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A very clear example of this is the 'Sovereign Citizen', who have bizarre beliefs around how to interact with courts. As far as I understand it, there are some

A very clear example of this is the 'Sovereign Citizen', who have bizarre beliefs around how to interact with courts. As far as I understand it, there are some 'cheat codes' people believe (incorrectly) are effective in literally getting you out of jail free. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen_movement > Another common belief among sovereign citizens is that they can opt out of the purported contract, making themselves immune from the laws they do not wish to follow, by declining to "consent": when confronted by police officers or other officials, sovereign citizens typically attempt to negate their authority by saying, "I do not consent" Like, why would this be true, and if it was, why would law enforcement and courts go along with it? I find it very odd.

nailer 4mo ago
> Like, why would this be true Steel-manning the sovereign citizens movement (which I don't believe in): they believe authority comes from the consent of the populace, which is a true statement and in many countries founding documents, they mistakenly think that means the law doesn't apply to them when they as an individual do not consent. They basically don't get that democracy is the tyranny of the many.
- nfw2 4mo ago
  Social contract philosophy has always seemed oversimplified to me. Are people in China or Iran consenting? "I consent, so I won't be killed" seems more like coercion.
  - skinfaxi 4mo ago
    What is tolerated is consented to in a sense. The alternative is rejection of the contract terms but you have to be willing to bet your life on it.
    - nfw2 4mo ago
      I don't see how that could be called consent. No one would say someone consented to sex, for example, because they weren't willing to die by refusing.
hamdingers 4mo ago
> why would law enforcement and courts go along with it? They don't want to deal with it. If someone has one of those SovCit license plates, you know pulling them over is guaranteed to result in frustrating verbal sparring match, which may result in the cop giving up (which is then shared as evidence for the SovCit movement's effectiveness!), or may escalate to a physical altercation. Whether or not the SovCit practitioners understand that's what's happening is anyone's guess.
- heylook 4mo ago
  > Whether or not the SovCit practitioners understand that's what's happening is anyone's guess. Probably more of them don't understand. I am very unfortunate to have one in my extended family, and they have fully lost their grip on reality and basic cause-and-effect. They skate by most of the time, which reinforces their beliefs, and then once the pile gets large enough, the whole thing collapses on them, and then cycle starts over.
gweinberg 4mo ago
They don't. LEOs will routinely conduct searches without any warrant or probable cause and if they find anything and the defense tries to have it thrown out, the LEO will say the search was "voluntary". Similarly, they will say people were "voluntarily detained" if they don;t know to ask "am I free to go?" Calling yourself a sovereign citizen will get you nowhere. Saying "I don't consent to this search" will not prevent a search. But it will allow you to get anything found suppressed, unless a judge decides there was probably cause or the body cam happens to fail and so there is no record of your refusal.
- gilleain 4mo ago
  I see that I was unclear - I did not mean "the law goes along with this, and I don't know why?" I meant "I do not understand why Sov. Cit. would believe that the law would agree to these ideas".
  - alsetmusic 4mo ago
    > I meant "I do not understand why Sov. Cit. would believe that the law would agree to these ideas". It's an insane degree of self-delusion. No sane and rational person would believe that society had a loophole that allows people to opt-out of following laws by chanting magic invocations and then didn't close the hole after multiple people successfully exploited it. Said more clearly: the only thing that makes you immune from following the law is wealth and status, and even then it's not guaranteed. You have to be unreasonable to think that as an ordinary joe-schmo you could beat the system in any significant fashion without those. The worst part is that they manage to get cases dismissed by getting charged for actual crimes that are small and petty, then feel vindicated when charges get dropped, thus leading to perpetuation of their lunatic behavior. They fail to realize that they've been the lucky beneficiary of an overworked DA and a strained system and instead see proof that they were right the whole time. I know this because I hear them say how their cases always get dropped as they get arrested for refusing to provide a driver's license (a crime if operating a motor vehicle on state roads) and other petty crimes in YouTube bodycam videos. I've been fascinated by this ideology for at least five or six years. Fortunately, people in government are wise to them now. Cops used to be genuinely confused by their babble, but cops and judges now call it out right away by the language and arguments. "I'm traveling" and "Who is the injured party by me not having registration? I move to dismiss due to lack of jurisdiction!"
phatskat 4mo ago
I wanted to drop some of my favorite bits about sovereign citizens here, but honestly most of what they believe requires a lot of explanation to really grasp. A quick glance of this seems a good place for the curious: https://www.sog.unc.edu/sites/www.sog.unc.edu/files/Sov%20citizens%20quick%20guide%20Nov%2013.pdf https://www.sog.unc.edu/sites/www.sog.unc.edu/files/Sov%20ci...

