autority over the individual” are both well established political theories, and may have even been tried in practice (IIRC the former one was discussed quite vehementally in the US during the 1860s)

Thats not what soveriegn citizens are saying at all, they are saying that by invocing set of secret laws an individual can magically invalidate the government’s authority over them. Thats not a serious political theory, it is a delusion.

No. No. No. I’m afraid that’s entirely incorrect.

SarahWitch,“the premier expert on American law”, has spoken on the matter quite conclusively.

Do you suppose I might trouble you for [del]some[/del] your credentials?

JFC, we have the ***premier expert ***on American Law on this board?

I’m truly impressed.

No, really, I’m impressed.

And she lives just down the street.

I don’t believe it for a minute.

I mean, premier expert on American law isn’t even in her sig!

Except the Confederacy was more centralized than the United States at the time, and centralized faster. The Confederate draft happened before the US one, and courts in the Confederacy routinely ruled in favor of the national government when national and state rights clashed.

You also might want to take a look at “Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism” by Mark Neely, about civil liberty violations in the Confederacy.

This is quibbling. The sole issue is national sovereignty of a individual nation-states, which the USA does not have over its member-states-- as the federal government claims. Nothing else matters.

You’re confusing centralization, with national sovereignty– which the CSA states never ceded to the CSA Union, nor did did the CSA allege; indeed, that was the sole issue between the two Union, i.e. the USA claimed that the states formed a single nation-state, while the CSA states claimed they were always separate nation-states.

That’s what it was ALL about. If the North admitted that the truth, that the states were sovereign nation-states, then there could have been no war; however charlatans fabricated many arguments to deny this fact under color of law, from Jackson to Lincoln.

Separate nation-states can form federal republics which can be as centralized as they please, without forfeiting their status as separate nation-states; this can only be lost if they expressly manifest such an act; and the American states never did that.

That’s the confusion which plagues most people today, in claiming that USA’s common military, currency, whatever, made the states into a single nation-state, by implication… when all that is pure bunk. It doesn’t work that way, for reasons I just stated.

The Euro, the UN army, etc. did not make those nation-states into a single nation-state-- but Hitler, Hussein and Hirohito * claimed* this in their various conquests, with the same legal validity as Lincoln-- i.e. none. Again, it can only happen by* express action,* since a nation-state is its own supreme ruler by law, in terms of judging legal intent. Thus, nothing can be *left *to judgment in such a treaty which joins two or more nation-states as a single one.

“Ye shall know me by my works.”

Have you checked the Bank of Nigeria?

Well. There it is. Proof.

That’s good enough for me.

That’s kind of a pot-kettle situation, since nobody dares mention the elephant in the room about the GOP takeover under Lincoln… so they blame the message not the messenger. Obviously they are trying to escape from an oppressive regime to which the People do not consent, even if they’re not able to see it; but neither are you, apparently. At least they’re not *defending *it, like you are, so they’ve got that in their favor.
Disagreeing with someone who’s wrong, does not per se make you *right. *… e.g. Stalin v. Hitler.

If that’s your understanding of how national sovereignty works, all further discussion is futile. Imperialism by brute force against lawful sovereign nation-states, by ruthless individuals falsely claiming national authority, is not “trying.” It’s just a common crime… as well as a war-crime and act of terror.

As I already explained-- when also explaining that your simply disagreeing with a bad argument, does not ergo validate yours. You can both be wrong.
And are.

Yes-- as is your claim, that the USA has a secret set of laws that only the oligarchy can know, understand, interpret over the rest of us without our consent, thus validating that office’s holding final authority over us against our will; and of the two, I fear your delusion the more.
FAR more.

Here’s the problem: Sovereign Citizens, like Marxists, seek to depart from democracy as currently defined; since just as Marx saw Crony Capitalism as free markets, so the Sovereign Citizens – like the Anarcho-Capitalists, see Totalitarian Democracy as true democracy, accepting the common false history that the USA is a democratic nation-- which fails to represent the People, since they do not consent to it.

However Marxists, SC’s, Ancappers and everyone else all make the same mistake: i.e. “they keep saying this word, but I think it does not mean what they think it means.”

Democracy is *not * simply the privilege of electing for your supreme rulers, and capitalism is not spending money as said rulers allow.
On the contrary, a free market requires a free state, which cannot exist when the People do not consent to their government by holding final authority in their own hands.
As a result, libertarians, sovereign citizens, liberals, conservatives, communists, Marxists, socialists and everyone else engage the same fundamental flaw in ascribing to statism as the only valid form of government, and thus rejecting all government since statism is obviously unacceptable.

However statism is the logical result of any oligarchy-- and oligarchy in turn, is the logical result of the majority not having final authority… which conclusively implies inequality, ergo, as (Rick&)Morty said, “slavery, just with more steps.”

Fortunately, this misunderstanding can be cleared up with a simple recognition of the fact, that the Constitution was ratified by the PEOPLES-- i.e. the majority-vote-- of 13 separate sovereign nation-states; and they did not unite as a single nation-state by doing so, but simply delegated powers to *subordinates *in office to act on their behalf.

So we just need to back up to before the gorilla became the first GOP president, and go from there with the voters of each state being the supreme rulers thereof; and everything will be good to go, since democracy will be restored once and for all.

What are your works?

But when Georgia threatened to secede from the Confederacy, Davis would have sent troops in to stop them

The sole issue between the USA and the CSA was whether slavery should be legal and be allowed to expand. Some of the most ardent secessionists were also the biggest supporters of Dred Scott v Sanford, which was the biggest legal attack on state sovereignty to that point.

I think you’re right about that. We’re currently discussing that in another forum.

Do not personalize arguments in this fashion. If you feel you must the BBQ Pit is right around the corner.

[/moderating]

You are saying the CSA states did not claim each to be nationally sovereign? You are wholly misinformed.

I see the reference went clear over your head.