# Sovereign Citizens-- Please tell me this is fake **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 24, 2016, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572 "2016-10-24T07:38:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 26
**Author:** ![vbob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vbob/32/4439_2.png) [@vbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vbob)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2023, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/501 "2023-10-17T21:22:20Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Because they only have authority over us if we inadvertently admit we’re actually “ships at sea”, and are thus subject to admiralty law. Duh! Do we have admiralty courts for space yet? Perhaps with silver-fringed flags? Sovcits are clearly from another planet… ---
**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:** [October 17, 2023, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/502 "2023-10-17T21:27:17Z")
> [@vbob](#): > > Sovcits are clearly from another planet… Can we please send them back? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2023, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/503 "2023-10-17T21:33:34Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > > [@vbob](#): > > > > Sovcits are clearly from another planet… > > Can we please send them back? - Why do you think they’re _here_? ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2023, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/504 "2023-10-17T23:08:36Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > > [@LSLGuy](#): > > > > > [@vbob](#): > > > > > > Sovcits are clearly from another planet… > > > > Can we please send them back? - > > Why do you think they’re _here_?  Turns out there was a Golgafrincham Ark D, and it just recently arrived… ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2023, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/505 "2023-10-17T23:10:35Z")
> [@Kron](#): > > > [@running\_coach](#): > > > > > [@LSLGuy](#): > > > > > > > [@vbob](#): > > > > > > > > Sovcits are clearly from another planet… > > > > > > Can we please send them back? - > > > > Why do you think they’re _here_?  > > Turns out there was a Golgafrincham Ark D, and it just recently arrived… - Were they traveling or driving? ETA: I wonder if “Sovereign Citizen” is a corruption of “Solar System Citizen”? ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2023, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/506 "2023-10-17T23:25:07Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > But it also seems to me that SovCits sincerely _believe_ it applies. Any explaining how they arrive at that? Perhaps they read it here: > Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said. ‘One can’t believe impossible things.’ > > I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!” > > ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2023, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/507 "2023-10-18T00:51:03Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Really, it’s all that wacky all the way down. Mental quicksand all the way to the center of the Earth and back up and out the other side in China. For SovCits near\* many of us, it’s mental quicksand all the way to the center of the Earth and back up and out the other side in Port-aux-Français, capital of the Kerguelen Islands. \* Those of us in the northern midwest (or southern Canada). ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2023, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/508 "2023-10-18T01:18:53Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > I wonder if “Sovereign Citizen” is a corruption of “Solar System Citizen”? I wonder why the chose a moniker that literally says _citizen_ when they proclaim they are not citizens. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2023, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/509 "2023-10-18T01:20:39Z")
> **[Sovereign citizen movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen_movement)** > > The sovereign citizen movement (also SovCit movement or SovCits) is a loose group of litigants, anti-government activists, tax protesters, financial scammers, and conspiracy theorists based mainly in the United States. Sovereign citizens have their own pseudolegal belief system based on misinterpretations of common law and claim to not be subject to any government statutes, unless they consent to them. The movement, which appeared in the early 1970s, is American in origin and exists prim The s... > The [FBI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation) describes sovereign citizens as “anti-government extremists who believe that even though they physically reside in this country, they are separate or ‘sovereign’ from the United States” ETA: I’m guessing they think they’re “citizens of the world” or some such nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2023, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/510 "2023-10-18T01:51:04Z")
From an account I enjoy following, a county clerk in Wisconsin. > ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2023, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/511 "2023-10-18T03:24:12Z")
You know what would be a hoot? The various state, territory, and DC governments start selling these license plates as part of their vanity plate offerings. ---
