SovCit on This!: Sovereign Citizens, and You

I'm not "ranting"; I'm "opining".

“A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have”.

- Thomas Jefferson.

“Are you asking me, to do a thing?”

- Some dull-witted sovereign citizen at a traffic stop.

Sovereign citizen getting his window smashed in (credit: Van Balion channel, YouTube)

It’s too bad the online intelligentsia occupies itself with the mainstream media they say they hate reporting on matters of the state and politics, because that’s not where the action is as far as humans are concerned. No, sir. In fact, I find that the stuff churned out by the media about politicians and political parties is sort of like processed meat: it’ll sustain you if there’s nothing else available, but if you’ve had a taste for pork rump, the shortcomings of Spam become pretty prominent.

No, people, left to their own devices, are completely capable of cobbling together enterprises of their own. After all, imagination is a by-product of the evolution of the frontal cortex (which it seems isn’t fully formed in many examples), and needs are infinite thanks to an often-overactive sympathetic nervous system, to which the cortex is still subjugated. And if you needed more reason to lose sleep, the great preponderance of human activity doesn’t involve the consumption of news and current affairs at all. Believe me: Randy Weaver didn’t need any media influence to persuade him to arm himself against perceived government encroachment. Nor did McVeigh.

Now, that’s a catalyst like fire and hydrogen, or if you prefer, Epstein and less-than-vigilant night guards: It can bring about some pretty dynamite social effects, and boy, no one is more creative than maniacal groups of disgruntled people seeking to rationalize their place in the scary vicissitudes of grander society. And that’s not counting the ones that are plain ol’ garden-variety delusional.

Because one picture of a SovCit window smash ain’t enough (credit: Van Balion channel, YouTube)

I’m of course talking about the burgeoning sovereign citizen movement, which is yet another American-bred movement of disgruntled antiglobalist free citizens (affectionately referred to as “SovCits”) constantly experiencing serial hernias about government overreach of their autonomy. This sentiment proves to be a fertile spawning ground for these ground-up movements more entertaining and nettlesome than practical.

I have a degree of sympathy for people like this, though. As I was saying to

Hannah Rose Williams

recently about Lutherans, I have a soft spot for those who attempt to stick it to large, established organizations who enjoy little oversight. It’s largely wishful thinking on my part, though, because historically, just about anyone who has stood up to a powerful establishment with the intention of being an iconoclast who changes the world for the better for everyone has a failure probability hovering around one hundred percent.

SovCit Eddie Banks doing what he does best: losing in court (credit: Van Balion channel, YouTube)

But I gotta give it up to anyone who values their illusion of freedom moreso than their car windows, lack of criminal record, or the ironic freedom-deprivation that comes with committing multiple obstruction misdemeanors. My respect grinds to a halt when you realize that they never learn, though. Their arguments have never stood up in court, despite the deep-seeded belief they have the the Judicial Branch on their side. The Supreme Court and the Constitution are what they constantly trot out to justify their beliefs, even though they never win and the SCOTUS has repeatedly repudiated their claims.

What Do SovCits Believe?

Probably nothing.

What Do SovCits Say They Believe?

This part is a real trip, because not even traditional religions are founded upon this grade of Creation Story. It goes like this: the United States Government apparently became bankrupt in 1933 when it was partially taken off the Gold Standard by Roosevelt, effectively making it illegal for citizens to tender transactions in gold, and instead, mandating the exchange of taxable legal tender for goods & services. The economists reading this who didn’t know about it already have probably just experienced an involuntary dilation of the pupils.

Now, according to the SovCit mythos, gold and precious metals are the only truly legitimate source of legal tender (which won’t surprise anyone familiar enough with other Right-wing ideologies on the internet), so the removal from the Gold Standard is interpreted as a tacit admission that the US government had become bankrupt, meaning zero pecuniary value. Oh, we haven’t even gotten to the real trip yet.

As such, the US government had to back their currency for international trade with some manner of collateral, and rather than resorting to the value of goods, agricultural exports, manufacturing, real estate holdings, petroleum refinement, or just trading the currencies of countries that hadn’t become bankrupt, in their infinite wisdom, they backed their currency with the putative value of US citizens. You know, the same ones that twerk in fast food restaurants in front of kids and wear I’m With Stupid t-shirts to court (a demographic of which, I’m sure, there is a predominant overlap with those who become SovCits).

