Have any of you all run across these nuts? I had to represent a few in my days at the Federal Public Defender's Office. They are individuals, mostly white male in my experience, who have declared themselves to be sovereigns and therefore not subject to government regulation or control. They don't file tax returns and don't think they are legally required to file, or to pay taxes on their earnings. Of course, some, like the one who mostly recently came to my attention, don't work or earn enough money for them to pass the threshold for being required to file. The IRS leaves them alone, so -- Aha! -- they take this as evidence of their "sovereignty" and the government's respect for their sovereignty. Not a single one of them to my knowledge has tested this defense to taxation in court and won, and quite a few have gone to prison. They tend to be harmless, but they are also crazy, so you make the call on that. They are not antigovernment secessionists, not exactly, because they invoke government regulations and laws, especially the UCC, to prove their eligibility for this status. The government s thus legitimate, it jut doesn't apply to them once they set themselves free. Here's more: “Sovereign citizen” is a catchall phrase referring to a variety of anti-government individuals and groups who share some common beliefs and behaviors. The organizations to which many sovereign citizens belong have a variety of names: Moorish Nation, The Aware Group, Washitaw Nation, the North Carolina American Republic, Republic of United States of America, etc. The same views may be embraced by Freeman, Freemen on the Land, Sons of Liberty, and Aryan Nation.... They speak an odd quasi-legal language and believe that by not capitalizing names and by writing in red and using certain catch phrases they can avoid any liability in our judicial system. They even think they can lay claim to vast sums of money held by the United States Treasury, based on the premise that the government has secretly pledged them as security for the country’s debts. Based on these beliefs, and a twisted understanding of the Uniform Commercial Code, they try various schemes that they think discharge them from responsibility for their debts. At their most harmless, sovereign citizens are cranks who talk what seems like gibberish to cops and magistrates and judges and then become law abiding when they face real legal trouble. At a different level, they may severely burden the courts and other government offices with the filing of hundreds and hundreds of pages of nonsensical documents. And at their very worst, they may resort to deadly force to defend their strange beliefs. You can't reason with them. If you don't agree with their ridiculous premises and twisted, ignorant logic, you are brainwashed. https://www.sog.unc.edu/sites/www.sog.unc.edu/files/Sov citizens quick guide Nov 13.pdf
1) I thought you were a chef, not a lawyer 2) Yes I have met a couple 3) I am fairly convinced that if you recite back to them today as your own words something they said yesterday, they would argue with you that you were wrong. 4) To me they are just another flavor of crazy. No more or less weird than the people who think the CIA is bugging their homes. What does concern me about them is that I read somewhere there is a network of them that really likes to screw up the public records out west filing forged documents that are causing a lot of people all sorts of headaches. Fakes deeds, fake mortgage releases, fake liens, etc etc
I sympathize with their general feelings, and many of their beliefs, but their primary assertion, which is that the government should not have the power to impose an income tax, is crazy, whacky, and actually unfounded. (Yes, I have looked into their arguments and tried to give them honest consideration) I do think a person could have "sovereign citizen"-type leaning beliefs and still have a very rational respectable position, but the beliefs of the majority of those who go under that name are pretty extreme, usually kind of whacky, and not altogether really logical. Positions or beliefs that are taken to the extreme often are kind of crazy and impractical. Now if someone simply wanted to argue that taxes are too high, or wanted to argue that there should be a different type of tax besides the income tax, that would be a different argument.
They are in error. But sometimes things are too complicated to be able to explain. And this is revealing into the human psychological process, because sometimes people only see what they want to see. I think psychologically, it's some instinctual attempt to try to seize back a measure of control or protection from a force that is bigger and wields power over them. And I think it is a very "American" phenomena (for better or for worse). How do we as a society invest all the necessary powers into a government, a big government that is powerful enough to do things, while still ensuring that power is not abused, that the lowly do not get trodden over. It is a bit of a dilemma, which Americans more than other nationalities seem especially cognizant of.
The TV show family Guy featured an episode about this. Peter decided he was a sovereign citizen. He established the nation of Petoria. Lol. Remind me of a famous line from some movie or another....." You think that you are special, you think that somehow the rules do not apply to you "
It is true that "no man is an island". But it is also true that all "rules" are man-made laws, and man-made laws are often inherently imperfect, and lack a firm moral basis. (The fact that two different nations often fight over territory is one example of this. There is often no objective way to determine which one is in the right.)
Maybe. It's also possible that they are just free riders, or aspire to be, and when they find a theoretical justification for not helping to pull the cart, they jump in the cart and let the rest of us pull. The few I have met are also social outcasts because of their off-putting personalities and lack of charisma, and may be getting revenge.
