There has to be some basis for people claiming that the laws of the land do not apply to them, but for the life of me, I can’t begin to understand it.
In: 89
Curious as well – I always just assumed they were just selfish pricks who are mad at the world for attention purposes via being contrarian
The basis is the tendency for people think there’s “one weird trick” to getting around their problems. In this case, they hear from someone that some obscure legal rule or tradition actually makes our entire social order invalid and they don’t have to follow it. It sounds legit enough to them, so they act like the laws don’t apply
Problem is, the social order isn’t something that exists with supernatural rules. It’s whatever is enacted and enforced in reality right now. If some old rule or tradition is no longer used, then it’s no longer valid. Besides that they’re usually misunderstanding the implications of the outdated things their logic relies on anyway.
So in short how does it happen? Twisted facts + wishful thinking
A Canadian Judge [published the book](https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012abqb571.html) on Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument [“OPCA”] Litigants (aka many things including Sovereign Citizens) in one of his decisions. His summary is:
>These persons employ a collection of techniques and arguments promoted and sold by ‘gurus’ (as hereafter defined) to disrupt court operations and to attempt to frustrate the legal rights of governments, corporations, and individuals.
>OPCA litigants do not express any stereotypic beliefs other than a general rejection of court and state authority; nor do they fall into any common social or professional association. Arguments and claims of this nature emerge in all kinds of legal proceedings and all levels of Courts and tribunals. This group is unified by:
>1. a characteristic set of strategies (somewhat different by group) that they employ,
>2. specific but irrelevant formalities and language which they appear to believe are (or portray as) significant, and
>3. the commercial sources from which their ideas and materials originate.
>This category of litigant shares one other critical characteristic: they will only honour state, regulatory, contract, family, fiduciary, equitable, and criminal obligations if they feel like it. And typically, they don’t.
I think that’s the best short description of the various groups that include most Sovereign Citizens.
The basis is a fundamental misunderstanding of the legal system in whatever country they’re in.
Sovereign citizen ideology mostly rests on the–false–idea that you can categorize yourself as something other than a citizen and thereby not be subject to the laws that govern citizens.
There’s a better writeup [here](https://www.sog.unc.edu/sites/www.sog.unc.edu/files/Sov%20citizens%20quick%20guide%20Nov%2013.pdf) that provides a nice layman overview.
In the US, often it involves the Magna Carta (yes, that 900 year old document from England). These people believe that a sworn oath to a British lord absolves them of the duties and responsibilities of a citizen because a lot of our law is carried over from British common law. On their court documents (because it conveniently comes up when they are being charged with a crime or asked to pay taxes), they often have multiple names. One for their legal entity, and one for their personal being (and sometimes one with a title).
The Magna Carta isn’t the only basis for these fictitious legal loopholes. But similar tactics are used (using an older document like the US Declaration of Independence) to argue to override laws. It never works, judges see it and immediately put the smack down. If you want to see some videos, do a youtube search for
Leonard French Sovereign Citizen.
He reads legal cases line by line and explains what they mean.
That’s because it doesn’t make sense to anyone but them. They have some weird and convoluted way of interpreting laws that isn’t correct in anyway. They are literally living in a fantasy land while truly believing they cracked a code almost no one else has figured out.
They usually believe that the ruling government in whatever country is invalid.
They will use some old historical document taken out of context to prove they are “free people”.
Because they are “free people” the rules of modern society don’t apply to them only the rules of the time of their preferred historical document apply, and because of this, they don’t need to pay taxes, follow laws/road rules, etc etc.
They usually end up in court, self representing. Which goes about as well as you think it does.
You ever hear the phrase “people only have power over you if you accept it” before? It’s usually used in the context of name calling or other non-physical bullying, but the SovCit crowd takes it to the extreme.
They believe they have found a technicality or procedural incantation that will render the court system powerless against them. They imagine they’ll essentially maneuver a judge into ruling that our entire system of laws and government is actually wrong. What they fail / refuse to understand is it isn’t their understanding the of the law that matters, but everyone else’s.
The fact that they are in front of the court belies their claim of sovereignty, as if they were sovereign the court wouldn’t have any power over them initially.
They also can’t answer what happens if two of them meet on the street — can one rob / kill the other with impunity?
They usually look for a specific word or phrase that would justify them from being exempt from some sort of law, or twisting it so the laws for them are unconstitutional (in the US).
The most common example I know of is driving rules.. All states have laws saying drivers need a license and cars need to be registered, but they will look at the laws and claim “drivers” and “vehicles” only apply to commercial licenses, and since they aren’t being paid to drive around, they don’t need to do either of these things. That’s obviously false, and driver applies to anyone who operated a motor vehicle on the roads, but it doesn’t stop them.
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