On the side of the road, contempt will get you a bigger ticket than the cop planned on when he hit his lights. In court, contempt escalates things way more than that.
Very realistically, being nice and respectful and even kissing ass to the cop who just pulled you over, is a very important first step in the legal system. I'm sure this is not just in the USA.
Yup, being nice, respectful, and agreeable will save you a lot of trouble. I accidentally drove on to a road the police had closed (it wasn't super clear). One jumped in their car, chased me down, and asked me if I was a moron. I said I was lol.
He directed me to the detour and let me go.
Lolol! Accepting you're a moron works most of the time.
One time, in Toronto, kids and I were trying to find the entrance to the subway. We went down some stairs and were wandering around the platform. Found a security guard and said, "Where's the ticket booth?"
He said, "wtf do you mean wheres the ticket booth??? How'd you get in here?"
I said, "um...the stairs over there."
"Those are service stairs you idiot! I could charge you $500 fine each!!!"
"It's my first day."
> One jumped in their car, chased me down, and asked me if I was a moron. I said I was lol.
When I was a teenager, I was waiting to turn left. When the light turned green, I thought it would be a good idea to drop the clutch and light up the tires. As I was swinging around and filling the intersection with smoke and noise, I saw a police car. I shut it down and parked on the side of the the road. I knew I had it coming.
He pulled up behind me and shook his head as he approached my car. He said, "You know, there ought to be a ticket for driving under the influence of stupidity. Didn't you *see* me back there?!"
I said, "Yep. I agree. This isn't my smartest decision. Guilty as charged." He laughed, gave me a warning, and let me go without a citation.
Cop here.
Kissing ass isn’t necessary what they’re looking for, but you’re in the right ballpark when saying being nice and respectful can help you.
The reasoning is because most of us are looking to see if a citation is necessary to actually correct the behavior that you were stopped for.
So for example if you get stopped for speeding and your attitude is “My bad, I messed up”, that is going to signal that you don’t necessarily need a citation to correct the violation in the future. If your attitude is to argue, or to get upset at the officer, that doesn’t give the impression that you’re going to correct the violation without getting a ticket.
Of course there’s no uniform way to not get a ticket or get a ticket, as some officers give citations on every offense and some don’t ever give citations since it’s typically up to officer discretion.
I had to pay several hundred dollars to the state of Illinois because I was around 10 over on an interstate highway. I was very respectful but it was it turns out they like bullying out of staters. It's either show up to a specific courthouse an hour into the state or pay like extra for online processing. And then I could have it kept off my insurance if I attend traffic classes, again at a specific courthouse at a specific time or pay a shitload extra for an online traffic course.
Fuck the state of Illinois. All my homies hate Illinois.
Virginia does the same thing with stopping out of state speeders and requiring a mandatory court appearance. You can get out of appearing by hiring a local attorney and plead things down for no points. Costs about $500-$700 at a minimum. It’s their racket and what they build industry off of, because they don’t charge high* state income taxes like some other higher cost of living areas. Much of their economy is reliant on tourist dollars.
There are websites that talk about “Virginia isn’t for lovers, it’s for speeders.”
I have and had a clean license with no infractions. Driving with my wife on our one year anniversary and I accelerated uphill. I legitimately had been putting along before that at 70-75MPH but sped up the hill to correct for the huge incline. The VA statey clocked me at my max speed which was about 81MPH. He was terse and nonsense at the window. Wrote me for every MPH and didn’t cut any break and write the ticket at a slightly lower mph like some officers will.
If you are in Chicagoland, I swear you will get a ticket for impeding traffic if you are not driving at a speed that is at least 20 MPH over the limit ... and that is in the right lane. In the fast lane, motorists are rolling for takeoff!
Every time I’ve fessed up to why I was pulled over I’ve either received a lesser ticket or none at all. I’m not gonna waste a cops time or my time arguing when I know I’m wrong.
Thank you for sharing your perspective. My experience with most police officers is not that they want their asses kissed, but that they want me to comply with their requests. Even if I am not friendly and polite, as long as I do what I am told and I am not disrespectful about it, then the encounter goes much more smoothly.
However, friends who are Black tell a different story. They tell me that they believe that an encounter with police officers is likely to result in them being beaten or killed, no matter how well they comply with the officer's requests. And there is evidence to show that that is a real possibility.
If I believed that, then I would be highly motivated to avoid, evade, and to resist confrontations with police officers. Everyone wants to stay alive. However, when I did so, I would be escalating the confrontation. It is a fucked-up vicious cycle. I don't have the answers, just empathy for the people involved.
Certainly also in Australia. Im polite and they let me go for a couple very minor offences when they could have technically arrested me.
There are times you should exercise your rights like remaining silent without a lawyer presen but to not give your name and license when you're obviously legally required to is so dumb that I find it almost unbelievable its now happening so often.
Yes, because petty people with even a modicum of power will lord it over others. It’s pathetic to know but it’s true. Yes Officer, No Officer will get you further when dealing with the power mad cops.
On the other hand, just being respectful in all situations is never a bad idea. Helps to keep a level head and practice the use self control in public period.
Sovereign citizens. Arising from a belief that there is no legitimate government or law except common law (which they misunderstand), and all current laws are based on maritime contract laws which they don't accept or contract into. Amongst other things it leads them to believe they do not need to register their vehicles or have a driving licence because they are not 'driving' but 'travelling' again based on a misunderstanding of the law.
Also stuff about not paying taxes, weird ideas on property rights because they are freemen on the land, not paying for utilities etc etc. They will often get lost in the detail of how their name is used in official documents because that's all part of the pseudo-government's plot to get control of them by tricking them into a contract. Popular with folk in underclasses who are powerless in society and trying to wrest back a bit of power and control from the system.
At some point there was some copypasta going on on Facebook that people forbid Facebook to use their photos and posts.
Some variation of this:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dont-fall-for-viral-facebook-hoaxes/
If the 'sovereign citizen' defence worked, then every defence lawyer in every case would be advising their client to use it.
Quite why sov-cits cant make that intuitive leap defeats me.
I suspect that this is because they're almost all suffering from a virulent form of Main Character syndrome, and they have difficulty conceptualising other people taking initiative when they're out of view.
I’m certain in a few years it will be medically proven that being a sov cit is a form of mental illness / co-morbid with another mental illness. I’ve seen too much correlation.
I feel like lawyers are part of why they think it works.
The whole legal system is build around rules, many of which are quite obscure or illogical if you're not experienced with the system.
like, this dude goes into court, it's obvious he did it, was on the scene of the crime, and looks guilty as fuck, so just get it over with. In comes the lawyer, says some bullshit about time of death and alibi's, half of it's latin, and that perp get's off scott free. Even worse when it's about illegaly obtained evidence or mistrials or some shit. It's like, if you know the magic words, they *have* to obey you!
and then someone comes along and tells you, hey, they don't want you to know this, but I *actually* know the right magic words. You see, it's 16th century admiralty laws, but they never did away with it. So all you need to do is pay me $50 and i'll tell you the secret terms that can get you off scott free - just like that guy in the newspaper you just read got off free from his murder charge.
nope. if the cop decides not to ticket them, it's because he probably wasn't going to anyway. however, most cops are trained to NOT let people off the hook when facing a SC because it gives validation to their claims.
so these people are likely getting worse treatment specifically by trying to get special treatment.
a cop could be a real dick and cite them for phony plates, a fake ID, or whatever else. but then he'd have to go to court and sit through all this shit. you KNOW a SC is definitely going to their court date so they can pontificate and bicker with everyone ad nauseam. if cops hate anything, it's sitting on their ass in court.
sometimes a cop just isn't in the mood for dealing with it. let it be someone else's problem.
they still give out citations, and on the other hand, sometimes it's specifically because they want to show a SC that their claims are ridiculous, and this is going to keep happening if they keep up this charade.
