• Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.org
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    10 months ago

    Out of all the segmented degenerate hiveminds in the US, I think sovereign citizens often baffle me the most.

    • BenVimes@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      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?

      • lad@programming.dev
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        10 months ago

        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 😅

      • Dadd Volante@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        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.

      • hanekam@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        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

    • PLAVAT🧿S@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      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.

    • Pohl@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      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.

    • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      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.

      • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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        10 months ago

        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!

      • derpgon@programming.dev
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        10 months ago

        Similarly same is happening in Czechia. Sovcivs claim Czechoslovakia splitting wasn’t constitutional or something like that. Similar idea, same bunch of dumb fucks.

      • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        Wasn’t it a group of Reichbürgers that got arrested last year for planning a coup in a partnership with right wing military officers?

    • Neuromancer@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      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.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        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.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        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? 🙂).