They think the law is magic, and that lawyers and the police are like the fae folk.
All of their rules are written down, and if you can just find the right magic words you can free yourself from the system. Cops can only arrest you if you consent, which requires you to say the special words that tell them you don’t accept their authority: you’re a sovereign citizen, not a US corporate citizen, because the police only have authority over people who agree to be bound by the rules that bind US citizens.
And the courts only have authority if you accept it, and you don’t have to if you recognize that that the flag they’re flying openly declares this court to be under a different jurisdiction, because only maritime flags have a fringe, and so the court isn’t actually a US court but a maritime court, so you can petition for a change of jurisdiction to a different court, but you have to be careful not to accept any of their authority or accidentally bind yourself to taking responsibility for the secret shell company that the US created for you that is your name spelled in ALL CAPS, otherwise you’re bound by their rules.
It’s entirely bonkers, and based on layers of not understanding the law, magical thinking, conspiratorial thinking, and being taken in by a scam.
If you’re really rich, a lot of this holds true. There are plenty of gaps in the laws, which those with enough wealth exploit. There are endless loopholes, ways to manipulate the truth, delay, outspend and exhaust legal proceedings.
To a law-illiterate outside observer whose main experience with the system is popular fiction and media coverage of how the law applies to the wealthy, it does look like a game where finding the right loophole will set you free.
These sadsacks are lost in the weeds. They see the injustice of the balance of power in western society, but with inflated egos and lacking any understanding of the systems of power they are under, they think they can play at the same table as the wealthy.
I almost feel sorry for them, but they generally don’t see a problem with the system oppressing other people, they just don’t want it to apply to them personally.
The all caps thing! I forgot about that. Darrell Brooks had a whole tangent on that while he was representing himself. I’ve watched that whole trial twice.
If you focus on the part of the declaration of Independence that says “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” it kind of is true.
But that’s a societal consent and not individual consent. Either we all reject it or they enforce it unilaterally on those that don’t anyway.
They think the law is magic, and that lawyers and the police are like the fae folk.
All of their rules are written down, and if you can just find the right magic words you can free yourself from the system. Cops can only arrest you if you consent, which requires you to say the special words that tell them you don’t accept their authority: you’re a sovereign citizen, not a US corporate citizen, because the police only have authority over people who agree to be bound by the rules that bind US citizens.
And the courts only have authority if you accept it, and you don’t have to if you recognize that that the flag they’re flying openly declares this court to be under a different jurisdiction, because only maritime flags have a fringe, and so the court isn’t actually a US court but a maritime court, so you can petition for a change of jurisdiction to a different court, but you have to be careful not to accept any of their authority or accidentally bind yourself to taking responsibility for the secret shell company that the US created for you that is your name spelled in ALL CAPS, otherwise you’re bound by their rules.
It’s entirely bonkers, and based on layers of not understanding the law, magical thinking, conspiratorial thinking, and being taken in by a scam.
If you’re really rich, a lot of this holds true. There are plenty of gaps in the laws, which those with enough wealth exploit. There are endless loopholes, ways to manipulate the truth, delay, outspend and exhaust legal proceedings.
To a law-illiterate outside observer whose main experience with the system is popular fiction and media coverage of how the law applies to the wealthy, it does look like a game where finding the right loophole will set you free.
These sadsacks are lost in the weeds. They see the injustice of the balance of power in western society, but with inflated egos and lacking any understanding of the systems of power they are under, they think they can play at the same table as the wealthy.
I almost feel sorry for them, but they generally don’t see a problem with the system oppressing other people, they just don’t want it to apply to them personally.
The all caps thing! I forgot about that. Darrell Brooks had a whole tangent on that while he was representing himself. I’ve watched that whole trial twice.
If you focus on the part of the declaration of Independence that says “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” it kind of is true.
But that’s a societal consent and not individual consent. Either we all reject it or they enforce it unilaterally on those that don’t anyway.