# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/101 "2016-10-27T10:30:36Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > I don’t know – there are some SovCit’s in videos that I’d enjoy creating joinder with, perverted mind that I have. 🙂 > > Not really. But they also try to find ways to use the system they reject to hurt their enemies. > > Like they could report this ‘fine’ as a bad debt on the Judge’s credit report, which he might then have to make significant effort to correct. > > Or when the get fines, or their house gets repossessed for failing to pay taxes, they will file a 1099 tax form reporting that fine or property value as income to the judge or the officer that seized the property. > > And since the IRS computers didn’t know these people were nuts, it accepted that form, and months later the person would get the form letter from the IRS saying they failed to report that income, and so they owe X dollars in additional income tax, plus appropriate penalties & interest. Again, that person would then have to go thru the expense & effort of correcting the IRS records. (I think the IRS has caught onto this tactic now, and has ways of dealing with it. But early on, there were some judges/officers who had some significant problems over this.) That’s why they call these tactics [paper terrorism](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/us/citizens-without-a-country-wage-battle-with-liens.html?_r=0): > [@In Paper War](#): > > MINNEAPOLIS — One of the first inklings Sheriff Richard Stanek had that something was wrong came with a call from the mortgage company handling his refinancing. > > “It must be a mistake,” he said, when the loan officer told him that someone had placed liens totaling more than $25 million on his house and on other properties he owned. > > But as Sheriff Stanek soon learned, the liens, legal claims on property to secure the payment of a debt, were just the earliest salvos in a war of paper, waged by a couple who had lost their home to foreclosure in 2009 — a tactic that, with the spread of an anti-government ideology known as the “sovereign citizen” movement, is being employed more frequently as a way to retaliate against perceived injustices. > > [snip] > > Cases involving sovereign citizens are surfacing increasingly here in Minnesota and in other states, posing a challenge to law enforcement officers and court officials, who often become aware of the movement — a loose network of groups and individuals who do not recognize the authority of federal, state or municipal government — only when they become targets. Although the filing of liens for outrageous sums or other seemingly frivolous claims might appear laughable, dealing with them can be nightmarish, so much so that the F.B.I. has labeled the strategy “paper terrorism.” A lien can be filed by anyone under the Uniform Commercial Code. > > [snip] > > Sovereign citizens who file creditor claims are helped by the fact that in most states, the secretary of state must accept any lien that is filed without judging its validity. > > The National Association of Secretaries of State released a report in April on sovereign citizens, urging state officials to find ways to expedite the removal of liens and increase penalties for fraudulent filings. More than a dozen states have enacted laws giving state filing offices more discretion in accepting liens, and an increasing number of states have passed or are considering legislation to toughen the penalties for bogus filings. [The SPLC reports on what Georgia did to fight this](https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2012/georgia-bill-attacks-%E2%80%98paper-terrorism%E2%80%99-fbi-takes-aim-%E2%80%98sovereigns%E2%80%99): > [@Southern Poverty Law Center](#): > > In April, Georgia enacted legislation making it a felony to file fraudulent liens against the property of public officials or employees, a sovereign tactic known as “paper terrorism.” > > State Rep. B.J. Pak, a Republican, introduced the bill at the request of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Violators of the law, which goes into effect July 1, can be imprisoned for up to 10 years, fined up to $10,000, or both. > > In one case in Georgia, Temple Police Chief Tim Shaw was harassed, threatened and hit with false liens totaling more than $800,000 by a sovereign citizen angered by a traffic citation. Other sovereigns who were being prosecuted under the RICO Act filed baseless property liens and lawsuits against government officials involved in their case. In such cases, officials can become entangled in legal proceedings that can take years and thousands of dollars to sort out. And, because it wouldn’t be circus without the clown, Glenn Beck has weighed in: > [@SPLC](#): > > Despite the extremist ideology and the very real violence the movement has produced, former Fox News personality Glenn Beck mocked the FBI’s warning about the sovereign movement, suggesting that it was a subterfuge to steal away freedoms. > > “I don’t believe a word of that, do you?” he asked viewers of his Internet TV show. “Let’s call a spade a spade. Let me tell you what this is, I believe, all about. It is deflection, again, to set the American people up. It goes right back to, ‘Yes, but can I scoop American citizens up and hold them without trial?’” Keep in mind, these people are known cop-killers and generally far enough from reality to be dangerous to anyone who tries to apply the actual law to them. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/102 "2016-10-27T10:46:10Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Originally Posted by In Paper War, Flood of Liens Is the Weapon, New York Times, August 24, 2013 > > MINNEAPOLIS — One of the first inklings Sheriff Richard Stanek had that something was wrong came with a call from the mortgage company handling his refinancing. > > > > “It must be a mistake,” he said, when the loan officer told him that someone had placed liens totaling more than $25 million on his house and on other properties he owned. > > > > But as Sheriff Stanek soon learned, the liens, legal claims on property to secure the payment of a debt, were just the earliest salvos in a war of paper, waged by a couple who had lost their home to foreclosure in 2009 — a tactic that, with the spread of an anti-government ideology known as the “sovereign citizen” movement, is being employed more frequently as a way to retaliate against perceived injustices. Yeah, but Sheriff Stanek’s a racist, homophobic, etc. bigoted ass, so anybody who ‘terrorizes’ him is OK with me. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/103 "2016-10-27T10:59:12Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Yeah, but Sheriff Stanek’s a racist, homophobic, etc. bigoted ass, so anybody who ‘terrorizes’ him is OK with me. The purest schadenfreude known to man is when asshole terrorizes asshole. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/104 "2016-10-27T11:03:07Z")