“Ya honor, these identity documents prove the US treasury shoulda paid my rent. I’m worth thirty million dollahs, ya know.” (credit: Team Skeptic channel, YouTube)

This means that citizens are divided into two distinct entities: the flesh-and-blood “living man” - to which laws are not subject - and the “strawman” - the legal entity associated with the “living man” whose identification and federal documents are stylized in all-caps to distinguish it from the “living man”, whose name is not stylized in all-caps. You with me so far?

Following this pretext, the value of the “strawman” is determined at birth and codified with a social security number and birth certificate, and a reserve in the predicted value of the citizen is set up with the US Treasury. How in God’s name they determine that is beyond me, especially since, stereotypically, SovCits can’t afford to drive anything more fancy than junkers and lettucepickers, yet fancy themselves - and everyone else - worth millions, if only legally they could separate their “living selves” from their “strawmen” by rescinding their federal identification papers with notarized documents, after which they are no longer subject to traffic laws because they’re “not driving in commerce”, and believe they can now charge all their debts to the “strawman account” at the US Treasury, which is a comically transparent scam that never works.

SovCit “Chille” DeCastro brandishing his completely worthless “trifold”, whose infamy is matched only by his entertainment value (credit: Team Skeptic channel, YouTube)

Speaking of driving - as if this weren’t a quantum leap past rigmarole already - SovCits don’t “drive”; they “travel”. They constantly cite a freedom to travel stipulation of the Constitution as grounds for exemption from regulations (too bad it never becomes apparent what the “D” gear in their not-for-commerce ground vessel stands for). This is the drivel they pull out and try to talk cops into circles over whenever their whatever-on-wheels is pulled over because they’re sporting one of those not-even-aesthetically-appealing plates they buy from grifters on the internet for fifty bucks that will apparently exempt them from “traveling stops”. I think it’s now going to start to become clear what this is mostly about.

Example of fraud license plate which magically exempts SovCits, apparently

This usually manifests as a misinformed belief that the “living” man doesn’t need to abide by traffic laws, doesn’t need to get a license, doesn’t need to insure or register his vehicle - I mean “road craft” or whatever the hell they call it because they think that acknowledging a vehicle is grounds for subjugation - and doesn’t need to brandish legitimate license plates. And all too often, the “living man” standing up for “his rights” coincides with the “living man” also having a suspended license, unwillingness to pay registration fees due to privation, and general lack of knowledge of actual traffic laws. But I’m sure that’s just a wild-eyed trick of the Universe.

What those plates should read (credit: Van Balion channel, YouTube)

Now, if it weren’t obvious already, this is just one huge, elaborate racket whose weight is way skewed to the “elaborate” side rather than the “racket” side, because as I said, the racket never works (except for those making hay selling this oleaginous junk). But I still gotta give it up for that labyrinthine yarn they cooked up, because I don’t even think that Robert Ludlum or John Grisham could have spun something like that. And this doesn’t even include the layers added by the “Moorish” branch of SovCits.

As if the Vanilla flavour of SovCit weren’t enough (credit: Van Balion channel, YouTube)

The Dogma Mechanism

As I never seem to tire of pointing out, many of the movements that cause me more grief than they should tend to follow a pretty standard victim mentality-driven formula. The primary formula goes like this:

- Believe the status quo is stacked against you, which you extend to believing is against everyone else because it helps bolster the illusion;
- Assume this is because of a deliberate corruption by a very powerful and faceless organization (they might have a point with this one);
- Ergo, you are the only bulwark against this encroaching menace, and you must defend against it by any means necessary;

Now, if any of that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same rudimentary formula that forms the frame of just about any dogma you can think of proselytized by any number of really annoying, narcissistic disciples. And believe me: this will be a common theme in much of the commentary I’m going to prattle on about in the future, so prepare yourself to ignore a lot of it.

In The Grander Scheme…

YouTube really has been instrumental in building a win-win-win trifecta around the sovereign citizen movement. The SovCits win because they can post videos of their “martyrdom” online, selectively edited to show what ruthless and bloodthirsty despots law enforcement really are (for ad revenue, naturally); YouTube wins because these videos draw views from supporters and detractors alike; and we win because oblivious true believers are unwittingly giving us lurid, independently-published tabloid material to gawk at, slack-jawed.

SovCits getting OC-sprayed is really, really funny. Unless you seriously subscribe to the movement. (Credit: Van Balion channel, YouTube)

For people whose taste in entertainment tends to be too red-blooded for scripted television concocted by professional graduates, videos of sovereign citizens getting yanked out of their cars beats all. There are several channels dedicated to it, including Van Balion and Team Skeptic. Of course, I do have to concede: I’m always leery of milking jollies from schadenfreude. It’s cheap. It’s the kind of thing people who start arguments on Substack that they can’t substantiate resort to when their opponents miss a detail or commit an all-too-human infelicity. I don’t necessarily want people to be so daft as to put themselves in that situation. But, hey: as long as it’s going to happen, the id-fueled epicurean of the lurid in me wants to absorb the salacious details.