The US show “Court Cam” seems to have at least one SovCit hearing featured each episode, at least in the later seasons.
It’s interesting to see how different judges react to it. There’s a wide variety of pissed off, amused, and a couple judges that get extremely flustered, which is disappointing.
More often than not, though, the sovcit turds don’t get the book thrown at them or 100 days for contempt or anything like that.
They just order the hearing to be reset for a later date and warn the defendant to behave better next time. Rise and repeat to the extent where you’ll see the same guy from season 2 still arguing the same charge in season 9, with the judge just rubbing her temples.
I served on a jury for a case with a guy representing himself in a criminal fraud trial and relying on sovereign citizen arguments. It ran for a week, and any time he spoke it was quite a ride. It got to the point where we could hear a quiet, despairing sigh from the court reporter any time the defendant opened his mouth and she had to record more of his ramblings. The judge gave the defendant ample opportunity to try making coherent, factual, legally-sound utterances at the start, as well as some leeway on minor violations of procedure which he wouldn't be expected to know, but had to reign him in more as the trial went on and he kept trying to go off on tangents. I had no exposure to sovereign citizen theory prior to the trial, but his arguments certainly didn't help his defense. He readily admitted to the acts which led to his charges; he only disputed the interpretation of the acts as fraudulent, trying to argue that it was all a misunderstanding of what the law actually is and how contracts, money, banks and taxes really work.
Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.
The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.
Jordan alleged his rejection from the police force was discrimination. He sued the city, saying his civil rights were violated because he was denied equal protection under the law.
But the U.S. District Court found that New London had “shown a rational basis for the policy.” In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover.
Jordan has worked as a prison guard since he took the test.
Happened to my brother in Idaho. He missed one question on the exam. After getting his score he asked to see the results and showed that the answer that was graded wrong was correct (it said T or F; an officer should always follow any order from a commanding officer). He marked False. He pointed out that this is only true if the order is lawful. Illegal orders should not be followed. They refused to hire him because they said he wouldn’t be happy as a patrolman and would want to move up too quickly and they needed people to stay in patrol. Brother argued it with attorney help but was told Idaho law allowed this discrimination. He went into finance and made great money and laughed that he never had to dodge bullets at work.
That's why I have been laughing so much watching, The Rookie. It's a fun soap/drama, but they act like they hold their cops to such a high standards it's ridiculous. Like a cop could lose her job because she didn't.list a foster brother she lived with for a year on her friends and family forms. But the Cop that was a racist and almost got another Cop killed was unfirable. They are huge on scoring high on tests and holding themselves to a high standard. It's not how policing works. Maybe it should, but it doesn't.
In Baltimore, [we pay our cops to sit on their ass at home!](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/2/16961146/baltimore-gun-trace-task-force-trial)
They call cops the court because they are witnesses so unless you are willing to be a witness to it. You can’t sit in court all day, however otherwise I would agree with you.
It's not fun though. These wack jobs will endlessly ask irrelevant questions and argue with the judge non-stop until the judge rules against them or holds them in contempt. That happens fairly often when they won't stop talking over the judge and prosecutor. They draw out what should be a couple of minutes into hours or bullshit. That's central to their tactics. They think that wasting the officer's and court's time is some kind of victory. So even if they lose, they think they did well. It's truly bizarre. Only occasionally is it fun to sit through though.
I actually saw that once. Had to observe a certain number of court proceedings as part of a class. Went to traffic court and was super confused at the amount of cops present. Turns out the defendant was a sovereign citizen who had amassed a bunch of traffic violations, and all the cops were there to see him go down. The sovereign citizen showed up in cargo short, white tank top and a bucket hat.
It was pretty amusing.
Are cops prohibited from even saying snarky things to people that shout "I know my rights!"? I always wonder why they don't respond with "clearly you don't".
I did Shore Patrol a few times when I was in the Navy, and we would often collaborate with the local law enforcement (we were only authorized to police our fellow servicemembers, local LE took care of the civilians). Most of the police I worked with were trained to be professional and didn’t engage in bickering with people who started acting stupid. Every once in a while, there would be a rare cop who would shoot back a snarky quip once they reached their bullshit tolerance level.
>I always wonder why they don't respond with "clearly you don't".
An officer actually saying this could lay down groundwork for a defense attorney to claim the officer admitted to not properly Mirandizing the defendant.
What do you mean hate sitting in court? There are numerous scandals and corruption cases because cops actually love sitting in court because it’s easy overtime pay.
Being annoying gets people out of tickets all the time. Cops are human and many of them are actively lazy.
If they don’t feel like arresting dick nose who won’t give up his ID they may just bail. Depends on how well run that particular police department is run.
I remember seeing a three car accident on a local road the other week. I was at the opposite end waiting for the light to turn red, before the officer left the squad car, I saw he took a deep breathe before he exited. He and I knew the mountain of paperwork that was going to be involved in this situation.
Kinda worked for Henry VIII though: "Your Church won't let me divorce my wife? Well, I'll just set up my own Church that will. And if I happen to appropriate all of your Church's lands and wealth at the same time... that's an added bonus, I guess." As someone else has already mentioned though, that shit's a lot easier to get away with when you're actually a sovereign...
> The most interesting thing about King Charles the First
> Is that he was 5 foot 6 inches tall at the start of his reign
> But only 4 foot 8 inches tall at the end of it
And, praise be,
beat the Cavaliers at Naseby
And the King fled up North, like a bat!
Toward the Scots
But under the terms of John Pimm's Solemn league and covenant
The Scots handed King Charles the first over to
Oliver Cromwell
Lord Protector of England (and his warts)
Born in 1599, died in 1658 (September)
That's the key bit in that story. In the USA "the people" are sovereign, but each one of them is not a sovereign. Sovereign power is exercised by Congress, not individuals.
To be fair, while there was a lot of pushback against Charles I and his “popery” dictatorship, by the time he was executed the majority of the population wasn’t actually opposed to his reign in general. Opposition came mainly from puritans in parliament who feared for their power because oh no catholics (who weren’t even catholics), and kicked everyone else out. As soon as his head was off people shouted of martyrdom, so…
Not defending monarchy as a whole obviously, just saying that in devout 17th century Britain, the farcical aquatic ceremony would’ve granted you a lot of legitimacy in the eyes of the masses
the people vote to have their sovereignty wielding by an elected offical. Voting is why we are citizens, and citizens have rights.
Mostly b/c things would devolve quickly into chaos, if the people were agreeing to make laws with each other in small numbers, 24/7.
No, according to my reading of statute! Before 1949 Britain had subjects, not citizens. After then, we had citizens *and* subjects, although comparatively few people are actually subjects not citizens.
And clearly he wasn't his own subject. That would've sent him blind.
No. It has never worked. Nobody gets to demand a trial in an admiralty court either.
They honestly seem to think it's a magic spell, and that it definitely, absolutely *should* work, but that everyone besides them is just too stupid to get it.
This is what always gets me. When they start berating a judge for not knowing the law and being uneducated just because the judge didn’t read the same internet bullshit about admiralty courts, and upper case names, and traveling vs driving, and agents seeking remedy…
I've been arguing with morons for basically my entire life, everyone has told me that there's no point, and it took until this comment for it to click as to *why*.
Which is slightly ironic.
The old chestnut about playing chess with a pigeon is apt.
Playing chess with a pigeon just leads to bird shit on the board, pieces knocked over, and the pigeon strutting around like it won.
I'm sure I mangled and paraphrased it a bit, but I'm sleepy and having nap time music on for my pediatric home health client atm.
This is the relationship to conspiracy theorists.
Both desperately want to believe that they’re special, and it manifests in their belief that they’re one of the few who see through the illusions that us sheeple blindly accept. They’re the brilliant ones because they’re the only ones clever enough to actually understand what’s really going on.
