I wouldn’t know of Norton at all, had it not been for the SDMB.
In the last few days I happened to listen to this lecture by neurologist Dr Robert Sapolsky on biological underpinnings of religiosity:
if you have a spare 1hr 22m I strongly recommend it. It’s fascinating.
Anyway he tells a story (paraphrasing from memory) about how an anthropologist was visiting a tribe that had a widely admired and excellently cray-cray shaman. Their tribal leader commented that their shaman was terrific but he was very glad they didn’t have two of them.
The fundamental point made by Dr Sapolsky is that the reason we have schizophrenia is probably that it is an extreme version of schizotypal behaviour, which is selected for at low levels because people seem to like having nutters who are into magical thinking etc around at a certain level (about one person in 20 if I recall correctly).
This ties in with what you are saying, precisely. The schizotypal people that we seem to tolerate or even like to have around at low density have coalesced through the Internet in ways that we don’t like.
Sovereign citizens have been violent in the past:
Since 2000, lone-offender sovereign-citizen extremists have killed six law enforcement officers. In 2010, two Arkansas police officers stopped sovereign-citizen extremists Jerry Kane and his 16-year-old son Joseph during a routine traffic stop on Interstate 40. Joseph Kane jumped out of the vehicle and opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle, killing both officers.
Increased knowledge of this sort of thing probably does make officers less likely to let them pass.
Plus, if a nonviolent sovereign citizen develops a grudge, they can use paper terrorism
“Paper terrorism” is a neologism referring to the use of false liens, frivolous lawsuits, bogus letters of credit, and other legal or pseudolegal documents lacking sound factual basis as a method of harassment against an opponent on a scale described as evocative of conventional armed terrorism.[1] These methods are popular among some American anti-government groups[2] and those associated with the redemption movement.[3]
I am minded of a line from Bridge of Birds: “The emotional health of a village depended upon having a man whom everyone loved to hate, and Heaven had blessed us with two of them.”
I’ve been watching more videos of “sovereign citizens” in action, mostly involving traffic stops where they demonstrate an amazing ability to escalate a simple traffic stop into an arrest with a slew of charges, but some of the funniest ones involving their self-representation in court. It’s clearly a cult with some common beliefs, one of the most prevalent ones being that a driver’s license is never required to drive a private automobile because “the right to travel” is constitutionally protected, and for the same reason neither vehicle registration nor insurance can be mandated. This often extends to the belief that no laws at all apply to sovcits, that no state has jurisdiction over them, and/or that all laws expired in 1776. Some of these lunatics carry around sovcity ID cards the proclaim their “liberties”, and some have personal “gurus” who are basically pretend lawyers who advise them on what to do during a traffic stop, which is usually the worst possible thing.
I’ll just post one video which is more or less kinda representative, although they all have their own unique stupidities and hilarity. Quick summary for those who can’t be bothered: Two guys arrive at the home of the passenger, followed by a cop who turns on his lights and tells the driver that both of his taillights are out, and asks to see his license and registration. This is not forthcoming because – surprise! – both the driver and his passenger are sovcits!
The funniest part is when the passenger hauls out a gigantic dictionary and proceeds to loudly lecture the cop on the fundamental principle beloved by all sovcits on the difference between “driving” and “traveling”, and why requiring a driver’s license is unconstitutional. As things escalate, the driver is put in cuffs, more officers arrive, the passenger’s obstruction escalates and he runs into the house to escape arrest, where he’s arrested in the presence of his shrieking mother (likely a sovcit herself) and one gets the impression that pretty soon the entire family will be in jail.
Yep. I watch things like that, and then I think about the time I was with another couple of guys when we got pulled over because one of the headlights was out. The driver had literally just noticed that himself, and it was amazing how easy it was to say, “Yes, we just saw that. We’re not locals, we’re only in town for today, do you know a local place we could get it fixed at this time of night?” Cop gave us directions and sent us on our way.
I watch them, too. But I don’t find them all that funny; it’s more like satisfaction. I also find myself wondering, as I watch them, what actions those loons are clearly taking that a police officer could reasonably consider to be threatening. Sovcits might seem amusing, but in fact they are quite dangerous.
You are so right. I always like the clear way you explain things.
In that video they are lucky they got handled so gently. If I was one of the cops, I’d be right on the knife edge.
And why do these idiots seem to all have neck beards?
I would be, also. There’s really only one reason for those sovcit nutjobs to display those inane plates: to have a confrontation. Any such confrontation that does not end in a dead law enforcement officer was just practice, a trial run, if you will.
