WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.660 Imagine for a second that the entire legal system 00:00:03.660 --> 00:00:08.039 is essentially just a giant rigged video game. 00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:10.939 But like any video game, there's a cheat code. 00:00:11.439 --> 00:00:13.539 And if you just know the right sequence of buttons 00:00:13.539 --> 00:00:16.379 to press the right words to say the exact color 00:00:16.379 --> 00:00:19.120 of ink to use on a form, you can suddenly stop 00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:21.539 paying taxes. You can ignore speed limits. You 00:00:21.539 --> 00:00:23.480 can just erase all your debt. Exactly. Erase 00:00:23.480 --> 00:00:25.300 your debt entirely. Now that might sound like 00:00:25.300 --> 00:00:27.260 a bizarre fantasy to you listening right now, 00:00:27.339 --> 00:00:30.539 but today we are doing a deep dive into a massive 00:00:30.539 --> 00:00:33.340 compilation of sources. Primarily, we're looking 00:00:33.340 --> 00:00:35.960 at a comprehensive Wikipedia article to really 00:00:35.960 --> 00:00:38.520 unpack the reality of the sovereign citizen movement. 00:00:38.679 --> 00:00:41.280 Yeah, it's a fascinating topic. It really is. 00:00:41.500 --> 00:00:43.479 Our mission for this deep dive is to understand 00:00:43.479 --> 00:00:46.679 this completely perplexing and sometimes incredibly 00:00:46.679 --> 00:00:49.710 dangerous world of people who Genuinely believe 00:00:49.710 --> 00:00:52.429 they have found the legal loopholes to just completely 00:00:52.429 --> 00:00:55.049 opt out of society It's a striking analogy the 00:00:55.049 --> 00:00:57.890 video game one and honestly It's a very necessary 00:00:57.890 --> 00:01:00.390 way to frame the material you brought us today 00:01:00.390 --> 00:01:03.030 because I mean if you spend any time online You've 00:01:03.030 --> 00:01:05.450 probably seen those viral videos. Oh, definitely 00:01:05.450 --> 00:01:08.219 the traffic stops right the traffic stops A police 00:01:08.219 --> 00:01:10.939 officer pulls someone over, asks for a license, 00:01:11.219 --> 00:01:13.280 and the driver just refuses to roll down the 00:01:13.280 --> 00:01:15.400 window. They insist, you know, they aren't driving, 00:01:15.519 --> 00:01:17.439 they're traveling. And the internet just treats 00:01:17.439 --> 00:01:20.219 these encounters as pure comedy, right? Like 00:01:20.219 --> 00:01:23.680 it's a joke. Exactly. But when you actually read 00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:26.159 through the underlying source material, you realize 00:01:26.159 --> 00:01:29.799 this isn't just a handful of eccentric people 00:01:29.799 --> 00:01:32.560 being stubborn. It is this intricate, highly 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:35.700 structured web of pseudo -law. And it comes with 00:01:35.700 --> 00:01:39.719 a devastating cost to the legal system, to innocent 00:01:39.719 --> 00:01:42.680 bystanders, and almost always to the believers 00:01:42.680 --> 00:01:45.480 themselves. OK, let's unpack this. Yeah. Because 00:01:45.480 --> 00:01:48.239 to understand how sovereign citizens try to cheat 00:01:48.239 --> 00:01:50.920 the system, we really have to figure out the 00:01:50.920 --> 00:01:53.260 foundational worldview that convinces them the 00:01:53.260 --> 00:01:55.180 system is fake in the first place. That's the 00:01:55.180 --> 00:01:57.260 key. Right. I was reading through the background 00:01:57.260 --> 00:01:59.180 here. It's not that they just dislike the government 00:01:59.180 --> 00:02:01.700 or want lower taxes. They believe the legitimate 00:02:01.700 --> 00:02:04.319 United States government was literally overthrown 00:02:04.319 --> 00:02:07.519 and replaced by a shadow entity. Yeah, that is 00:02:07.519 --> 00:02:10.259 the absolute bedrock of their entire philosophy. 