But as far as laughing at these poor saps goes, the more bleeding-heart set - to which I admit, I’m included - might be disinclined to do so because schadenfreude doesn’t become them, and it seems as though they’re deriding people without the means and capability of knowing better. But all of that goes out the shattered-glass passenger-side window when you realize they’re uploading all these videos themselves because they think it makes them look like martyrs instead of fools! So, far as I’m concerned, that’s the license and it’s open season.

SovCits getting tasered: it’s funny because it’s voluntary (credit: Van Balion channel, YouTube)

There’s a grander theme here: the all-too-human need for inner dissonance resolution. That’s the driving force behind all dogmatic human compulsion, you know: people who are not complete enough to digest the world around them needing to construct an elaborate fantasy that blinds them even to common sense and decorum. They need to believe they are fighting some tyranny, even to the point of interpreting semiotics to their absurd limits (i.e. associating law enforcement with despotic vanguard officers in uniforms pressed so tight you could bounce nickels off of the lapels). But that’s only the one half. The other is the belief that they are being oppressed. Believe me, it’s a powerful-enough yen that numerous ideological dogmas have burgeoned from its seed since the dawn of the frontal cortex (see my missives on technologically-advanced dogmas for more details).

A big part of that resolution is also the illusion of distinction and prestige compared to the larger populace. In essence, this is yet another dog-and-pony show where these people are “elites” privy to the secret truth of the universe while the rest of the well-adjusted and successful citizens are a bunch of oblivious sheeple, happily conforming under the thumb of an all-encompassing surveillance state that wants to encroach on their affairs. Presumably, this includes hacking their OnlyFans accounts, monitoring their consumption of Tiger King, and making sure taxes are levied against every cent of their in-game Roblox currency.

But this is actually where I do give them an iota of recognition like the stopped clock that’s accurate twice a day: their premise itself isn’t that nefarious. It actually stands to reason that people would want to be vigilant against government overreach, and indeed, the Constitution does provide stipulations that prohibit encroachment on rights considered sacred (I think sacred rights are a bunch of jingoistic, self-congratulatory baloney, but I’ll look at it as a fiduciary legal responsibility to the people for the purposes of this missive). So it does stand up.

Unfortunately, it stands up as well as a needle on a flat plane: in an absolutely perfect world, it won’t tip over. And it always seems to tip over. See, I have a hard time taking their patina of patriotism and vigilantism seriously when I notice that they’re actually causing a lot of misery for their fellow Americans - particularly those in uniform - and acting entirely in self-interest by refusing to acknowledge the tenth amendment, which gives states governing power, and refusing to acknowledge that laws are there, you know, so people don’t get away with speeding, recklessness, and essentially turning the highways and byways into a hybrid between NASCAR and Mad Max.

On a Darker Note…

Of course, beyond the self-incriminating YouTube imbroglii sits the darker side: sovereign citizens, like many of their paranoid militia ilk, are also prepared to kill for these beliefs, and they have. In recent years, a father and son driving in Arkansas shot and fatally wounded an officer and his partner on a traffic stop, and they might have survived, but for they didn’t have the strength to radio for help. And it goes the other way, too: police shot and killed a 25 year-old in Utah who failed to comply, put up a fight, and ultimately got plugged because it looked like he was reaching for a gun (where have we heard that before?) In fact, so many stories abound of dangerous sovereign citizen encounters that the police have official protocol outlining how to deal with them effectively.

Now, I’ve gassed on about this movement way more than I think many have the patience for, and I can understand if you skipped a few paragraphs, but at least you can glean that the point is that determined people will concoct some very, very elaborate mythologies to get what they want. And I haven’t even gone halfway down this iceberg. Now, also realize that Sovereign Citizenry is but one of a plethora of such organic, ground-up ideologies that totally convince people that someone - anyone - is the enemy. So bear that in mind the next time you’re totally fixated on some news story about how JD Vance is a weirdo or Kamala isn’t really black: at this very moment, someone, somewhere is likely cooking up a deep-seeded mythos with you as the Devil. Now might be the time to seek a Valium prescription.

ZeroGrav the Decadent (aka, Ian the blusterer),
08/24/24.