Sovereign Citizens - Eric Martin

[BlueOak]

I have never seen a better example of sovereign citizens than Eric Martin:

It doesn't have the snappiest judge responses or the most 'clever' sovereign arguments, where they try to delay or frustrate the court, its simply a man who really believes his position and demonstrates the mindset without a lot of flair or subterfuge. It shows judges who know him well. I deduce this because this playlist is now sixteen videos long, and his appearances are fairly simple. If you want to see how it all started, look at the last one in the playlist also, its the same thing over and over.
 

 

[Wilhelm44]

8 minutes ago, BlueOak said:

I have never seen a better example of sovereign citizens than Eric Martin:

It doesn't have the snappiest judge responses or the most 'clever' sovereign arguments, where they try to delay or frustrate the court, its simply a man who really believes his position and demonstrates the mindset without a lot of flair or subterfuge. It shows judges who know him well. I deduce this because this playlist is now sixteen videos long, and his appearances are fairly simple. If you want to see how it all started, look at the last one in the playlist also, its the same thing over and over.
 

 

What is the definition of a sovereign citizen ?

[BlueOak]

@Wilhelm44

Wikipedia lists it as:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen_movement

Quote:

The sovereign citizen movement (often abbreviated as SovCits) is a loose group of anti-government activists, conspiracy theorists, vexatious litigants, tax protesters and financial scammers found mainly in English-speaking common law countries—the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. Sovereign citizens have their own pseudolegal belief system based on misinterpretations of common law, and claim not to be subject to any government statutes unless they consent to them. The movement appeared in the U.S. in the early 1970s and has since expanded to other countries; the similar freeman on the land movement emerged during the 2000s in Canada before spreading to other Commonwealth countries. The FBI has called sovereign citizens "anti-government extremists who believe that even though they physically reside in this country, they are separate or 'sovereign' from the United States".

The sovereign citizen phenomenon is one of the main contemporary sources of pseudolaw. Sovereign citizens believe that courts have no jurisdiction over people and that certain procedures (such as writing specific phrases on bills they do not want to pay) and loopholes can make one immune to government laws and regulations. They also regard most forms of taxation as illegitimate and reject Social Security numbers, driver's licenses, and vehicle registration. The movement may appeal to people facing financial or legal difficulties or wishing to resist perceived government oppression. As a result, it has grown significantly during times of economic or social crisis. Most schemes sovereign citizens promote aim to avoid paying taxes, ignore laws, eliminate debts, or extract money from the government. Sovereign citizen arguments have no basis in law and have never been successful in court.

American sovereign citizens claim that the United States federal government is illegitimate. Sovereign citizens outside the U.S. hold similar beliefs about their countries' governments. The movement can be traced to American far-right groups such as the Posse Comitatus and the constitutionalist wing of the militia movement. The sovereign citizen movement was originally associated with white supremacism and antisemitism, but it now attracts people of various ethnicities, including a significant number of African Americans. The latter sometimes belong to self-declared "Moorish" sects.

The majority of sovereign citizens are not violent, but the methods the movement advocates are illegal. Sovereign citizens notably adhere to the fraudulent schemes promoted by the redemption "A4V" movement. Many sovereign citizens have been found guilty of offenses such as tax evasion, hostile possession, forgery, threatening public officials, bank fraud, and traffic violations. Two of the most important crackdowns by U.S. authorities on sovereign citizen organizations were the 1996 case of the Montana Freemen and the 2018 sentencing of self-proclaimed judge Bruce Doucette and his associates.

Because some have engaged in armed confrontations with law enforcement, the FBI classifies "sovereign citizen extremists" as domestic terrorists. Terry Nichols, one of the perpetrators of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, subscribed to a variation of sovereign citizen ideology. In surveys conducted in 2014 and 2015, representatives of U.S. law enforcement ranked the risk of terrorism from the sovereign citizen movement higher than the risk from any other group, including Islamic extremists, militias, racist skinheads, neo-Nazis, and radical environmentalists. In 2015, the Australian New South Wales Police Force identified sovereign citizens as a potential terrorist threat.