00:02:10.620 --> 00:02:12.960 They believe the state is no longer an actual 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:15.139 government. They think it's a corporation. A 00:02:15.139 --> 00:02:18.699 literal corporation. Yes. Now, if you ask three 00:02:18.699 --> 00:02:21.240 different sovereign citizens when the secret 00:02:21.240 --> 00:02:23.860 corporate takeover happened, you will likely 00:02:23.860 --> 00:02:26.240 get three entirely different historical dates. 00:02:26.360 --> 00:02:28.599 Right, because there's no real consensus. Exactly. 00:02:29.219 --> 00:02:32.610 Some point back to the Civil War. A very popular 00:02:32.610 --> 00:02:35.389 theory points to the District of Columbia Organic 00:02:35.389 --> 00:02:38.750 Act of 1871. Wait, isn't that just the act that 00:02:38.750 --> 00:02:41.210 reorganized the municipal government of Washington 00:02:41.210 --> 00:02:43.550 DC? That's exactly what it did. In reality, it 00:02:43.550 --> 00:02:45.530 just set up a local government. But sovereign 00:02:45.530 --> 00:02:48.349 citizens interpret it as the exact moment the 00:02:48.349 --> 00:02:50.710 U .S. government secretly incorporated itself, 00:02:51.090 --> 00:02:53.610 turning the entire country into a corporate franchise. 00:02:53.849 --> 00:02:56.849 Wow. Other groups point to 1933 when the United 00:02:56.849 --> 00:02:59.430 States abandoned the gold standard. They claim 00:02:59.430 --> 00:03:01.449 that without gold, the government was bankrupt 00:03:01.449 --> 00:03:03.990 and had to restructure as a commercial enterprise. 00:03:04.409 --> 00:03:07.870 Which brings us to one of the Just wildest leaps 00:03:07.870 --> 00:03:10.949 in logic I found in these sources. Because they 00:03:10.949 --> 00:03:13.210 believe the government is a corporation, they 00:03:13.210 --> 00:03:15.729 think all courts operate under commercial law, 00:03:16.250 --> 00:03:18.689 or specifically, admiralty and maritime law. 00:03:18.889 --> 00:03:20.849 The law of the sea. Yes, the law of the sea. 00:03:20.909 --> 00:03:23.729 And how do they supposedly prove this? They literally 00:03:23.729 --> 00:03:26.169 just look at the flag in the courtroom. The gold 00:03:26.169 --> 00:03:28.250 fringe. The gold fringe. I have to admit, I always 00:03:28.250 --> 00:03:30.250 thought that was just a decorative choice. But 00:03:30.250 --> 00:03:32.590 to a sovereign citizen, what does that fringe 00:03:32.590 --> 00:03:36.139 actually signify? Well, in their ideology, A 00:03:36.139 --> 00:03:38.840 flag with a gold fringe is traditionally a military 00:03:38.840 --> 00:03:42.539 or naval flag. Therefore, by displaying a fringed 00:03:42.539 --> 00:03:45.520 flag indoors, they think the judge is legally, 00:03:45.780 --> 00:03:48.280 though secretly, transforming the courtroom into 00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:50.860 a foreign maritime jurisdiction. So they think 00:03:50.860 --> 00:03:52.939 they're literally on a boat. Basically, yeah. 00:03:53.120 --> 00:03:55.300 They believe the judge is essentially acting 00:03:55.300 --> 00:03:57.560 as a ship's captain for a foreign commercial 00:03:57.560 --> 00:04:00.120 enterprise. They usually theorize it's the United 00:04:00.120 --> 00:04:02.939 Kingdom or international bankers. And under maritime 00:04:02.939 --> 00:04:05.780 law, you don't have constitutional rights. You 00:04:05.780 --> 00:04:08.800 only have commercial contracts. Okay, so if the 00:04:08.800 --> 00:04:11.060 government is a corporation operating under the 00:04:11.060 --> 00:04:13.639 law of the sea, how does it interact with normal 00:04:13.639 --> 00:04:16.500 people? That brings us to what the sources call 00:04:16.500 --> 00:04:19.870 the straw man theory. which feels like the absolute 00:04:19.870 --> 00:04:22.829 linchpin of this entire movement. Oh, it absolutely 00:04:22.829 --> 00:04:25.790 is. The logic goes like this. A corporation cannot 00:04:25.790 --> 00:04:28.470 interact directly with a flesh and blood human 00:04:28.470 --> 00:04:31.490 being. It can only interact with another corporation. 