I can see the attraction in not having to follow any rules, especially living in a place that has way too darned many of them.

The thing I don’t understand is how none of them make the obvious next leap of logic - If I don’t have to follow any rules, then neither does anyone else. The next step after that that if nobody has to follow any rules, that might really suck. I mean after all, there are some folks out there who really do need to be kept in check by something. Otherwise, thing might get really sketchy...

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:

quote:

Originally posted by Tubetone:
I never knew they were claiming sovereinty through the Articles of Confederation.

The Articles were never repealed. It took unanimous consent and one state was holding out.

So, even though the US Constitution was ratified, the Articles were never repealed.

Now that para states the Articles to be the source of these peoples' claim, I guess one could see how the impressionable are caught between some point of order and real American life.

Even though not repealing the Articles, the Constitution was later adopted by all the states and any conflict between the two is deemed superceded.

At least the nuttery is born of a more rational error than mental failure.

It doesn't stop there. Ask them about the UCC and admiralty jurisdiction. Ask them about the straw man created for each of us that has been sold.

They're nuts. Not just misinformed.

I was so hopeful that para finally revealed the common thread to their thinking.

As a result of your post I, for the first time, looked into their philosophy. That's time I'll never get back.

While there are some claiming sovereign immunity through Article IV, there are others who claim sovereignty through nothing more than the common law.

There was no discernible intellectual thread among those who claim sovereignty, showing many with nothing more than an a priori assertion of sovereignty as their basis for immunity.

I read cases, extracts, Wikis, FBI definitions and other assertions of just what a sovereign citizen is.

It seems clearest that it is a rag tag collection of malcontents who just don't like one thing or another and get "sovereign citizen" as a shared label.

I wouldn't call so many people "nuts" as much as I would say they're sharing a view of life where they think it's ok to assert sovereignty when it suits their own desires for what they don't wish to do.

Bow to government, fishing licenses, hunting licenses, pay taxes, driver licenses, and any government authority that doesn't sit well seems to get the assertion.

In the tax area, they enjoy the benefit, for instance, of a national defense but seem to not connect taxes with providing that benefit.

The label is used to describe people in New Zealand and Australia too. The selective assertion is not bound to our culture, country or unique history.

One source said that no fishing license wannabes are often at the gateway of climbing the ladder of trying on the full fledged anti-tax sovereign immunity philosophy.

Maybe driver's license protests are along the path. I don't know.

Unfortunately, there appears to be no central rationale for all of them. And, maybe similar, but not the exact same, phenomena has been lumped into a central label and warrants disambiguation. I, honestly, don't know.

It seems that not all the self-proclaiming sovereign citizens find their underpinning in Article IV after all.

I don't think they're "nuts" as much as they're philosophically blinded by a philosophy that says they can just assert sovereignty and that will hold up.

People will take all kinds of unexplainable actions when they're cocksure they're right.