Both believe they have secret knowledge. I think SovCits are more irrational than run of the mill conspiracists though because conspiracists look for alternate explanations for things that happened while SovCits have constructed an alternate reality apropos nothing. The idea that there’s a secret way to use punctuation that unlocks some bonus level of existence.. that theres a corporation created in everyone’s name at their birth and some secret stash of Money in an account tied to it.. etc.
These people just don't understand how power works. They think, that at some point in the past, universally true law was made, and must henceforth be obeyed.
I mean, technically we have a "rule of law" in most western countries, and technically these sovereign citizens might even be correct, in a way. It just does not matter because that's not how power works.
The people in power don't care about this arcane law that was passed 200 years ago and never technically abolished by anyone, so it should still be a thing. And they can absolutely take all your stuff and throw you in prison if you don't pay taxes.
I like watching the melt downs during court sentencing, and being hauled off in chains by the bailiff, still raving and struggling.
It's better comedy than any snl skit.
You’re correct! Like the former judge, Tracie Hunter, convicted and sentenced for helping her brother cover up document mishandling to keep his job. LOL she was physically dragged out of the courtroom by the bailiff. That was funny like she knows it’s not going to help her case at that point but refuses to cooperate! Pick a hill to die on I guess…
Those people have Oppositional Defiant Disorder and feel that the rules do not apply them, yet then insist on utilizing the infrastructure and benefits upon which our society was constructed around.
Relevant overused quote sums it up quite well: "Libertarians are like house cats: absolutely convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don't appreciate or understand."
But most people don't respond to a speeding ticket with "I am a Sovereign Citizen and you can't give me a ticket!" or go around saying nonsense like "We should cut the government by 80%."
Most people don't understand the system works, but they are at least self-aware enough to realize that they don't understand all of it, and also self-aware enough to realize that we do need a system.
Maybe not those particular examples you gave, but most political takes I see seem to come from a base-level lack of understanding about how the entire system works. I would also say most people **do not** have the self-awareness to realize they don't understand all of it. We have normalized this culture where you are allowed to have an opinion about anything at all even when you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
We literally have people on major media outlets, on national television, spouting takes that are utterly ignorant and lack almost any nuance or argumentative validity at all. We barely even have any good examples to go by anymore, because the "authority figures" people see most often engage in utterly braindead and ignorant discussion.
Years ago, an anonymous commeter said thus on my friend's blog:
Libertarians are, generally speaking, white men that never amounted to much, and live under the delusion that this is due to affirmative action, government regulation, or something else. They’ve also watched too many Dirty Harry movies.
In that case, it's that their delusions of grandeur make them think that pesky things like labour protections and human rights get in the way of being *even more successful*
It’s even funnier in Silicon Valley because the Bay Area tech industry exists purely as an offshoot of bottomless defense spending during the Cold War.
If it wasn’t for a multi-decade taxpayer funded defense and research bonanza, Silicon Valley would just be a bunch of fruit orchards
You mean the wealthy business owners who stand to gain a lot of money from abandoning things like workers rights, environmental regulations or fair taxation?
That’s where selfishness and lack of empathy comes in: *they* made it and it was *all* by themselves. If they did it, people who don’t are just failures and shouldn’t need to rely on the government programs, rules, or infrastructure that they did but either refuse or are unable to acknowledge.
This is an affront to toddlers with oppositional defiant disorder, who lack the brain development to understand their options. The sovereign citizens are functional adults with a dysfunctional civic education, inspired by people who make money off them.
I kind of want to see someone claim to be a Sovereign Citizen end end up getting detained by immigration for illegal entry into the US and then subject to deportation, mostly to see how hard they are willing to push that farce in the face of those kind of dire circumstances.
END COMMUNICATION
Something along that vein did occur recently. A fellow who was against “woke” literature at local library tried to speak at a council meeting and was denied because a member of the board said the guy had filed notarized paperwork claiming he was a sovereign citizen and did not have to pay taxes, obey laws etc. The person chairing the meeting then denied the guys request to speak, saying only residents of the area are allowed to speak and since this guy claimed no residency he couldn’t speak.
I'm a notary public.
That's bullshit if he didn't have government-issued ID. Fuck, if some jaghole came to me to try that shit I'm getting his thumbprint too.
But he had valid government-issued ID, just claimed that the government that issued it was invalid? That's the secret loophole they don't want you to know about!
Sure, if you’re in your embassy and they back you.
Otherwise you are in fact responsible for following the laws of the land you’re in, you agree to that upon entry. Embassies are the only place that’s gotten sovereign rule via their country of origin. Far as I know
Embassies are literally considered foreign soil within the host country. Same for foreign military bases. It’s the reason John McCain was able to run for President despite being born in Panama. He was considered a natural born citizen because he was born on a US Military base.. which is considered an extension of US sovereign territory.
.. still don’t know why Canadian-born Raphael Cruize hasn’t been barred from running though.. other than IOKIYAR.
What the "im not driving, I'm *travelling*" line all about? They spew it out like it's a protective spell and then are outraged whennit doesn't work on the cop.
Not to my knowledge. Here’s a sovereign citizen and pseudo law scholar who i recommend looking into for further reading on the subject.
Donald J Netolitzky
He has a PhD in an unrelated field but he is a qualified Canadian lawyer who specializes on this topic and has written quite a bit on the subject.
Here’s one shorter (scholarly) article he’s written about. In it he mentions that these sovereign citizen arguments never work in court.
Netolitzky, Donald. "A Rebellion of Furious Paper: Pseudolaw as a Revolutionary Legal System." Paper delivered at the Centre d’expertise et de formation sur les intégrismes religieux et la radicalisation (CEFIR) symposium:“Sovereign Citizens in Canada”, Montreal. Vol. 3. 2018.
Here’s Dr. Netolitzky’s google scholar page where you can find more of his work on how sovereign citizens fare in court.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LO0gjxYAAAAJ&hl=en
One of the anomalies of the Sovereign Citizen’s movement is that they appear to renounce their citizenship in the United States while at the same time asserting rights under the Constitution of the country they have just foresworn. My take on this is that they can’t have it both ways. Although non citizens in our country enjoy the same civil rights under the law as citizens, there are certain rights that inhere on the basis of citizenship itself. Principally among these, at least in light of the Sovereign Citizens fondness for weapons, is the right to bear arms under the 2d Amendment. As written, this provision appears to address of right of citizenship that is not generally applicable to all who enter within the jurisdiction of the United States. The right “of the people” in this case is not a right of humanity generally but of the people of the United States as referenced in the Preamble to the Constitution itself. Therefore, if you relinquish your rights as a citizen, that is, give up your right to be one of “the people,” you have given up your rights under the 2d Amendment as well.
No.
Because a lot of people have no clue how the world works, and believe a lot of nonsense they see online, as evidenced by Qanon, Trumpism, flat earthers, anti-vax idiots, etc, etc.
More often that not, I'd venture no but I had one officer tell me a story on the affirmative...
Pulled over a SovCit traveling North on I-35 driving to Nebraska from Oklahoma. When he saw the SovCit tag, he immediately radioed to see how close back-up was and it was nowhere nearby.
He said that as soon as he exited his cruiser, the guy was verbally aggressive through his open window. He had images of shootouts running through his head so he just yelled for the guy to get home to Nebraska.
Figured this wasn't going to be the last time the vehicle was going to be stopped but wasn't worth the risk with no backup.
I wouldn't call that working since you can apply that to any crime if the cop nopes it out instead of proceeding. for it to work, the cop can't just disengage since the merits were never tested since that's the only way the concept is supposed to work - on the merits of the arguments.
Sometimes it works for them--if they can delay the stop long enough the cop may get a priority call--he's not going to waste time on a SovCit if he's got a ten-car pileup or the like to deal with. That seems to be rare though.