00:04:31.689 --> 00:04:34.629 Right. So the sovereign citizen answer is that 00:04:34.629 --> 00:04:37.709 you actually possess two entirely distinct personas. 00:04:38.589 --> 00:04:41.209 First, there is the real, the flesh and blood 00:04:41.209 --> 00:04:44.620 living person. But the second persona is a secret 00:04:44.620 --> 00:04:47.579 legal corporate shell created by the government. 00:04:47.680 --> 00:04:49.560 They call this the straw man. And according to 00:04:49.560 --> 00:04:51.819 the theory, this straw man is created the moment 00:04:51.819 --> 00:04:54.920 you were born, right? Precisely. When your parents 00:04:54.920 --> 00:04:57.060 unknowingly apply for your birth certificate 00:04:57.060 --> 00:04:59.360 and your social security number, the government 00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:01.980 creates this corporate entity. And they point 00:05:01.980 --> 00:05:04.019 to the fact that your name on your birth certificate, 00:05:04.399 --> 00:05:06.540 driver's license, and bank statements is usually 00:05:06.540 --> 00:05:08.980 printed in all capital letters. Oh, right. I 00:05:08.980 --> 00:05:11.199 saw that. To you and me, that's just a typographical 00:05:11.199 --> 00:05:14.379 convention. Yeah, but to a sovereign citizen, 00:05:14.639 --> 00:05:17.680 typing a name in all caps is the legal mechanism 00:05:17.680 --> 00:05:20.000 that signifies the corporate straw man. It's 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:23.000 not the living human. And it gets even more extreme 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:25.180 because this ties back to the U .S. going off 00:05:25.180 --> 00:05:28.420 the gold standard in 1933. There's this concept 00:05:28.420 --> 00:05:30.459 in the material called the redemption scheme. 00:05:30.680 --> 00:05:33.420 The idea is that since the government is bankrupt 00:05:33.420 --> 00:05:37.180 and has no gold, it uses its own citizens as 00:05:37.180 --> 00:05:39.500 collateral to borrow money from foreign entities. 00:05:40.300 --> 00:05:43.199 Exactly. They believe that human beings are literally 00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:45.860 monetized. They'll argue that birth certificates 00:05:45.860 --> 00:05:48.980 are printed on a specific type of bank bond paper, 00:05:48.980 --> 00:05:50.860 and they think the numbers on the certificate 00:05:50.860 --> 00:05:52.899 are actually tracking numbers for securities 00:05:52.899 --> 00:05:55.399 traded on the stock market. That is just mind 00:05:55.399 --> 00:05:57.680 -blowing. Right. And because you are the collateral, 00:05:57.740 --> 00:05:59.560 they believe the government sets up a secret 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:02.079 treasury account tied to your straw man holding 00:06:02.079 --> 00:06:05.420 millions of dollars. The redemption theory promises 00:06:05.420 --> 00:06:07.920 that you can quote unquote redeem your flesh 00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:10.540 and blood self separate from the straw man and 00:06:10.540 --> 00:06:12.639 unlock those hidden millions to pay off your 00:06:12.639 --> 00:06:15.339 mortgage or beat criminal charges. I have to 00:06:15.339 --> 00:06:17.439 stop you there because the internal logic of 00:06:17.439 --> 00:06:20.519 this conspiracy is completely fracturing my brain. 