Out of all the segmented degenerate hiveminds in the US, I think sovereign citizens often baffle me the most.
The most profoundly puzzling thing to me is their insistence that magic words will somehow make authorities back off.
Like, they believe that there is this grand conspiracy involving the Federal Reserve and maritime law and birth names and whatever else. And yet they also believe that the forces behind this conspiracy must acquiesce if you just invoke the right language.
Do they never consider that an entity powerful enough to do all that could also just ignore their demands? Like, even if the conspiracy is true, why would its perpetrators just give up because some random person told them to?
My guess would be that by using the right words they pretend to be part of that power, because how else would one tell apart the laymen and true sovereign citizens.
Don’t know if that even has anything in common with what they say their reasons are, that’s too crazy to read 😅
Check out The Freemen. This is pretty much where this stuff came from, whackos in Montana during the 90s who pulled off the longest standoff with the FBI in American history (may have changed since).
They had their own currency (which some locals would actually accept), and they were very, very good at painting themselves as innocent victims.
I believe that because of them and other groups like The Montana Militia are one of the prime influences for this movement.
It’s the same impulse that made medieval people believe they could defend themselves from fairies and demons by saying the right things the right way. Some part of the insanity demands that a person who sees through the illusion can somehow win against the evil conspirators
We have a similar bunch of wackos in Germany, the Reichsbürger. They claim that the modern German constitution is illegal because the German Empire was never officially disbanded as an entity and therefore they don’t have to follow the current laws. Many also dream of reinstating a monarchy and are - surprise! - fascists.
Is there a royal family in Germany? Like that monarchy lasted about a hundred years… And it’s been that same amount of time since then!
Similarly same is happening in Czechia. Sovcivs claim Czechoslovakia splitting wasn’t constitutional or something like that. Similar idea, same bunch of dumb fucks.
Wasn’t it a group of Reichbürgers that got arrested last year for planning a coup in a partnership with right wing military officers?
I’m guessing somewhere up the chain is a person making money from it, probably a book or class that teaches the “secrets.” And of course when your sovcit crap fails to work you didn’t follow the program to the T.
I know right. To be absolutely convinced that there are loopholes in everything and that only the rubes are playing by the rules is one thing. But to maintain that belief in the face of what must become a long string of failures… takes a certain mental toughness to be kind.
I suppose if you look around and everyone else seems to be doing better than you, maybe you assume they must all be cheating and you start looking to get in on the game. A few YouTube holes down the road you think you can pay your child support with secret legal incantations.
I will admit, sometimes I start to think, maybe they are on to something…
My best friend from childhood sometimes slips into SC territory. We don’t talk often but when we do, it can be a doozy. HE was never like this before COVID.
I’m completely out of the loop, what is this “sovereign citizen” nonsense?
They claim they don’t have to follow laws because the flag has fringe on it and something, something, maritime laws. So US law doesn’t apply to them.
If that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, it’s because Sovereign Citizen doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I think it’s a wild and varied and disorganized mess dreamed up by people who have left the very idea of being reasonable far behind them long ago.
However, a crucial part of it is certain specific capitalization of words. I think some of them had been using caps lock to post rants on discus for too long and think that it has some magical meaning under law…
I say all that to say that they believe that there’s a “legal entity” that is invoked when you capitalize versus plain case someone’s name (amongst other things)…and that there is a difference between this “legal entity” and the person in a body…which there frankly plainly and obviously isn’t.
Despite being told in court by multiple judges that the capitalization of things does not matter, they persist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen_movement#Immunity_from_laws_and_taxes
I thought the capitalization stuff was kind of a side show, but have since realized that not only is it crucial to their belief system, it also serves as a way to identify them on the Internet. If someone strangely insists on capitalizing certain words or phrases every time they use them and is otherwise very unreasonable, there’s a good chance they’re a sovcit (or should I say SOVCIT? 🙂).
Man, who would have thought they don’t take a drawing of a seven legged spider as payment?
Where’s the “that type of payment “? What was it?
It appears he is trying to pay his bill with a registered security. This can be a number of things but, basically, it’s a document showing ownership of some value of something. Stock in a company can be a security, investments in a market index, etc. They have legit value, they are transferable, but they have a fungible value, based on the value of whatever the security is in, at the time it is purchased/sold.
For some reason he seems to believe that because something has a legit, defined, value the company is legally obligated take it as a form of payment. This is completely untrue, of course. They don’t even have to take local currency if they don’t want to (ex- if you have a $300 bill, and you try to pay in pennies, they have a right to turn down the payment). The UCC 3 he mentions is a form to amend information on a lien.
wait. I thought there was a law requiring us currency to be accepted for debt payment.
Only debts to the government. They also only have to accept cash in person. For example. If you owe the IRS 5k and you go to a local Taxpayer Assistance Center, with 5k in coins, they have to accept it. However, if you are paying via mail, online, etc., they are allowed to restrict the payment types they will accept.
I believe the Government has to accept cash for any charges, but private companies have to accept cash for debts. Like if your car gets towed, the tow company must accept cash, even if it’s all pennies.
This is only true for certain states and certain businesses. For instance, if you are in Texas your example of towing is correct. In the state of Ohio the state law states that tow companies can only accept cash, certified checks, Discover, Mastercard, American Express, and Visa. However it does not dictate that they MUST accept all of those. The point of the clause is to remove personal checks from the system, since most tows are requested by a government body, and personal checks are a major vector for fraud. However, in Texas, towing is one of like 3 different things I can find that require cash acceptance. All of these are mostly business generated at the request of the government.
Now, debt owed to private businesses, that gets rolled into some sort of government mediated mechanism, IE bankruptcy, do have to accept cash. That debt collection is generally either handled by the government, or a third party contractor. There are no blanket, federal level, laws that dictate businesses must accept cash. Now, there is a growing movement to make state laws forcing this. This is because cashless systems create an extra barrier for poor people, especially the homeless, minorities, and the elderly. Though this is in it’s infancy and it’s hard to tell how well it will be accepted.
There is law that they must accept any official us currency to pay debts. This is not official us currency.
If this is a prepaid phone then it doesn’t matter. They can say they accept/decline any payment they want if you have not received the goods/services yet.
There is law that they must accept any official us currency to pay debts. This is not official us currency.
The following is according to the federal reserve. It may be different in another country, but it looks like this post is from the US.
There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law that says otherwise.
This is why, when people are pissed about a bill, then try to pay several hundred dollars in pennies, the place can turn the payment down.
In the US, a government agency must accept any legal tender, including pennies. A private business can refuse specific forms of payment.
Yes, that’s why I posted a statement about businesses. This is a bill from T-Mobile.