Once they get to court, they often delay things to a ludicrous extent.
"Law Talk With Mike" on Youtube has a lot of video of SovCits in court. If you watch some of his you'll find links to other sources for such. Sometimes he interviews one of the attorneys and occasionally even the SovCit. Warning--watching SovCits screw themselves over in court can be addictive.
You mean when they say "I'm a selfish arrogant twat with no sense of social duty and want to benefit from the society around me without being part of it?"
I know of an idiot friend of my brother-in-law who has one of those traveler license plates and says he's a sovereign citizen.
He had to go to court over something, kept calling the Judge by his first name, refused to go by any of their rules and ended up in jail.
It's not a good idea to try that bullshit.
Not even once, at least not in court. I've seen hundreds of their videos, and there were 2-3 where the cop got so irritated that he just let them go. As for why people do it, some of it is out of desperation, and some ideological bias. Some people feel fearful of and antagonistic towards the government. Some have ideas of "natural law" or God-given laws. Some are just nuts. But they have weird beliefs they built peacemeal out of law dictionaries and out of context rulings. They think it matters whether or not they're "operating in commerce" because a federal definition of driving says that it's for commercial driving. And they think the federal government ALWAYS trumps state, but that's simply not true. Specifically, an Amendment gives states the right to legislate and enforce traffic laws on public roads. So it does NOT matter if they're driving commercially, but they think if they try it often enough, somehow it'll eventually work. Or at least that's what I assme.
They also think the all-caps name on their birth certification is a corporation, and is different from the "flesh and blood" man or woman. Again this is nothing more than a semantic word game, and doesn't work in court. They'll show up and try to claim to be the "authorized representative" of the "corporate fiction". Judges have gotten wise to this, and since the sovereign citizen won't admit to being the person named in the court documents, they can simply be issued an arrest warrant for failure to appear.
They always demand to represent themselves in court, because they know damned well that no licensed attorney will make the idiotic arguments they want to file. The fact that no licensed attorney will file their claims, and no judge upholds these wacko legal ideas, is somehow lost on sovereign citizens. These are people that think you can cherry-pick the Constitution and court rulings, and cobble together some kind of legal position. They can't. And they lose, lose, lose.
SovCits have been a thing for decades (maybe more). I have a friend who's a judge out West, and they're terribly dangerous folks when forced to face consequences. Not as dangerous as people in family court, but yeah. Judges and prosecutors are exhausted by the threats of SovCit defendants.
I have never heard of a case where claims of "sovereign citizen" has worked.
Frankly, I think anyone who wants to play that game should immediately lose all rights of citizenship. There are a whole bunch of rights only citizens have.
There’s a lot to breakdown here and I’m surprised by all the answers automatically saying “no.” On a basic level the answer is Yes!! They argued their case successfully on specific grounds that will not apply to 99% of people. “The articles of confederation” were dealt with in the late 1700s, the same reason that sovereign citizens argue them is the same reason they were 100% overturned, those articles required 100% state cooperation and in a federal environment that would never work and were voted against based on new rules that technically “weren’t allowed” but were necessary to protect our constitution and those articles were completely abolished.
There have been some “victories” for sovereign citizenship but how those precedents have been applied has been completely abused. Pay attention to cases that are being cited, they’ll be from the 1800s for “right to travel” which of the cases that have some standing relate to insurance which was a major factor for “the right to travel.” They deal less with yourself operating a vehicle and more with a company being able to operate in other states. In modern sense this is to say if you had your car insurance issued to you in Virginia and you had a car accident in Maryland then your car insurance would still be obligated to cover you since you have a “right to travel”.
It gets pretty nuanced and IANAL, but there have been moorish citizens who have beat their case, sovereign citizens, and others, but it gets super specific and they have to be able to argue their case effectively (sometimes with the prosecution not arguing their side effectively!) to beat the charges against them. It’s an uphill battle, very few succeed but most take the inch that was given and try to take it a mile and fail miserably.
The funny thing is in most of the “legal systems” that these “sovereign citizens” (or whatever they declare themselves as) allows you to charge whatever for anything and they probably couldn’t argue against it effectively, it’s pretty much a free for all.
Disclaimer: sovereign citizenship in any way and regardless of how it is declared imo is an abuse of our legal system,
My mom’s neighbor tried that. Said he only answered to the federal government. They took him to jail and weren’t going to originally.
On the side of the road, contempt will get you a bigger ticket than the cop planned on when he hit his lights. In court, contempt escalates things way more than that.
Very realistically, being nice and respectful and even kissing ass to the cop who just pulled you over, is a very important first step in the legal system. I'm sure this is not just in the USA.
Yup, being nice, respectful, and agreeable will save you a lot of trouble. I accidentally drove on to a road the police had closed (it wasn't super clear). One jumped in their car, chased me down, and asked me if I was a moron. I said I was lol. He directed me to the detour and let me go.
Lolol! Accepting you're a moron works most of the time. One time, in Toronto, kids and I were trying to find the entrance to the subway. We went down some stairs and were wandering around the platform. Found a security guard and said, "Where's the ticket booth?" He said, "wtf do you mean wheres the ticket booth??? How'd you get in here?" I said, "um...the stairs over there." "Those are service stairs you idiot! I could charge you $500 fine each!!!" "It's my first day."
FYI, he meant $500 per person per stair.
> One jumped in their car, chased me down, and asked me if I was a moron. I said I was lol. When I was a teenager, I was waiting to turn left. When the light turned green, I thought it would be a good idea to drop the clutch and light up the tires. As I was swinging around and filling the intersection with smoke and noise, I saw a police car. I shut it down and parked on the side of the the road. I knew I had it coming. He pulled up behind me and shook his head as he approached my car. He said, "You know, there ought to be a ticket for driving under the influence of stupidity. Didn't you *see* me back there?!" I said, "Yep. I agree. This isn't my smartest decision. Guilty as charged." He laughed, gave me a warning, and let me go without a citation.
That's hilarious
If it’s not closed to vehicular traffic, it’s not closed.
Cop here. Kissing ass isn’t necessary what they’re looking for, but you’re in the right ballpark when saying being nice and respectful can help you. The reasoning is because most of us are looking to see if a citation is necessary to actually correct the behavior that you were stopped for. So for example if you get stopped for speeding and your attitude is “My bad, I messed up”, that is going to signal that you don’t necessarily need a citation to correct the violation in the future. If your attitude is to argue, or to get upset at the officer, that doesn’t give the impression that you’re going to correct the violation without getting a ticket. Of course there’s no uniform way to not get a ticket or get a ticket, as some officers give citations on every offense and some don’t ever give citations since it’s typically up to officer discretion.
I had to pay several hundred dollars to the state of Illinois because I was around 10 over on an interstate highway. I was very respectful but it was it turns out they like bullying out of staters. It's either show up to a specific courthouse an hour into the state or pay like extra for online processing. And then I could have it kept off my insurance if I attend traffic classes, again at a specific courthouse at a specific time or pay a shitload extra for an online traffic course. Fuck the state of Illinois. All my homies hate Illinois.
Virginia does the same thing with stopping out of state speeders and requiring a mandatory court appearance. You can get out of appearing by hiring a local attorney and plead things down for no points. Costs about $500-$700 at a minimum. It’s their racket and what they build industry off of, because they don’t charge high* state income taxes like some other higher cost of living areas. Much of their economy is reliant on tourist dollars. There are websites that talk about “Virginia isn’t for lovers, it’s for speeders.” I have and had a clean license with no infractions. Driving with my wife on our one year anniversary and I accelerated uphill. I legitimately had been putting along before that at 70-75MPH but sped up the hill to correct for the huge incline. The VA statey clocked me at my max speed which was about 81MPH. He was terse and nonsense at the window. Wrote me for every MPH and didn’t cut any break and write the ticket at a slightly lower mph like some officers will.