00:06:20.819 --> 00:06:24.209 It's a lot to take in. It is. Like, if the government 00:06:24.209 --> 00:06:29.170 is this evil, all -powerful, globally orchestrated 00:06:29.170 --> 00:06:32.250 shadow corporation that has successfully enslaved 00:06:32.250 --> 00:06:36.529 humanity for a century, wait, why would they 00:06:36.529 --> 00:06:39.569 accidentally leave a glaring loophole that lets 00:06:39.569 --> 00:06:41.970 you defeat them just by pointing out a gold fringe 00:06:41.970 --> 00:06:44.879 on a flag? or by pointing out capital letters. 00:06:45.079 --> 00:06:47.220 That's a great question. It's like a supervillain 00:06:47.220 --> 00:06:49.279 building an indestructible fortress, but leaving 00:06:49.279 --> 00:06:51.500 the front door key under the welcome mat. Does 00:06:51.500 --> 00:06:53.600 it make any sense? Well, what's fascinating here 00:06:53.600 --> 00:06:56.379 is the psychological comfort this specific delusion 00:06:56.379 --> 00:06:59.079 provides. You're looking for logical consistency, 00:06:59.079 --> 00:07:01.579 but this isn't really about logic. It is about 00:07:01.579 --> 00:07:04.639 finding a unified explanation for severe financial 00:07:04.639 --> 00:07:07.139 or legal hardship. Okay, I can see that. Think 00:07:07.139 --> 00:07:09.259 about it. If you are drowning in debt, facing 00:07:09.259 --> 00:07:12.040 eviction, or dealing with a complex tax system, 00:07:12.240 --> 00:07:15.560 understand. The strawman theory offers a profound 00:07:15.560 --> 00:07:18.319 lifeline. It tells you you aren't failing, the 00:07:18.319 --> 00:07:21.360 system is rigged, but more importantly you have 00:07:21.360 --> 00:07:23.480 the secret power to beat it. So it's comforting. 00:07:23.680 --> 00:07:26.939 Yes, it's a form of legal magical thinking. It 00:07:26.939 --> 00:07:29.800 gives adherents a false sense of immense control 00:07:29.800 --> 00:07:33.800 over massive, complex economic forces that otherwise 00:07:33.800 --> 00:07:37.079 make them feel completely powerless. Legal magical 00:07:37.079 --> 00:07:38.720 thinking. That makes a lot of sense. Like trying 00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:41.620 to cast a spell. So if I truly believe my straw 00:07:41.620 --> 00:07:43.959 man has a secret treasury account with millions 00:07:43.959 --> 00:07:46.759 of dollars, how do I actually get the government 00:07:46.759 --> 00:07:50.220 to hand over that money? Or... Better yet, how 00:07:50.220 --> 00:07:53.240 do I prove to a police officer or a judge that 00:07:53.240 --> 00:07:55.319 I'm the flesh and blood person, not the corporate 00:07:55.319 --> 00:07:57.769 shell? That is where the movement transitions 00:07:57.769 --> 00:08:01.110 from a philosophy into a highly specific, almost 00:08:01.110 --> 00:08:03.790 ritualistic toolkit of documents and vocabulary. 00:08:04.069 --> 00:08:06.370 The cheat codes. Exactly, the cheat codes. They 00:08:06.370 --> 00:08:08.470 believe that since the law is just a series of 00:08:08.470 --> 00:08:10.449 corporate contracts, you can simply opt out if 00:08:10.449 --> 00:08:12.490 you use the right words. Let's look at the classic 00:08:12.490 --> 00:08:14.350 traffic stop scenario. You mentioned it earlier. 00:08:14.470 --> 00:08:16.350 They insist they are not driving. Right. They 00:08:16.350 --> 00:08:18.009 say they're traveling in a conveyance. Right. 