And the neck beards? That’s easy to explain. Even the nutjobs don’t trust themselves with a lethal weapon in their hands!
I’m not quite sure what to think of the license plates. Once you’ve made the (dumb) decision to be a SovCit you have a few choices.
- Drive around with no plates.
- Drive around with expired in-state plates that a license plate reader can read and check instantly.
- Somehow obtain a real out of state plate that if not already expired will be within 12 months.
- Drive around with a plate that looks plausible from a distance that no license plate reader can process.
As a rational SovCit (bear with me for a moment), I think Door #4 has some decent chance of being the best way to not get stopped at random. It’s just better camoflage than 1-3. And the more the plate vaguely resembles a real Federal GOV plate, the less closely your random policeman is going to look at it. Especially if your car is nondescript too.
Now for sure, I can imagine some grifting businessman making and selling SovCit “traveler’s plates” or whatever they call them that stand out to any cop who’s paying attention. Sounds like a great business to be in. And with enough marketing can make a lot of sales even if the plates are actually arrest magnets. Even “rational SovCits” are real, real dumb and real, real bad at cause and effect.
The decision was made because they want to have some kind of confrontation with The Mantm. Now, obviously they’re not going to go after the really powerful armed group of the government, the military. They’re looking for confrontation with individual LEOs.
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That will get them pulled over immediately and doesn’t fit their own narrative. The use of the fictitious plates is, IMHO, a trial run. Not having them won’t give them the basis for their distracting nonsense dialog with the LEO on the street.
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Again, this will end up just like Choice #1.
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And lose the opportuninity of a confrontation with a Real, Live, Automatan of The Mantm? Surely, you jest!
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Have you seen those things? They don’t really look all that plausible.
Here’s where you and I drive, er, travel a different road. I believe these whacked-out nut-jobs are looking for confrontation, so it’s not at random. The thing is, they’re not the ones, at least in their eyes, initiating the confrontation.
Where do you think these nutjobs are getting all of their material? What I’d like to see is someone sending those grifters “sovcit” money or “sovcit” checks instead of actual legal tender.
And my usual comment regarding these nutjobs: They are dangerous regardless of how silly or amusing they seem to be.
I grant many of them are dangerous. And become more so as the nuttiness of the crap they watch on the internet gets worse and worse. A couple of them have been shot as have a LEO or two.
Each wacko is wacky in his own individual way. There are certainly some just itching to get into a scrap with the police. But that’s not hard to arrange regardless of your license plate. Just drive around town until you see a cop car then start driving nutso. Pull over promptly as soon as the lights go on so the LEO’s not inclined to call half the county in for backup. Now you (the SovCit) have your one on one encounter at a time, and more or less a place, of your choosing.
Others really are mentally hermits. They just want to be absolutely positively left alone. Even if they totally deserve a police interaction.
I don’t know how to handicap the relative numbers. But I have to think that if all the SovCits really wanted a police encounter they could all arrange one tomorrow. Which we don’t see. It’s a drip feed with no sense we’re getting to the bottom of the swamp.
YMMV; I’m not really invested in anything besides wondering where the hell our society went so utterly off the rails that this is a mass-market attractive idea. Which is a bigger question than this thread can address.
But of course, this whole analysis just highlights the irrationality of it.
If you really believed that license plates were not needed under the “real law”, why would you then try to camouflage your car using any of these methods? The attempt to avoid notice by the police suggests that deep down, they know that such notice will end badly for them.
People, as a general rule, don’t go out of their way to hide the perfectly normal and legal things they’re doing - they hide the things they know are wrong.
https://www.amazon.com/Sovereign-Citizen-Photo-License-Plate/dp/B08JMCHN32
And that’s not the only one.
It’s a contender for the lamest, though. There are no spiffy colors, no fun iconography, no fake flag, and no fictitious jurisdiction name.
One of the takeaways I get from these videos is “Damn, these cops can keep calm and even-tempered, even in the face of maddening, angry nutjobs.”
Like this one?
You just tanked your argument.
The one in that link says USDOT and has the Department of Transportation logo on it. That’s not the way it’s done in reality.
The US government issued plates for DOT vehicles have the jurisdiction as U.S. GOVERNMENT and may have DOT in the lower left corner or to the left of the registration number. IIRC, the G## preceding the registration number itself is the type of vehicle.
Here is a fun site regarding license plates. Their US government section is here.