nailer 4mo ago

> Like, why would this be true Steel-manning the sovereign citizens movement (which I don't believe in): they believe authority comes from the consent of the populace, which is a true statement and in many countries founding documents, they mistakenly think that means the law doesn't apply to them when they as an individual do not consent. They basically don't get that democracy is the tyranny of the many.

nfw2 4mo ago
Social contract philosophy has always seemed oversimplified to me. Are people in China or Iran consenting? "I consent, so I won't be killed" seems more like coercion.
- skinfaxi 4mo ago
  What is tolerated is consented to in a sense. The alternative is rejection of the contract terms but you have to be willing to bet your life on it.
  - nfw2 4mo ago
    I don't see how that could be called consent. No one would say someone consented to sex, for example, because they weren't willing to die by refusing.

hamdingers 4mo ago

> why would law enforcement and courts go along with it? They don't want to deal with it. If someone has one of those SovCit license plates, you know pulling them over is guaranteed to result in frustrating verbal sparring match, which may result in the cop giving up (which is then shared as evidence for the SovCit movement's effectiveness!), or may escalate to a physical altercation. Whether or not the SovCit practitioners understand that's what's happening is anyone's guess.

heylook 4mo ago
> Whether or not the SovCit practitioners understand that's what's happening is anyone's guess. Probably more of them don't understand. I am very unfortunate to have one in my extended family, and they have fully lost their grip on reality and basic cause-and-effect. They skate by most of the time, which reinforces their beliefs, and then once the pile gets large enough, the whole thing collapses on them, and then cycle starts over.

gweinberg 4mo ago

They don't. LEOs will routinely conduct searches without any warrant or probable cause and if they find anything and the defense tries to have it thrown out, the LEO will say the search was "voluntary". Similarly, they will say people were "voluntarily detained" if they don;t know to ask "am I free to go?" Calling yourself a sovereign citizen will get you nowhere. Saying "I don't consent to this search" will not prevent a search. But it will allow you to get anything found suppressed, unless a judge decides there was probably cause or the body cam happens to fail and so there is no record of your refusal.

gilleain 4mo ago
I see that I was unclear - I did not mean "the law goes along with this, and I don't know why?" I meant "I do not understand why Sov. Cit. would believe that the law would agree to these ideas".
- alsetmusic 4mo ago
  > I meant "I do not understand why Sov. Cit. would believe that the law would agree to these ideas". It's an insane degree of self-delusion. No sane and rational person would believe that society had a loophole that allows people to opt-out of following laws by chanting magic invocations and then didn't close the hole after multiple people successfully exploited it. Said more clearly: the only thing that makes you immune from following the law is wealth and status, and even then it's not guaranteed. You have to be unreasonable to think that as an ordinary joe-schmo you could beat the system in any significant fashion without those. The worst part is that they manage to get cases dismissed by getting charged for actual crimes that are small and petty, then feel vindicated when charges get dropped, thus leading to perpetuation of their lunatic behavior. They fail to realize that they've been the lucky beneficiary of an overworked DA and a strained system and instead see proof that they were right the whole time. I know this because I hear them say how their cases always get dropped as they get arrested for refusing to provide a driver's license (a crime if operating a motor vehicle on state roads) and other petty crimes in YouTube bodycam videos. I've been fascinated by this ideology for at least five or six years. Fortunately, people in government are wise to them now. Cops used to be genuinely confused by their babble, but cops and judges now call it out right away by the language and arguments. "I'm traveling" and "Who is the injured party by me not having registration? I move to dismiss due to lack of jurisdiction!"

phatskat 4mo ago

I wanted to drop some of my favorite bits about sovereign citizens here, but honestly most of what they believe requires a lot of explanation to really grasp. A quick glance of this seems a good place for the curious: https://www.sog.unc.edu/sites/www.sog.unc.edu/files/Sov%20citizens%20quick%20guide%20Nov%2013.pdf https://www.sog.unc.edu/sites/www.sog.unc.edu/files/Sov%20ci...