End Quote

[BlueOak]

There have been various offshoots or alternatives such as:

Freeman on the land
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_on_the_land_movement
 

The freeman on the land movement (sometimes spelled freeman-on-the-land or abbreviated as FOTL, also known as the freemen of the land, the freemen movement, or simply freemen, is a loose group of individuals who adhere to pseudolegal concepts and conspiracy theories implying that they are bound by statute laws only if they consent to those laws. Freemen on the land are mostly present in Commonwealth countries. The movement appeared in Canada in the early 2000s, as an offshoot of the sovereign citizen movement which is more prevalent in the United States.

The name "freeman on the land" describes a person who is literally a "free man" on the land where they live. Movement members believe that they can declare themselves independent of the government and the rule of law, holding that the only "true" law is their own idiosyncratic interpretation of "common law". Freemen on the land also advocate schemes to avoid taxes which they consider to be illegitimate. In Canada, courts and scholars use the technical phrase "Organised Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments" (OPCA) as an umbrella term for freemen on the land, the precursor "Detaxer" movement, sovereign citizens, their pseudolegal theories and the vexatious litigation based on them.

Freeman on the land arguments are legally baseless. Besides Canada, freemen on the land's pseudolegal claims have been argued in the courts of Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Ireland but have always been rejected. The movement's influence peaked in Canada during the late 2000s and early 2010s; it has since declined significantly.

Moorish sovereign citizens

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorish_sovereign_citizens

The Moorish sovereign citizen movement, sometimes called the indigenous sovereign citizen movement or the Rise of the Moors, is a sub-group of sovereign citizens that mainly holds to the teachings of the Moorish Science Temple of America that hold that African Americans are descendants of the Moabites and thus are "Moorish" by nationality and Islamic by faith.

Far right groups such as: Posse Comitatus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_(organization)
 

The Posse Comitatus (Latin, "force of the county") is a loosely organized American far-right extremist social movement which began in the late 1960s. Its members spread a conspiracy-minded, anti-government, and antisemitic message linked to white supremacy aiming to counter what they believe is an attack on their social and political rights as white Christians.

Many Posse members practiced survivalism and played a role in the formation of armed citizens' militias in the 1990s. The Posse Comitatus pioneered the use of false liens and other types of "paper terrorism" to harass their opponents by mounting frivolous legal actions against them. As the Posse Comitatus began their decline in popularity at the turn of the 21st century, their tactics and ideology evolved into those of the Christian Patriot movement and the sovereign citizen movement.

Among a few others

 

Edited June 27 by BlueOak

[Wilhelm44]

I think Aaron Abke is also into this natural law stuff.

(But don't the government just tell them, sorry this how we do things now, end of story ?)

@BlueOak

Edited June 27 by Wilhelm44

[BlueOak]

5 hours ago, Wilhelm44 said:

I think Aaron Abke is also into this natural law stuff.

(But don't the government just tell them, sorry this how we do things now, end of story ?)

@BlueOak

For the most part, yes, in 99% of cases, or it ends up worse because of additional charges like contempt or resisting, or repeatedly not doing what they are instructed to do. They are within the system , which they are saying doesn't exist or has authority over them. The ability to enforce authority generally comes from both the acceptance of the social contract by the population and the projection of force, which the sovereign citizens cannot do against a well-ordered, functional country, where enough people respect or uphold its own social contracts.

But some defences work on minor charges because they've either delayed the courts or police enough that they either get pleaded down or witnesses move on and are unavailable. Sometimes, police on a stop get called to a more important one. This is rare, but i've seen it happen. I've seen cases go years where people keep swapping out defense counsel. But I would call it far inferior to having even a half-competent attorney. 

As well as getting sovereign citizens into much more trouble than they would have gotten into, or adding time to their sentences by racking up more charges, I've also seen some hilarious responses, this judge especially:
 

 

[Wilhelm44]

Are you speaking as the settler, the agent, the individual or the person ?🤣