00:08:18.069 --> 00:08:21.149 Why that specific phrasing? Because they twist 00:08:21.149 --> 00:08:24.230 the legal definitions found in obscure old law 00:08:24.230 --> 00:08:27.610 dictionaries. To them, driving is strictly defined 00:08:27.610 --> 00:08:30.509 as a commercial activity, like driving a taxi 00:08:30.509 --> 00:08:33.370 or a delivery truck. So if they aren't transporting 00:08:33.370 --> 00:08:37.110 commercial goods, they claim an inalienable constitutional 00:08:37.110 --> 00:08:39.629 right to travel freely. So they think laws about 00:08:39.629 --> 00:08:42.049 driving just don't apply to them. Right. In their 00:08:42.049 --> 00:08:44.070 minds, this completely negates the need for a 00:08:44.070 --> 00:08:46.330 state issued driver's license, vehicle registration, 00:08:46.610 --> 00:08:48.950 or insurance. That's why you see them creating 00:08:48.950 --> 00:08:51.350 their own homemade license plates, which often 00:08:51.350 --> 00:08:54.950 say things like exempt or private. And the way 00:08:54.950 --> 00:08:56.909 they try to prove their flesh and blood status 00:08:56.909 --> 00:08:59.289 on paper is incredible. I was looking at the 00:08:59.289 --> 00:09:01.330 section on their documents. Instead of just signing 00:09:01.330 --> 00:09:04.710 a name like John Doe, they use bizarre punctuation. 00:09:04.870 --> 00:09:07.129 Oh, the punctuation is wild. All right. John 00:09:07.129 --> 00:09:09.899 of the family Doe. or insert colons and hyphens 00:09:09.899 --> 00:09:13.600 like John Robert Oto, they absolutely refuse 00:09:13.600 --> 00:09:16.120 to use black or blue ink, believing those represent 00:09:16.120 --> 00:09:18.299 corporate colors. So they sign legal filings 00:09:18.299 --> 00:09:20.799 in red ink or sometimes literal blood. Yeah, 00:09:20.919 --> 00:09:23.200 blood is surprisingly common. I even read they 00:09:23.200 --> 00:09:25.139 put their thumb prints over their signatures 00:09:25.139 --> 00:09:28.399 and attach regular postage stamps to court documents. 00:09:29.440 --> 00:09:31.740 What is the mechanism behind a postage stamp? 00:09:31.879 --> 00:09:34.500 It all ties back to their distorted view of authority. 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:37.179 Some sovereign citizens believe that the postmaster 00:09:37.179 --> 00:09:39.700 general is actually the highest legitimate authority 00:09:39.700 --> 00:09:42.340 in the government. The postmaster general? Yeah, 00:09:42.399 --> 00:09:44.440 dating back to Benjamin Franklin and the Universal 00:09:44.440 --> 00:09:48.139 Postal Union. By affixing a stamp to a document 00:09:48.139 --> 00:09:50.840 and signing their name across it, they believe 00:09:50.840 --> 00:09:53.590 they're acting with postmaster authority. They 00:09:53.590 --> 00:09:55.909 think it effectively elevates them to the same 00:09:55.909 --> 00:09:58.610 pure level as a sovereign nation -state. It's 00:09:58.610 --> 00:10:00.990 just wild. And the sources also mention a concept 00:10:00.990 --> 00:10:03.950 called avoiding Joinder. What exactly is Joinder? 00:10:04.370 --> 00:10:07.669 Joinder, in actual law, refers to the joining 00:10:07.669 --> 00:10:10.769 of parties or claims in a lawsuit. But sovereign 00:10:10.769 --> 00:10:13.850 citizens have completely redefined it. To them, 00:10:14.049 --> 00:10:16.350 Joinder means accidentally entering into a verbal 00:10:16.350 --> 00:10:18.590 or written contract with the illegitimate corporate 00:10:18.590 --> 00:10:20.669 government. So they have to avoid it at all costs. 