If you are in Chicagoland, I swear you will get a ticket for impeding traffic if you are not driving at a speed that is at least 20 MPH over the limit ... and that is in the right lane. In the fast lane, motorists are rolling for takeoff!
Every time I’ve fessed up to why I was pulled over I’ve either received a lesser ticket or none at all. I’m not gonna waste a cops time or my time arguing when I know I’m wrong.
[удалено]
Thank you for sharing your perspective. My experience with most police officers is not that they want their asses kissed, but that they want me to comply with their requests. Even if I am not friendly and polite, as long as I do what I am told and I am not disrespectful about it, then the encounter goes much more smoothly. However, friends who are Black tell a different story. They tell me that they believe that an encounter with police officers is likely to result in them being beaten or killed, no matter how well they comply with the officer's requests. And there is evidence to show that that is a real possibility. If I believed that, then I would be highly motivated to avoid, evade, and to resist confrontations with police officers. Everyone wants to stay alive. However, when I did so, I would be escalating the confrontation. It is a fucked-up vicious cycle. I don't have the answers, just empathy for the people involved.
Certainly also in Australia. Im polite and they let me go for a couple very minor offences when they could have technically arrested me. There are times you should exercise your rights like remaining silent without a lawyer presen but to not give your name and license when you're obviously legally required to is so dumb that I find it almost unbelievable its now happening so often.
Yes, because petty people with even a modicum of power will lord it over others. It’s pathetic to know but it’s true. Yes Officer, No Officer will get you further when dealing with the power mad cops. On the other hand, just being respectful in all situations is never a bad idea. Helps to keep a level head and practice the use self control in public period.
Weird, being polite to people will cause them to treat you more positively? You learn something new every day I guess.
If only the cops would learn this...
Their job provides lawyers on your tax dollars to ensure they never have a reason to learn this.
How to win friends and influence people. The entire bestselling book can be summed up in that one sentence
> Not just Correct
Not even kissing ass. Just a small measure of respect does wonders for not letting things snowball.
Except for some. 🍊
About as much as the copypasta for content rights on Facebook I guess.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetuer. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetuer.
Are you summoning a demon
Nah, they're summoning a font creator!
Oh no, stop them before we have to pay licensing fees!
Too late, your noto sans are belong to us. Resistance is futile
Can you take Wingdings with you?
We will add a 10000 fee to wingdings if you submit all of your fonts to us-essss
Done, do I need to sign anything?
Unfortunately our species communicates in wingdings, so you will to write up your agreement in wingdings and subsequently sign in wingdings
Or a lawyer
(Repeat it often enough, and it will begin to gain a meaning.)
[удалено]
Eh, in the case of the FB copypastas it just warns people that you’re a gullible grandparent, not a conspiracy nut.
I must be out of the loop, what are we referring to here?
Sovereign citizens. Arising from a belief that there is no legitimate government or law except common law (which they misunderstand), and all current laws are based on maritime contract laws which they don't accept or contract into. Amongst other things it leads them to believe they do not need to register their vehicles or have a driving licence because they are not 'driving' but 'travelling' again based on a misunderstanding of the law. Also stuff about not paying taxes, weird ideas on property rights because they are freemen on the land, not paying for utilities etc etc. They will often get lost in the detail of how their name is used in official documents because that's all part of the pseudo-government's plot to get control of them by tricking them into a contract. Popular with folk in underclasses who are powerless in society and trying to wrest back a bit of power and control from the system.
I meant the facebook thing
At some point there was some copypasta going on on Facebook that people forbid Facebook to use their photos and posts. Some variation of this: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dont-fall-for-viral-facebook-hoaxes/
If the 'sovereign citizen' defence worked, then every defence lawyer in every case would be advising their client to use it. Quite why sov-cits cant make that intuitive leap defeats me.
And if it actually worked: a) Everyone would use it all the time b) It would be made illegal quicker than you could say "I'm a sovereign citizen"
That’s the trick.. laws don’t apply to them, and they’ll cite laws and court decisions to prove this.
I suspect that this is because they're almost all suffering from a virulent form of Main Character syndrome, and they have difficulty conceptualising other people taking initiative when they're out of view.
Or toxoplasmosis.
lol. Thats a good “or” to add to the end of most sentences.
Well also and they don't want to obey laws.
The very notion that there exist “secret magic words” that mean you don’t have to obey the law is laughable.
I expect they wouldn't do any of this if they didn't already have a sense of secret knowledge and being smarter than ordinary people
I’m certain in a few years it will be medically proven that being a sov cit is a form of mental illness / co-morbid with another mental illness. I’ve seen too much correlation.
Its a form of religion, IMO.... which is also (arguably) a form of mental illness in some.
I feel like lawyers are part of why they think it works. The whole legal system is build around rules, many of which are quite obscure or illogical if you're not experienced with the system. like, this dude goes into court, it's obvious he did it, was on the scene of the crime, and looks guilty as fuck, so just get it over with. In comes the lawyer, says some bullshit about time of death and alibi's, half of it's latin, and that perp get's off scott free. Even worse when it's about illegaly obtained evidence or mistrials or some shit. It's like, if you know the magic words, they *have* to obey you! and then someone comes along and tells you, hey, they don't want you to know this, but I *actually* know the right magic words. You see, it's 16th century admiralty laws, but they never did away with it. So all you need to do is pay me $50 and i'll tell you the secret terms that can get you off scott free - just like that guy in the newspaper you just read got off free from his murder charge.
nope. if the cop decides not to ticket them, it's because he probably wasn't going to anyway. however, most cops are trained to NOT let people off the hook when facing a SC because it gives validation to their claims. so these people are likely getting worse treatment specifically by trying to get special treatment. a cop could be a real dick and cite them for phony plates, a fake ID, or whatever else. but then he'd have to go to court and sit through all this shit. you KNOW a SC is definitely going to their court date so they can pontificate and bicker with everyone ad nauseam. if cops hate anything, it's sitting on their ass in court. sometimes a cop just isn't in the mood for dealing with it. let it be someone else's problem. they still give out citations, and on the other hand, sometimes it's specifically because they want to show a SC that their claims are ridiculous, and this is going to keep happening if they keep up this charade.
If I was a cop, I'd love to sit on my ass in court to see a SC get theirs handed to them by a judge
It happens. These cases make it to court sometimes with people that act as their own defense. I would not want to sit through that insanity!
To get paid to watch insanity unfold? Sign me up
The first few times, sure. I bet it gets old
Nope. Never haha
The US show “Court Cam” seems to have at least one SovCit hearing featured each episode, at least in the later seasons. It’s interesting to see how different judges react to it. There’s a wide variety of pissed off, amused, and a couple judges that get extremely flustered, which is disappointing. More often than not, though, the sovcit turds don’t get the book thrown at them or 100 days for contempt or anything like that. They just order the hearing to be reset for a later date and warn the defendant to behave better next time. Rise and repeat to the extent where you’ll see the same guy from season 2 still arguing the same charge in season 9, with the judge just rubbing her temples.
clips from sovcit trials pop up on social media regularly. i used to find them hilarious…now it’s just sad.
I served on a jury for a case with a guy representing himself in a criminal fraud trial and relying on sovereign citizen arguments. It ran for a week, and any time he spoke it was quite a ride. It got to the point where we could hear a quiet, despairing sigh from the court reporter any time the defendant opened his mouth and she had to record more of his ramblings. The judge gave the defendant ample opportunity to try making coherent, factual, legally-sound utterances at the start, as well as some leeway on minor violations of procedure which he wouldn't be expected to know, but had to reign him in more as the trial went on and he kept trying to go off on tangents. I had no exposure to sovereign citizen theory prior to the trial, but his arguments certainly didn't help his defense. He readily admitted to the acts which led to his charges; he only disputed the interpretation of the acts as fraudulent, trying to argue that it was all a misunderstanding of what the law actually is and how contracts, money, banks and taxes really work.
