5 ms·

The whole basis of these sovereign citizens/freemen/reichsbürger/similar-thing-in-other-countries seems so odd to me. The state can impose laws on you, because

by yoo1I 10y ago

The whole basis of these sovereign citizens/freemen/reichsbürger/similar-thing-in-other-countries seems so odd to me. The state can impose laws on you, because in the end, the state wields physical power. To lawyer about, even with odd ideas, within the framework of your state, to try and change it, or by interpreting existing laws wildly differently makes some sense. But to pretend that the laws of a state don't apply to you, because you deny the whole state legitimacy, means you are putting the physical power of you and your fellow dissidents against the power of the state. That makes some sense in some situations I guess, but to try and do that so half-assed semi-within the legal framework of the state you are in and often enough just to get out of traffic tickets... I guess I just don't seem the end-game.

captainmuon 10y ago
This. What I find so crazy about these people here in Germany (Reichsbürger) is that they reject the authority of the state by referring to the authority of another state that no longer exists in that form, the German Reich. They call themselves citizens of the Reich and have their own passports, refuse to pay tickets and so on. The German state will have none of their BS, and they have issued a 150 page handbook for administration and police on how to deal with those people.
jtolmar 10y ago
We have stories about overly literal devils and genies obeying exact wordings instead of the obvious intents of their agreements. And stories where lawyers win their cases at the last minute because they found an obscure loophole, despite everyone else being against them. Laws actually come from state power, social contracts, and human interpretation, but the idea that they're actually a separate magical thing that everyone - even governments and devils - has to obey, is common in our culture. That sort of story is often about contract law (the devil ones especially) so the freemen focus on that. And "social contract" has contract in the name, which gives the laws-are-magic-spells thinking a fertile place to start out . The rest follows from wishful thinking that knowing the law is made of magic spells will work out in your favor.
300bps 10y ago
Once when the law was on my side I had a judge rule against me for a moving violation and he dismissed me with, "if you don't like it, appeal it to the county." I could've done that, but for a $90 no-point ticket it didn't seem worth the additional time and he knew that. I agree with you that these radical ideas stand no chance before a judge who will not hesitate to send you to jail for not respecting the authority of the court.
- zyxley 10y ago
  "Radical" doesn't seem like the right word. "Radical" political movements usually have some understanding of the realities of the day and want to change them, while the whole sovereign citizen thing is more like a huge vaguely-defined conspiracy theory.
nsns 10y ago
Well, I think there's something deeper going on here; the strength of the nation as a juridical entity has been seriously weakened; rich multinationals - corporations and individuals alike - are no longer bound by it, refugees are an obvious exception to it, and since the neo-liberal revolution, legislation also tends to be mostly global-minded; which leaves the normal citizen - now a "prisoner" of his or her place of birth - with few options. It seems only natural that new forms of existence in a post-national world would slowly come into being (instead of a naive populist, nostalgic ultra-nationalist turn).
analog31 10y ago
The whole basis of these sovereign citizens/freemen/reichsbürger/similar-thing-in-other-countries seems so odd to me. The state can impose laws on you, because in the end, the state wields physical power. While true, imposing laws by exercising supreme physical power is not a unique feature of states, and is a matter of degree. For instance, in a state that doesn't maintain that level of power, such as Afghanistan, someone else will fill the vacuum, such as the Taliban. And there could be states that are even less tolerant of those movements than the liberal democracies where they seem to flourish. There are no such billboards in China. So I think those movements are to some extent a product of situations where a state wields supreme physical power but does not exercise that power in totality.
Pitarou 10y ago
I don't think that's exactly what they claim. At least, not in the versions that I've seen. Their claim is that the 1% / the lizard people / the illuminati / whatever have used trickery to create a legal system in which certain laws only apply to the unenlightened. If you understand how the system works, you can claim the same impunity that the elite do. For example, when a police or court officer asks you, "Do you understand?" they are really asking if you "stand under (the law)" -- i.e. they are tricking you into consenting to be bound by the law. Utter nonsense, of course, but very attractive nonsense if you're poor, powerless and pissed off.
s_kilk 10y ago
I have a theory... The Freemen look around and see that the world appears to be run by means of legal chicanery, little of which they understand. They feel helpless and lost in the face of this gargantuan machine of State. So when someone proposes some theory which: a) contains legal-sounding words, and b) posits that these Freemen can use their own brand of legal chicanery to magic their way out of their debts ... then they latch on to it with gusto, proudly parroting back the legal-sounding nonsense because it helps them feel better about the vast, dark horror of life in the modern world. EDIT: also, what jtolmar said.
notthegov 10y ago
Larry Becraft Jr, an attorney who has fought the IRS, wrote in the 1990s on his website debunking these sovereign citizen theories- http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/deadissues.htm http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/deadissues.htm While I agree that these theories are ineffective and sometimes false, in a general sense they are true. According to the US Code, the United States organic law is comprised of the Declaration of Independence(1776), the Articles of Confederation (1777), the Northwest Ordinance (1787) and the Constitution (1787). While mainstream academia says these have no legal or constitutional force, I'd disagree. In France, the organic law does have constitutional force and thus overrules statutes. In essence, the United States is based on the natural rights acknowledge in the Declaration that says we have the "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". And any government whether, local, or state or national that diminishes these natural rights, we have a duty to alter or abolish them. This is the Right of Revolution, although the establishment would say this is now invalid since we have democratic methods to change the government. Regardless, American rights pre-existed the Constitution, the government and the Declaration. Our rights are derived by the nature of our humanity and a natural "God" in the context of Deism, not religion. And there are endless moderate abuses of the state; wholesale denials of civil rights, aggressive and unjust actions by judges, prosecutors and police. It's akin to Chinese water torture, a mild form of oppression that has a cumulative effect resulting in gangs, distrust between the public and the police and endless crimes.
- zyxley 10y ago
  > In France, the organic law does have constitutional force and thus overrules statutes. This may be a shocking revelation to you, but countries that aren't France aren't France.
- cbd1984 10y ago
  > Larry Becraft Jr, an attorney who has fought the IRS Becraft doesn't want to pay income tax and has developed some lunatic theories which, to his mind, allow him to not pay income tax. He's done time in prison because, surprise of surprises, his nutball theories don't change the actual law. He "fought the IRS" in much the same way as an ant might "fight" a ten-pound sledgehammer. > According to the US Code, the United States organic law is comprised of the Declaration of Independence(1776), the Articles of Confederation (1777), the Northwest Ordinance (1787) and the Constitution (1787). "Organic law" apparently does not mean what you think it means: The Declaration of Independence does not have the force of law and it never has. It was a justification for the rebellion, and that's it. The Articles of Confederation have not had the force of law since they were replaced by the Constitution, so saying they have force of law along with the Constitution is incoherent. The latter totally superseded the former. The Northwest Ordinance was an act of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation which was subsequently recognized as valid law by the courts after the ratification of the Constitution. As an act of Congress, however, it can be modified by further acts of Congress and by the courts. It is not on an equal footing with the Constitution by any means. > While mainstream academia says these have no legal or constitutional force, I'd disagree. It isn't just the academics which disagree with you, but the government itself, and the government gets to decide what law is. You lose.
alasdair_ 10y ago
If you don't want to pay taxes, or parking tickets, go get yourself a whole bunch of nuclear weapons. With enough force behind you, you can ignore any law.