00:10:20.840 --> 00:10:24.120 Exactly. So if a judge asks, do you understand 00:10:24.120 --> 00:10:26.960 the charges against you? A sovereign citizen 00:10:26.960 --> 00:10:30.659 is explicitly trained to reply, I do not understand, 00:10:31.139 --> 00:10:34.700 I comprehend. Wait, really? Just changing the 00:10:34.700 --> 00:10:37.580 word? Yes, because they believe the word understand 00:10:37.580 --> 00:10:40.659 literally means you agree to stand under the 00:10:40.659 --> 00:10:42.980 court's jurisdiction. And if they're forced to 00:10:42.980 --> 00:10:45.580 sign something, like a traffic ticket, they write 00:10:45.580 --> 00:10:49.539 TDC next to their name. Yes. TDC. Under threat. 00:10:49.669 --> 00:10:52.850 duress and coercion that supposedly nullifies 00:10:52.850 --> 00:10:55.250 the contract. I also have to bring up David Wynn 00:10:55.250 --> 00:10:57.950 Miller. The sources highlight his invention of 00:10:57.950 --> 00:11:00.870 something called quantum grammar, or parsed syntax 00:11:00.870 --> 00:11:03.289 grammar. Oh boy, quantum grammar. He constructed 00:11:03.289 --> 00:11:06.110 a language that uses hyphens and colons in these 00:11:06.110 --> 00:11:08.450 mathematically rigid, almost incomprehensible 00:11:08.450 --> 00:11:11.289 ways. And gurus promise that using this specific 00:11:11.289 --> 00:11:13.610 grammar guarantees you will win any court case, 00:11:13.789 --> 00:11:16.090 because it's supposedly the only legally binding 00:11:16.090 --> 00:11:18.309 form of communication. That's the claim, anyway. 00:11:18.370 --> 00:11:20.450 But I have to ask, does typing your name with 00:11:20.450 --> 00:11:22.610 a colon and speaking in quantum grammar actually 00:11:22.610 --> 00:11:24.909 do anything in a courtroom, or is it just a massive 00:11:24.909 --> 00:11:28.029 of headache for the judge. It is far worse than 00:11:28.029 --> 00:11:30.509 a headache. In fact, if we connect this to the 00:11:30.509 --> 00:11:34.029 bigger picture, it is a severe targeted attack 00:11:34.029 --> 00:11:36.690 on the judicial system. It's what legal scholars 00:11:36.690 --> 00:11:39.250 call paper terrorism. Paper terrorism. Yeah. 00:11:39.570 --> 00:11:41.870 Think of it like a distributed denial of service, 00:11:42.169 --> 00:11:45.110 a DDoS attack on a computer network. A hacker 00:11:45.110 --> 00:11:46.769 doesn't need to break into the server to take 00:11:46.769 --> 00:11:49.809 it offline. They just flood it with so much garbage 00:11:49.809 --> 00:11:53.450 traffic that the system crashes. Ah, I see. Sovereign 00:11:53.450 --> 00:11:55.769 citizens do the exact same thing to the courts. 00:11:56.070 --> 00:11:58.370 Because their arguments have no legal basis, 00:11:58.710 --> 00:12:01.909 they resort to burying clerks and judges in hundreds, 00:12:01.950 --> 00:12:05.509 sometimes thousands, of pages of incomprehensible, 00:12:05.809 --> 00:12:08.490 bogus documents. And it's not just defense. The 00:12:08.490 --> 00:12:10.789 sources show they go on the offensive by filing 00:12:10.789 --> 00:12:13.049 false lends. Explain how that works, because 00:12:13.049 --> 00:12:14.970 that seems like it actually really hurts innocent 00:12:14.970 --> 00:12:17.769 people. It's devastating. A lien is a legal claim 00:12:17.769 --> 00:12:20.029 on an asset, usually used when someone owes a 00:12:20.029 --> 00:12:23.519 debt. citizens will file false multimillion dollar 00:12:23.519 --> 00:12:25.440 lends against the personal properties of judges, 00:12:25.820 --> 00:12:27.879 police officers, or even a neighbor they have 00:12:27.879 --> 00:12:30.110 a petty dispute with. So if a police officer 00:12:30.110 --> 00:12:32.029 gives a sovereign citizen a speeding ticket, 00:12:32.509 --> 00:12:34.929 that citizen might file a fake five million dollar 00:12:34.929 --> 00:12:37.610 lien against the officer's house. Exactly. And 00:12:37.610 --> 00:12:40.529 the problem is county clerk offices historically 00:12:40.529 --> 00:12:43.029 just accepted filings without really