To a great extent, this phenomenon is just sad. For the most part, these sovereign citizen idiots are people who feel like they have no agency in society and they have latched on to what is basically a con game that disrupts civil society and puts people in danger ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/105 "2016-10-27T11:36:58Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > To a great extent, this phenomenon is just sad. For the most part, these sovereign citizen idiots are people who feel like they have no agency in society and they have latched on to what is basically a con game that disrupts civil society and puts people in danger I don’t know; from the videos it sounds not so much like they feel like they have no agency as that they are simply exceptionalist would-be smartasses who think they can game the system to their advantage. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/106 "2016-10-27T11:43:06Z")
They felt that they had no agency so they latched onto a con game that gives them a feeling of agency. They choose to believe this crap because it makes them feel smarter and because it makes them think that they have a way to exercise control in the world. ---
**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 27, 2016, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/107 "2016-10-27T12:11:18Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/108 "2016-10-27T12:37:01Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > They felt that they had no agency so they latched onto a con game that gives them a feeling of agency. I hear what you are proposing but I don’t see the evidence. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/109 "2016-10-27T12:51:13Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > I don’t know; from the videos it sounds not so much like they feel like they have no agency as that they are simply exceptionalist would-be smartasses who think they can game the system to their advantage. > [@Acsenray](#): > > They felt that they had no agency so they latched onto a con game that gives them a feeling of agency. > > They choose to believe this crap because it makes them feel smarter and because it makes them think that they have a way to exercise control in the world. We most likely have some of both – those who honestly believe they’re wise guys who have sussed out how to beat the system, and those who are eager to believe Group One did so and want to join in because the alternative would be that there’s nothing they can do. In both cases there’s an underlying theme f feeling that in a truly fair system, things would go \*their \*way. Since things don’t, there must be a trick and it must be hid somewhere in the rules that The Man set up to run things. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/110 "2016-10-27T13:08:36Z")
That’s the idiocy of it. They think the U.S. Government is a soulless, lawless leviathan determined to squash them, but if they use _just the right words_ Uncle Sam’s jackbooted thugs will have to back off and they’ll get everything they want. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/111 "2016-10-27T13:24:40Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > **Idle Thoughts** , if you have time on your hands, read the _Meads_ decision from the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench. More than you will likely ever need to know about the SovCits. > > [https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012abqb571.html](https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012abqb571.html) OMG, that is pure gold. Thank you for that link. ---
**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:** [October 27, 2016, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/112 "2016-10-27T14:42:55Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > To me one thing that’s particularly weird is how often they misapply things, from using the Uniform Code of Commerce to talk about speed limits to using it in the wrong country. Nitpick: Uniform Commercial Code. And the really funny thing is that the UCC doesn’t technically apply anywhere in the US either. It’s a set of model laws which states are free to adopt or not. While nearly all US states have adopted nearly all the articles of the UCC, there is substantial variance in the versions adopted by each. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/113 "2016-10-27T16:21:00Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > That’s the idiocy of it. They think the U.S. Government is a soulless, lawless leviathan determined to squash them, but if they use _just the right words_ Uncle Sam’s jackbooted thugs will have to back off and they’ll get everything they want. Precisely, I mean lets imagine that their fantasy interpretation of the law is correct, that’s completely irrelevant since the Feds have far more guns than they do and they’ll use them to enforce THEIR version of the law. All authority ultimately comes from the barrel of a gun. I’d really like to know what a genuine SovCit would say when confronted by this rather obvious fact. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/114 "2016-10-27T16:39:56Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > That’s the idiocy of it. They think the U.S. Government is a soulless, lawless leviathan determined to squash them, but if they use _just the right words_ Uncle Sam’s jackbooted thugs will have to back off and they’ll get everything they want. I know, it’s what i call the “magic words” crazy theory. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/115 "2016-10-27T16:53:11Z")
I call it the “Ken Bones Red Sweater” crazy theory. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/116 "2016-10-27T16:59:08Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Nitpick: Uniform Commercial Code. And the really funny thing is that the UCC doesn’t technically apply anywhere in the US either. It’s a set of model laws which states are free to adopt or not. While nearly all US states have adopted nearly all the articles of the UCC, there is substantial variance in the versions adopted by each. IOW, if these guys could misapply the law of gravity, they would. ---
**Author:** ![HookerChemical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/278dde/32.png) [@HookerChemical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HookerChemical)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/117 "2016-10-27T17:37:39Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Arggh, you guys, get a room. And if there will be any grabbing by the das capital, make sure it is all consensual. Commies don’t grab das capital. They seize the means of reproduction. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/118 "2016-10-27T18:27:40Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > …All authority ultimately comes from the barrel of a gun. I’d really like to know what a genuine SovCit would say when confronted by this rather obvious fact. Well, ideally, in a democracy, governmental authority comes from the consent of the governed - but of course these yahoos will say they don’t (and never did) consent. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/119 "2016-10-27T18:34:11Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Well, ideally, in a democracy, governmental authority comes from the consent of the governed - but of course these yahoos will say they don’t (and never did) consent. No, it comes from some moistened bint lobbing a scimitar at someone. The yahoos in question are the ones yelling “Now we see the violence in the system! Help! Help! I’m being repressed by a lack of joinder!” Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sovereign-citizens-please-tell-me-this-is-fake/769572/120 "2016-10-27T18:39:15Z")
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