by yoo1I 10y ago

captainmuon 10y ago

This. What I find so crazy about these people here in Germany (Reichsbürger) is that they reject the authority of the state by referring to the authority of another state that no longer exists in that form, the German Reich. They call themselves citizens of the Reich and have their own passports, refuse to pay tickets and so on. The German state will have none of their BS, and they have issued a 150 page handbook for administration and police on how to deal with those people.

jtolmar 10y ago

We have stories about overly literal devils and genies obeying exact wordings instead of the obvious intents of their agreements. And stories where lawyers win their cases at the last minute because they found an obscure loophole, despite everyone else being against them. Laws actually come from state power, social contracts, and human interpretation, but the idea that they're actually a separate magical thing that everyone - even governments and devils - has to obey, is common in our culture. That sort of story is often about contract law (the devil ones especially) so the freemen focus on that. And "social contract" has contract in the name, which gives the laws-are-magic-spells thinking a fertile place to start out . The rest follows from wishful thinking that knowing the law is made of magic spells will work out in your favor.

300bps 10y ago

Once when the law was on my side I had a judge rule against me for a moving violation and he dismissed me with, "if you don't like it, appeal it to the county." I could've done that, but for a $90 no-point ticket it didn't seem worth the additional time and he knew that. I agree with you that these radical ideas stand no chance before a judge who will not hesitate to send you to jail for not respecting the authority of the court.

zyxley 10y ago
"Radical" doesn't seem like the right word. "Radical" political movements usually have some understanding of the realities of the day and want to change them, while the whole sovereign citizen thing is more like a huge vaguely-defined conspiracy theory.

nsns 10y ago

Well, I think there's something deeper going on here; the strength of the nation as a juridical entity has been seriously weakened; rich multinationals - corporations and individuals alike - are no longer bound by it, refugees are an obvious exception to it, and since the neo-liberal revolution, legislation also tends to be mostly global-minded; which leaves the normal citizen - now a "prisoner" of his or her place of birth - with few options. It seems only natural that new forms of existence in a post-national world would slowly come into being (instead of a naive populist, nostalgic ultra-nationalist turn).