verifying 00:12:43.029 --> 00:12:45.710 them. That false lien creates a cloud on the 00:12:45.710 --> 00:12:48.269 property title. Oh, no. Yeah. The police officers 00:12:48.269 --> 00:12:50.529 suddenly can't refinance their home. They can't 00:12:50.529 --> 00:12:52.370 sell their house. Their credit is ruined. And 00:12:52.370 --> 00:12:54.590 it takes immense amounts of time and legal fees 00:12:54.590 --> 00:12:57.470 to clear up a completely fictitious debt. That 00:12:57.470 --> 00:13:00.340 is inferior. Has the legal system figured out 00:13:00.340 --> 00:13:02.580 a way to fight back against this DDoS attack? 00:13:02.879 --> 00:13:05.259 The courts have had to adapt, yes. The turning 00:13:05.259 --> 00:13:08.679 point was a landmark 2012 Canadian case called 00:13:08.679 --> 00:13:12.080 Meads v. Meads. What happened there? A man was 00:13:12.080 --> 00:13:14.539 using these sovereign tactics in a divorce case. 00:13:14.980 --> 00:13:17.299 The judge, clearly exhausted by the movement, 00:13:17.480 --> 00:13:20.659 wrote a massive, incredibly detailed 150 -page 00:13:20.659 --> 00:13:23.919 ruling that exhaustively dismantled every single 00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:27.220 sovereign citizen argument. Wow, 150 pages. He 00:13:27.220 --> 00:13:30.580 grouped them all together under a new term, Organized 00:13:30.580 --> 00:13:34.279 Pseudolegal Commercial Arguments, or OPCA. He 00:13:34.279 --> 00:13:36.539 pointed out exactly what you suspected. These 00:13:36.539 --> 00:13:38.740 tactics literally never win in a court of law. 00:13:38.860 --> 00:13:42.029 They have a 0 % success rate. But he acknowledged 00:13:42.029 --> 00:13:44.730 their real danger is how effectively they stall 00:13:44.730 --> 00:13:47.190 courts and harass the public. Okay, so we've 00:13:47.190 --> 00:13:49.210 covered the what and the how, but who actually 00:13:49.210 --> 00:13:51.250 invented this stuff? Because you might assume 00:13:51.250 --> 00:13:53.389 a belief system this specific, this bizarre, 00:13:53.769 --> 00:13:56.909 would be confined to a tiny, isolated echo chamber. 00:13:57.110 --> 00:13:59.289 You'd think so, right? Yeah. But the sources 00:13:59.289 --> 00:14:02.049 trace the origins back to the early 1970s in 00:14:02.049 --> 00:14:04.710 the United States, starting with some very dark 00:14:04.710 --> 00:14:07.440 roots. far -right white supremacist and anti 00:14:07.440 --> 00:14:10.419 -Semitic groups. Specifically, an organization 00:14:10.419 --> 00:14:12.940 called the Posse Comitatus, founded by a man 00:14:12.940 --> 00:14:15.080 named William Pottergill. Yes, the roots are 00:14:15.080 --> 00:14:18.259 unmistakably tied to white supremacy. Posse Comitatus 00:14:18.259 --> 00:14:20.360 basically argued that the county sheriff was 00:14:20.360 --> 00:14:22.820 the only legitimate legal authority. They claimed 00:14:22.820 --> 00:14:25.220 that income taxes and debt -based currency were 00:14:25.220 --> 00:14:27.820 tools of a Jewish conspiracy. Just terrible stuff. 00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:31.080 And they used a warped interpretation of the 00:14:31.080 --> 00:14:33.820 14th Amendment to claim that white people were 00:14:33.820 --> 00:14:36.399 original quote unquote sovereign citizens with 00:14:36.399 --> 00:14:39.159 superior rights, while African -Americans were 00:14:39.159 --> 00:14:41.899 merely 14th Amendment corporate citizens subject 00:14:41.899 --> 00:14:44.500 to federal control. But here's the paradox that 00:14:44.500 --> 00:14:46.919 I really needed to explain. The sources show 00:14:46.919 --> 00:14:50.440 that by the 1990s and heavily into the 2000s, 00:14:50.620 --> 00:14:53.159 this ideology was adopted by African -American 00:14:53.159 --> 00:14:56.879 groups, specifically the Moorish sovereign citizens. 