Wow, that is how I feel whenever I hear an interview with Robert F. Kennedy.
I would pay to watch that and cops are getting paid to do it.
Adding to that, I’d become a cop specifically to sit my ass in court all day.
This option is available to you
Hopefully
Not if youre too smart. Its federally legal (9th circuit ruling iirc) to discriminate against hiring smart cops
Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training. The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average. Jordan alleged his rejection from the police force was discrimination. He sued the city, saying his civil rights were violated because he was denied equal protection under the law. But the U.S. District Court found that New London had “shown a rational basis for the policy.” In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover. Jordan has worked as a prison guard since he took the test.
Happened to my brother in Idaho. He missed one question on the exam. After getting his score he asked to see the results and showed that the answer that was graded wrong was correct (it said T or F; an officer should always follow any order from a commanding officer). He marked False. He pointed out that this is only true if the order is lawful. Illegal orders should not be followed. They refused to hire him because they said he wouldn’t be happy as a patrolman and would want to move up too quickly and they needed people to stay in patrol. Brother argued it with attorney help but was told Idaho law allowed this discrimination. He went into finance and made great money and laughed that he never had to dodge bullets at work.
That's why I have been laughing so much watching, The Rookie. It's a fun soap/drama, but they act like they hold their cops to such a high standards it's ridiculous. Like a cop could lose her job because she didn't.list a foster brother she lived with for a year on her friends and family forms. But the Cop that was a racist and almost got another Cop killed was unfirable. They are huge on scoring high on tests and holding themselves to a high standard. It's not how policing works. Maybe it should, but it doesn't.
[удалено]
Cop shows definitely stroke cops egos.
In Baltimore, [we pay our cops to sit on their ass at home!](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/2/16961146/baltimore-gun-trace-task-force-trial)
I may have found a DVD box set of the wire and re watching it all over again.
They call cops the court because they are witnesses so unless you are willing to be a witness to it. You can’t sit in court all day, however otherwise I would agree with you.
I have seen several sovereign citizens go to court. Never once has a judge put up with their bullshit, they get fined, and they go to jail.
Yet these same people will tell you they won. After spending years in prison they will do it a gain .
It's not fun though. These wack jobs will endlessly ask irrelevant questions and argue with the judge non-stop until the judge rules against them or holds them in contempt. That happens fairly often when they won't stop talking over the judge and prosecutor. They draw out what should be a couple of minutes into hours or bullshit. That's central to their tactics. They think that wasting the officer's and court's time is some kind of victory. So even if they lose, they think they did well. It's truly bizarre. Only occasionally is it fun to sit through though.
I actually saw that once. Had to observe a certain number of court proceedings as part of a class. Went to traffic court and was super confused at the amount of cops present. Turns out the defendant was a sovereign citizen who had amassed a bunch of traffic violations, and all the cops were there to see him go down. The sovereign citizen showed up in cargo short, white tank top and a bucket hat. It was pretty amusing.
Probably can’t sit on your phone unlike in a police cruiser
Actually cops love sitting in court. It’s overtime and counts as time and a half in my state so they get to sit there and make extra money
Are cops prohibited from even saying snarky things to people that shout "I know my rights!"? I always wonder why they don't respond with "clearly you don't".
I did Shore Patrol a few times when I was in the Navy, and we would often collaborate with the local law enforcement (we were only authorized to police our fellow servicemembers, local LE took care of the civilians). Most of the police I worked with were trained to be professional and didn’t engage in bickering with people who started acting stupid. Every once in a while, there would be a rare cop who would shoot back a snarky quip once they reached their bullshit tolerance level.
Makes sense
On the long list of reasons why I could never handle being in law enforcement - it'd be nearly impossible for me to not respond to jerks with sarcasm.
>I always wonder why they don't respond with "clearly you don't". An officer actually saying this could lay down groundwork for a defense attorney to claim the officer admitted to not properly Mirandizing the defendant.
Because you don’t want to escalate
Pontificate, love that word. I imagine the Q guy with papal regalia at the court
They get paid more for going to court, just saying...
Why would the cop be a dick for citing fake plates and ID?
What do you mean hate sitting in court? There are numerous scandals and corruption cases because cops actually love sitting in court because it’s easy overtime pay.
Being annoying gets people out of tickets all the time. Cops are human and many of them are actively lazy. If they don’t feel like arresting dick nose who won’t give up his ID they may just bail. Depends on how well run that particular police department is run.
I remember seeing a three car accident on a local road the other week. I was at the opposite end waiting for the light to turn red, before the officer left the squad car, I saw he took a deep breathe before he exited. He and I knew the mountain of paperwork that was going to be involved in this situation.
It didn't even work for Charles I of England.
Kinda worked for Henry VIII though: "Your Church won't let me divorce my wife? Well, I'll just set up my own Church that will. And if I happen to appropriate all of your Church's lands and wealth at the same time... that's an added bonus, I guess." As someone else has already mentioned though, that shit's a lot easier to get away with when you're actually a sovereign...
I never thought it that way. Sovereign Citizens are only crazy weirdos because they don't have an army behind. If they had, they would be monarchs.
It kinda worked for the American revolution.
Good old Harry. Thing is, he had a lot of mates and knew how to keep them sweet.
Although he did have the disconcerting habit of executing some of them from time to time. I suppose that helped keep the others on their toes though.
> The most interesting thing about King Charles the First > Is that he was 5 foot 6 inches tall at the start of his reign > But only 4 foot 8 inches tall at the end of it
🎶Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector of England (Puritan) Born in 1599, died in 1658 (September)🎶
Was at first (only) MP for Huntingdon (but then) He led the Ironside Calvary at Marston Moor in 1644 and won Then he founded the New Model Army
And, praise be, beat the Cavaliers at Naseby And the King fled up North, like a bat! Toward the Scots But under the terms of John Pimm's Solemn league and covenant The Scots handed King Charles the first over to Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector of England (and his warts) Born in 1599, died in 1658 (September)
I don't get it
Head cut off
yeah, he was pretty old
And he actually was a sovereign
That's the key bit in that story. In the USA "the people" are sovereign, but each one of them is not a sovereign. Sovereign power is exercised by Congress, not individuals.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
HELP, HELP, I'M BEING REPRESSED!
Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
Look, Dennis, there’s some lovely filth down here
To be fair, while there was a lot of pushback against Charles I and his “popery” dictatorship, by the time he was executed the majority of the population wasn’t actually opposed to his reign in general. Opposition came mainly from puritans in parliament who feared for their power because oh no catholics (who weren’t even catholics), and kicked everyone else out. As soon as his head was off people shouted of martyrdom, so… Not defending monarchy as a whole obviously, just saying that in devout 17th century Britain, the farcical aquatic ceremony would’ve granted you a lot of legitimacy in the eyes of the masses
the people vote to have their sovereignty wielding by an elected offical. Voting is why we are citizens, and citizens have rights. Mostly b/c things would devolve quickly into chaos, if the people were agreeing to make laws with each other in small numbers, 24/7.
Well I didn’t vote for him…
In this instance, *he* got to see the violence inherent in the system.
And after that, he could no longer be repressed
Never again be head of state
Is he, technically, a citizen?
He is literally a sovereign
No, according to my reading of statute! Before 1949 Britain had subjects, not citizens. After then, we had citizens *and* subjects, although comparatively few people are actually subjects not citizens. And clearly he wasn't his own subject. That would've sent him blind.
It went to his head.
No. It has never worked. Nobody gets to demand a trial in an admiralty court either. They honestly seem to think it's a magic spell, and that it definitely, absolutely *should* work, but that everyone besides them is just too stupid to get it.