analog31 10y ago

The whole basis of these sovereign citizens/freemen/reichsbürger/similar-thing-in-other-countries seems so odd to me. The state can impose laws on you, because in the end, the state wields physical power. While true, imposing laws by exercising supreme physical power is not a unique feature of states, and is a matter of degree. For instance, in a state that doesn't maintain that level of power, such as Afghanistan, someone else will fill the vacuum, such as the Taliban. And there could be states that are even less tolerant of those movements than the liberal democracies where they seem to flourish. There are no such billboards in China. So I think those movements are to some extent a product of situations where a state wields supreme physical power but does not exercise that power in totality.

Pitarou 10y ago

I don't think that's exactly what they claim. At least, not in the versions that I've seen. Their claim is that the 1% / the lizard people / the illuminati / whatever have used trickery to create a legal system in which certain laws only apply to the unenlightened. If you understand how the system works, you can claim the same impunity that the elite do. For example, when a police or court officer asks you, "Do you understand?" they are really asking if you "stand under (the law)" -- i.e. they are tricking you into consenting to be bound by the law. Utter nonsense, of course, but very attractive nonsense if you're poor, powerless and pissed off.

s_kilk 10y ago

I have a theory... The Freemen look around and see that the world appears to be run by means of legal chicanery, little of which they understand. They feel helpless and lost in the face of this gargantuan machine of State. So when someone proposes some theory which: a) contains legal-sounding words, and b) posits that these Freemen can use their own brand of legal chicanery to magic their way out of their debts ... then they latch on to it with gusto, proudly parroting back the legal-sounding nonsense because it helps them feel better about the vast, dark horror of life in the modern world. EDIT: also, what jtolmar said.

notthegov 10y ago

Larry Becraft Jr, an attorney who has fought the IRS, wrote in the 1990s on his website debunking these sovereign citizen theories- http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/deadissues.htm http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/deadissues.htm While I agree that these theories are ineffective and sometimes false, in a general sense they are true. According to the US Code, the United States organic law is comprised of the Declaration of Independence(1776), the Articles of Confederation (1777), the Northwest Ordinance (1787) and the Constitution (1787). While mainstream academia says these have no legal or constitutional force, I'd disagree. In France, the organic law does have constitutional force and thus overrules statutes. In essence, the United States is based on the natural rights acknowledge in the Declaration that says we have the "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". And any government whether, local, or state or national that diminishes these natural rights, we have a duty to alter or abolish them. This is the Right of Revolution, although the establishment would say this is now invalid since we have democratic methods to change the government. Regardless, American rights pre-existed the Constitution, the government and the Declaration. Our rights are derived by the nature of our humanity and a natural "God" in the context of Deism, not religion. And there are endless moderate abuses of the state; wholesale denials of civil rights, aggressive and unjust actions by judges, prosecutors and police. It's akin to Chinese water torture, a mild form of oppression that has a cumulative effect resulting in gangs, distrust between the public and the police and endless crimes.

zyxley 10y ago
> In France, the organic law does have constitutional force and thus overrules statutes. This may be a shocking revelation to you, but countries that aren't France aren't France.
cbd1984 10y ago
> Larry Becraft Jr, an attorney who has fought the IRS Becraft doesn't want to pay income tax and has developed some lunatic theories which, to his mind, allow him to not pay income tax. He's done time in prison because, surprise of surprises, his nutball theories don't change the actual law. He "fought the IRS" in much the same way as an ant might "fight" a ten-pound sledgehammer. > According to the US Code, the United States organic law is comprised of the Declaration of Independence(1776), the Articles of Confederation (1777), the Northwest Ordinance (1787) and the Constitution (1787). "Organic law" apparently does not mean what you think it means: The Declaration of Independence does not have the force of law and it never has. It was a justification for the rebellion, and that's it. The Articles of Confederation have not had the force of law since they were replaced by the Constitution, so saying they have force of law along with the Constitution is incoherent. The latter totally superseded the former. The Northwest Ordinance was an act of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation which was subsequently recognized as valid law by the courts after the ratification of the Constitution. As an act of Congress, however, it can be modified by further acts of Congress and by the courts. It is not on an equal footing with the Constitution by any means. > While mainstream academia says these have no legal or constitutional force, I'd disagree. It isn't just the academics which disagree with you, but the government itself, and the government gets to decide what law is. You lose.

alasdair_ 10y ago

If you don't want to pay taxes, or parking tickets, go get yourself a whole bunch of nuclear weapons. With enough force behind you, you can ignore any law.