**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:** [October 18, 2023, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/512 "2023-10-18T11:35:24Z")
Funny incongruous yes. Kinda man bites dog. But from the customer’s POV that’s sorta like a sheep in wolve’s clothing. The last thing I want is for the cop who pulls me over to be worked up over the frothing armed SovCit nonsense he expects to receive but that I’m not gona give because I’m a fake SovCit with a real license plate, not a real SovCit with a fake license plate. That’s be kinda like if somebody started selling fake lookalike trump / MAGA flags that spelled his name wrong or the slogan was something like “Make America Nazi Forever”. Most people who saw that flag flying from your car or whatever wouldn’t notice the difference. Oops. But it is a cool creative idea; thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2023, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/513 "2023-10-18T11:58:22Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Funny incongruous yes. Kinda man bites dog. > > But from the customer’s POV that’s sorta like a sheep in wolve’s clothing. I was thinking, don’t sell them to normal people, just sell them to the SovCits. Have the government take over a few of the better-known sites that sell such things, and advertise them as “Absolutely proven to work!”, because whenever a SovCit buys one, you just register their car in the normal database. Spin up some narrative to explain why you need all the usual information (“So we can protect _your_ DATA\* from the oppressors!”), and also tell them they have to renew it every so many years, and Bob’s Your Uncle, they’re all registered properly. \*We need to come up with an appropriately stupid Backronym for ‘DATA’. Defensive Autonomous Traveling Authorization? ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2023, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/514 "2023-10-18T11:59:34Z")
They flatter themselves if they think that I would actually want to own one of them. You’d have to house it, feed it, clothe it and, worst of all, put up with its endless prattle. I guess I could drive it out into the forest and leave it there, but it would probably find its way home. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2023, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/515 "2023-10-18T14:08:37Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Funny incongruous yes. Kinda man bites dog. More like _The Man bites dumbass_. 😃 > [@](#): > > But from the customer’s POV that’s sorta like a sheep in wolve’s clothing. The last thing I want is for the cop who pulls me over to be worked up over the frothing armed SovCit nonsense he expects to receive but that I’m not gona give because I’m a fake SovCit with a real license plate, not a real SovCit with a fake license plate. Ah, but here’s where one must get creative. Check out **Horatius** ’ post. > [@](#): > > That’s be kinda like if somebody started selling fake lookalike trump / MAGA flags that spelled his name wrong or the slogan was something like “Make America Nazi Forever”. Most people who saw that flag flying from your car or whatever wouldn’t notice the difference. Oops. I’d bet real money a fair portion of the magaoflatearthers wouldn’t know the difference between the United States flag and [this one from _The Man in the High Castle_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Man_in_the_High_Castle_(Ridley_Scott%27s_series).svg). > [@](#): > > But it is a cool creative idea; thank you. No problem! I just figure a mark’s a mark and those idiots have already proven themselves gullible. > [@Horatius](#): > > We need to come up with an appropriately stupid Backronym for ‘DATA’. Defensive Autonomous Traveling Authorization? I used [you.com](http://you.com) to generate a list of backronyms. They were okay, but nowhere near as cool (IMHO) as one I generated on my own while waiting on the chatbot to do its thing: **D** efense **A** gainst **T** he **A** uthorities. The beauty is that by implementing your plan, which to me is along the lines of _the best defense is a good offense_, the nutter is defended against being arrested for their nonsense. To add to **Horatius** ’ posted idea, the vanity (and let’s face it, that’s what this terrorist bullshit nonsense is: vanity) plate should also come with a free, at no extra cost, photo ID with your own choice of sovcit flavor listed right next to your name spelled with the correct amount of capital letters, small letters, and odd punctuation to boot! ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2023, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/516 "2023-10-18T14:41:03Z")
Just watched this: [Judge turns a sovcit’s nonsense back on the defendant,](https://youtu.be/AzODx3WLarQ?si=NrbPO_wxsqG-wQnI) and clearly seems to be enjoying it. I daresay it’s far from the first time he’s had to cope with such nutcases. ---
**Author:** ![Sylvanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2023, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/517 "2023-10-18T16:28:40Z")
That was epic. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2023, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/518 "2023-10-18T16:42:44Z")
“Jail them all, let prison sort it out.” ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2023, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/519 "2023-10-18T20:38:09Z")
I was surprised to see a video of a sovereign citizen using the same script in Australia. The same bullshit doesn’t work under a different set of laws either. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2023, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/520 "2023-10-18T20:42:13Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I was surprised to see a video of a sovereign citizen using the same script in Australia. The same bullshit doesn’t work under a different set of laws either. - It’s much easier to steal a script that doesn’t work than to write one from scratch that doesn’t work. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572.md?page=25) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572.md?page=27)