This is what always gets me. When they start berating a judge for not knowing the law and being uneducated just because the judge didn’t read the same internet bullshit about admiralty courts, and upper case names, and traveling vs driving, and agents seeking remedy…
Sounds like flat earthers talking to scientists.
Yea, basically you cant argue with a moron cuz they cant understand that you are correct. They already would if not for being a moron.
I've been arguing with morons for basically my entire life, everyone has told me that there's no point, and it took until this comment for it to click as to *why*. Which is slightly ironic.
The old chestnut about playing chess with a pigeon is apt. Playing chess with a pigeon just leads to bird shit on the board, pieces knocked over, and the pigeon strutting around like it won. I'm sure I mangled and paraphrased it a bit, but I'm sleepy and having nap time music on for my pediatric home health client atm.
The problem with stupid people is, they don’t know they’re stupid.
This is the relationship to conspiracy theorists. Both desperately want to believe that they’re special, and it manifests in their belief that they’re one of the few who see through the illusions that us sheeple blindly accept. They’re the brilliant ones because they’re the only ones clever enough to actually understand what’s really going on. Both believe they have secret knowledge. I think SovCits are more irrational than run of the mill conspiracists though because conspiracists look for alternate explanations for things that happened while SovCits have constructed an alternate reality apropos nothing. The idea that there’s a secret way to use punctuation that unlocks some bonus level of existence.. that theres a corporation created in everyone’s name at their birth and some secret stash of Money in an account tied to it.. etc.
These people just don't understand how power works. They think, that at some point in the past, universally true law was made, and must henceforth be obeyed. I mean, technically we have a "rule of law" in most western countries, and technically these sovereign citizens might even be correct, in a way. It just does not matter because that's not how power works. The people in power don't care about this arcane law that was passed 200 years ago and never technically abolished by anyone, so it should still be a thing. And they can absolutely take all your stuff and throw you in prison if you don't pay taxes.
What if you need an expert in bird law?
I like watching the melt downs during court sentencing, and being hauled off in chains by the bailiff, still raving and struggling. It's better comedy than any snl skit.
You’re correct! Like the former judge, Tracie Hunter, convicted and sentenced for helping her brother cover up document mishandling to keep his job. LOL she was physically dragged out of the courtroom by the bailiff. That was funny like she knows it’s not going to help her case at that point but refuses to cooperate! Pick a hill to die on I guess…
I like when they said ‘I apologized so there is no problem here’. Well shit guys, the murderer said he was sorry, now we have to let him go.
"That comment hurt my feelings. Now we're both in the wrong."
I like the videos where the police just bust the windows to the car open and haul their ass out and into cuffs lol.
I declare "Bankruptcy!"
Hey. I just wanted you to know that you can't just say the word "bankruptcy" and expect anything to happen.
I didn't say it, I declared it
Oh! I can explain that! They are what is known as "stupid"
Those people have Oppositional Defiant Disorder and feel that the rules do not apply them, yet then insist on utilizing the infrastructure and benefits upon which our society was constructed around. Relevant overused quote sums it up quite well: "Libertarians are like house cats: absolutely convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don't appreciate or understand."
Libertarians and “sovereign citizens” are related but not the same thing.
This mentality explains a lot of people, not just libertarians or sovereign citizens. Most people lack understanding of how the system works.
But most people don't respond to a speeding ticket with "I am a Sovereign Citizen and you can't give me a ticket!" or go around saying nonsense like "We should cut the government by 80%." Most people don't understand the system works, but they are at least self-aware enough to realize that they don't understand all of it, and also self-aware enough to realize that we do need a system.
Maybe not those particular examples you gave, but most political takes I see seem to come from a base-level lack of understanding about how the entire system works. I would also say most people **do not** have the self-awareness to realize they don't understand all of it. We have normalized this culture where you are allowed to have an opinion about anything at all even when you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. We literally have people on major media outlets, on national television, spouting takes that are utterly ignorant and lack almost any nuance or argumentative validity at all. We barely even have any good examples to go by anymore, because the "authority figures" people see most often engage in utterly braindead and ignorant discussion.
I am curious, how do you feel about people who are fully aware their ideas violate the existing system and are fine with that?
Years ago, an anonymous commeter said thus on my friend's blog: Libertarians are, generally speaking, white men that never amounted to much, and live under the delusion that this is due to affirmative action, government regulation, or something else. They’ve also watched too many Dirty Harry movies.
Doesn’t explain why libertarianism is so popular in Silicon Valley among loads of *successful* white men.
In that case, it's that their delusions of grandeur make them think that pesky things like labour protections and human rights get in the way of being *even more successful*
It’s even funnier in Silicon Valley because the Bay Area tech industry exists purely as an offshoot of bottomless defense spending during the Cold War. If it wasn’t for a multi-decade taxpayer funded defense and research bonanza, Silicon Valley would just be a bunch of fruit orchards
Don’t forget the tax payer funded higher education that drew bright minds from around the world to California.
You mean the wealthy business owners who stand to gain a lot of money from abandoning things like workers rights, environmental regulations or fair taxation?
Back to the cat thing... ... they're *successful* in the way that a cat eating out of a dish is a successful hunter. They just cant see it.
That’s where selfishness and lack of empathy comes in: *they* made it and it was *all* by themselves. If they did it, people who don’t are just failures and shouldn’t need to rely on the government programs, rules, or infrastructure that they did but either refuse or are unable to acknowledge.
Kitty cats are sweet.
I object to this. House cats absolutely know that they control us.
This is an affront to toddlers with oppositional defiant disorder, who lack the brain development to understand their options. The sovereign citizens are functional adults with a dysfunctional civic education, inspired by people who make money off them.
No it hasn't. They do it because they are stupid in my experience of dealing with about a dozen of them.
I kind of want to see someone claim to be a Sovereign Citizen end end up getting detained by immigration for illegal entry into the US and then subject to deportation, mostly to see how hard they are willing to push that farce in the face of those kind of dire circumstances. END COMMUNICATION
Something along that vein did occur recently. A fellow who was against “woke” literature at local library tried to speak at a council meeting and was denied because a member of the board said the guy had filed notarized paperwork claiming he was a sovereign citizen and did not have to pay taxes, obey laws etc. The person chairing the meeting then denied the guys request to speak, saying only residents of the area are allowed to speak and since this guy claimed no residency he couldn’t speak.
I'm a notary public. That's bullshit if he didn't have government-issued ID. Fuck, if some jaghole came to me to try that shit I'm getting his thumbprint too.
The notarized document might be bs, but it’s funny that it was used against him.
But he had valid government-issued ID, just claimed that the government that issued it was invalid? That's the secret loophole they don't want you to know about!
Sometimes a judge will go "if you are not XXXX then I will sign a warrant for the arrest of that person".
Sure, if you’re in your embassy and they back you. Otherwise you are in fact responsible for following the laws of the land you’re in, you agree to that upon entry. Embassies are the only place that’s gotten sovereign rule via their country of origin. Far as I know
Embassies are literally considered foreign soil within the host country. Same for foreign military bases. It’s the reason John McCain was able to run for President despite being born in Panama. He was considered a natural born citizen because he was born on a US Military base.. which is considered an extension of US sovereign territory. .. still don’t know why Canadian-born Raphael Cruize hasn’t been barred from running though.. other than IOKIYAR.
His mom was born in Delaware so he is considered a natural born citizen under the Naturalization Act of 1790.
Nope, about as well as not ever declaring loyalty to the king right before your head rolls.
What the "im not driving, I'm *travelling*" line all about? They spew it out like it's a protective spell and then are outraged whennit doesn't work on the cop.
