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Sovereign Citizens Helped Swindle $1B from the Government They Disavow

nytimes.com

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Re: Sovereign Citizens Helped Swindle $1B from the Government They Disavow

#4
There's an amazing exposition of the whole Sovereign Citizen thing from several years back by a Canadian justice's ruling in "Meads v. Meads": https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012a...

It covers a lot of ground -- lots of contextual information -- and is quite long, but readable (and entertaining).

Re: Sovereign Citizens Helped Swindle $1B from the Government They Disavow

#5
> Sovereigns, who sometimes call themselves “freemen” or “state citizens,” have no foundational document, but broadly they subscribe to an alternate version of American history. The tale can vary from sovereign to sovereign, but it goes roughly like this: At some point, a corporation secretly usurped the United States government, then went bankrupt and sought aid from international bankers. As collateral, the corporation offered the financiers … us. As sovereigns tell it, your birth certificate and Social Security card are not benign documents, but contracts that enslave you.

Re: Sovereign Citizens Helped Swindle $1B from the Government They Disavow

#7
They do this under the rubric of “bleeding the beast” as they put it. The FLDS did this too, and it’s a pretty common, and massively self-serving tactic of many fringe groups. Personally I like it, because it opens a path for legal sanctions irrespective of the groups ideology or religion. They can believe whatever crazy shit they want, but fraud and tax evasion are still crimes.
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