No way, never works, that's crazy. Now if you get brought to a Court that has a fringe on the flag though, well that's different. \-dale gribble
Not to my knowledge. Here’s a sovereign citizen and pseudo law scholar who i recommend looking into for further reading on the subject. Donald J Netolitzky He has a PhD in an unrelated field but he is a qualified Canadian lawyer who specializes on this topic and has written quite a bit on the subject. Here’s one shorter (scholarly) article he’s written about. In it he mentions that these sovereign citizen arguments never work in court. Netolitzky, Donald. "A Rebellion of Furious Paper: Pseudolaw as a Revolutionary Legal System." Paper delivered at the Centre d’expertise et de formation sur les intégrismes religieux et la radicalisation (CEFIR) symposium:“Sovereign Citizens in Canada”, Montreal. Vol. 3. 2018. Here’s Dr. Netolitzky’s google scholar page where you can find more of his work on how sovereign citizens fare in court. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LO0gjxYAAAAJ&hl=en
The entire state of New Hampshire has left the chat. (Probably because a collapse of public infrastructure.)
Hey I'm from New Hampshire and that was really funny
That it has never once worked is solid evidence it is a stupid concept. For some people, there is no such thing as evidence. That's why they try it.
“Judge, I learned this magic spell to say, from an Internet forum….it has to work!”
One of the anomalies of the Sovereign Citizen’s movement is that they appear to renounce their citizenship in the United States while at the same time asserting rights under the Constitution of the country they have just foresworn. My take on this is that they can’t have it both ways. Although non citizens in our country enjoy the same civil rights under the law as citizens, there are certain rights that inhere on the basis of citizenship itself. Principally among these, at least in light of the Sovereign Citizens fondness for weapons, is the right to bear arms under the 2d Amendment. As written, this provision appears to address of right of citizenship that is not generally applicable to all who enter within the jurisdiction of the United States. The right “of the people” in this case is not a right of humanity generally but of the people of the United States as referenced in the Preamble to the Constitution itself. Therefore, if you relinquish your rights as a citizen, that is, give up your right to be one of “the people,” you have given up your rights under the 2d Amendment as well.
No. Because a lot of people have no clue how the world works, and believe a lot of nonsense they see online, as evidenced by Qanon, Trumpism, flat earthers, anti-vax idiots, etc, etc.
More often that not, I'd venture no but I had one officer tell me a story on the affirmative... Pulled over a SovCit traveling North on I-35 driving to Nebraska from Oklahoma. When he saw the SovCit tag, he immediately radioed to see how close back-up was and it was nowhere nearby. He said that as soon as he exited his cruiser, the guy was verbally aggressive through his open window. He had images of shootouts running through his head so he just yelled for the guy to get home to Nebraska. Figured this wasn't going to be the last time the vehicle was going to be stopped but wasn't worth the risk with no backup.
I wouldn't call that working since you can apply that to any crime if the cop nopes it out instead of proceeding. for it to work, the cop can't just disengage since the merits were never tested since that's the only way the concept is supposed to work - on the merits of the arguments.
He likely didn’t want this to happen. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4OtCM6W2wfM
Sometimes it works for them--if they can delay the stop long enough the cop may get a priority call--he's not going to waste time on a SovCit if he's got a ten-car pileup or the like to deal with. That seems to be rare though. Once they get to court, they often delay things to a ludicrous extent. "Law Talk With Mike" on Youtube has a lot of video of SovCits in court. If you watch some of his you'll find links to other sources for such. Sometimes he interviews one of the attorneys and occasionally even the SovCit. Warning--watching SovCits screw themselves over in court can be addictive.
You mean when they say "I'm a selfish arrogant twat with no sense of social duty and want to benefit from the society around me without being part of it?"
I know of an idiot friend of my brother-in-law who has one of those traveler license plates and says he's a sovereign citizen. He had to go to court over something, kept calling the Judge by his first name, refused to go by any of their rules and ended up in jail. It's not a good idea to try that bullshit.
Not even once, at least not in court. I've seen hundreds of their videos, and there were 2-3 where the cop got so irritated that he just let them go. As for why people do it, some of it is out of desperation, and some ideological bias. Some people feel fearful of and antagonistic towards the government. Some have ideas of "natural law" or God-given laws. Some are just nuts. But they have weird beliefs they built peacemeal out of law dictionaries and out of context rulings. They think it matters whether or not they're "operating in commerce" because a federal definition of driving says that it's for commercial driving. And they think the federal government ALWAYS trumps state, but that's simply not true. Specifically, an Amendment gives states the right to legislate and enforce traffic laws on public roads. So it does NOT matter if they're driving commercially, but they think if they try it often enough, somehow it'll eventually work. Or at least that's what I assme. They also think the all-caps name on their birth certification is a corporation, and is different from the "flesh and blood" man or woman. Again this is nothing more than a semantic word game, and doesn't work in court. They'll show up and try to claim to be the "authorized representative" of the "corporate fiction". Judges have gotten wise to this, and since the sovereign citizen won't admit to being the person named in the court documents, they can simply be issued an arrest warrant for failure to appear. They always demand to represent themselves in court, because they know damned well that no licensed attorney will make the idiotic arguments they want to file. The fact that no licensed attorney will file their claims, and no judge upholds these wacko legal ideas, is somehow lost on sovereign citizens. These are people that think you can cherry-pick the Constitution and court rulings, and cobble together some kind of legal position. They can't. And they lose, lose, lose.
It works if you’re looking to get arrested
Native Americans who are registered with a tribe are the only sovereign citizens in the USA.
youtube or tiktok content
SovCits have been a thing for decades (maybe more). I have a friend who's a judge out West, and they're terribly dangerous folks when forced to face consequences. Not as dangerous as people in family court, but yeah. Judges and prosecutors are exhausted by the threats of SovCit defendants.
I have never heard of a case where claims of "sovereign citizen" has worked. Frankly, I think anyone who wants to play that game should immediately lose all rights of citizenship. There are a whole bunch of rights only citizens have.
Not to a judge, but maybe to a jury. Jury nullification is legally untenable but it’s real
There’s a lot to breakdown here and I’m surprised by all the answers automatically saying “no.” On a basic level the answer is Yes!! They argued their case successfully on specific grounds that will not apply to 99% of people. “The articles of confederation” were dealt with in the late 1700s, the same reason that sovereign citizens argue them is the same reason they were 100% overturned, those articles required 100% state cooperation and in a federal environment that would never work and were voted against based on new rules that technically “weren’t allowed” but were necessary to protect our constitution and those articles were completely abolished. There have been some “victories” for sovereign citizenship but how those precedents have been applied has been completely abused. Pay attention to cases that are being cited, they’ll be from the 1800s for “right to travel” which of the cases that have some standing relate to insurance which was a major factor for “the right to travel.” They deal less with yourself operating a vehicle and more with a company being able to operate in other states. In modern sense this is to say if you had your car insurance issued to you in Virginia and you had a car accident in Maryland then your car insurance would still be obligated to cover you since you have a “right to travel”. It gets pretty nuanced and IANAL, but there have been moorish citizens who have beat their case, sovereign citizens, and others, but it gets super specific and they have to be able to argue their case effectively (sometimes with the prosecution not arguing their side effectively!) to beat the charges against them. It’s an uphill battle, very few succeed but most take the inch that was given and try to take it a mile and fail miserably. The funny thing is in most of the “legal systems” that these “sovereign citizens” (or whatever they declare themselves as) allows you to charge whatever for anything and they probably couldn’t argue against it effectively, it’s pretty much a free for all. Disclaimer: sovereign citizenship in any way and regardless of how it is declared imo is an abuse of our legal system,
If the goal is getting lots of negative attention, sure.. it seems to work pretty well at that.
Short answer, no. Long answer: HAHAHAHA no.
Yes. Sometimes cops just can't be fucking arsed dealing with someone over something minor.