00:14:57.139 --> 00:15:00.240 Yes, that's a huge shift. Today, you see videos 00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:02.539 of Black Americans claiming to be indigenous 00:15:02.539 --> 00:15:05.759 Moors immune to U .S. law. How on earth does 00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:09.120 a 1970s white supremacist ideology end up being 00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:11.559 weaponized by the very minority groups that originally 00:15:11.559 --> 00:15:13.720 targeted it? That makes absolutely no sense. 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:16.480 It is a fascinating and disturbing paradox. What 00:15:16.480 --> 00:15:18.620 happened is that over the decades, the ideology 00:15:18.620 --> 00:15:21.039 was essentially longered. The explicit racial 00:15:21.039 --> 00:15:23.440 language and anti -Semitism of the Posse Comitatus 00:15:23.440 --> 00:15:25.860 were slowly stripped away by new gurus, leaving 00:15:25.860 --> 00:15:28.440 just the anti -government stuff. Exactly, leaving 00:15:28.440 --> 00:15:31.940 only the core anti -government, anti -tax mechanisms. 00:15:32.980 --> 00:15:35.240 The Moorish Sogrens took that anti -government 00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:38.159 toolkit and bolted it onto their own distinct 00:15:38.159 --> 00:15:41.720 mythology. Specifically, a misinterpretation 00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:45.159 of a 1786 Moroccan -American treaty of friendship. 00:15:45.320 --> 00:15:47.480 Oh, interesting. They claim this treaty grants 00:15:47.480 --> 00:15:50.179 them indigenous immunity from local laws. They 00:15:50.179 --> 00:15:53.879 often add L or Bay to their last names, issue 00:15:53.879 --> 00:15:56.720 their own passports, and claim the U .S. operates 00:15:56.720 --> 00:15:59.200 on their ancestral land. It's like an open source 00:15:59.200 --> 00:16:01.259 conspiracy theory. Someone built the original 00:16:01.259 --> 00:16:04.259 code in the 70s and now anyone can download the 00:16:04.259 --> 00:16:06.399 source code, delete the parts they don't like 00:16:06.399 --> 00:16:08.759 and adapt it to their own personal grievances. 00:16:08.899 --> 00:16:10.740 Open source conspiracy is the perfect way to 00:16:10.740 --> 00:16:12.600 describe it. And we've seen it merge with almost 00:16:12.600 --> 00:16:14.740 every major fringe movement. Recently, there 00:16:14.740 --> 00:16:17.460 has been a massive overlap with QAnon. Of course 00:16:17.460 --> 00:16:19.659 there is. You saw it during the COVID -19 pandemic 00:16:19.659 --> 00:16:22.860 with anti -vaxxers and anti -maskers using sovereign 00:16:22.860 --> 00:16:25.379 jargon to claim businesses couldn't legally force 00:16:25.379 --> 00:16:28.190 them to wear masks. You have groups calling themselves 00:16:28.190 --> 00:16:30.509 American state nationals holding seminars in 00:16:30.509 --> 00:16:33.490 hotel ballrooms across the country. And it isn't 00:16:33.490 --> 00:16:35.850 even confined to the United States anymore. The 00:16:35.850 --> 00:16:38.669 sources show this is a global export. Canada 00:16:38.669 --> 00:16:41.070 has the Freeman on the Land movement. Oh, yes. 00:16:41.190 --> 00:16:44.669 And they even birthed Rowana de Dulo, a QAnon 00:16:44.669 --> 00:16:46.909 figure who literally claims to be the queen of 00:16:46.909 --> 00:16:49.029 Canada and tells her followers they don't have 00:16:49.029 --> 00:16:50.990 to pay their utility bills. Which has ruined 00:16:50.990 --> 00:16:53.990 a lot of lives financially. I bet. Germany has 00:16:53.990 --> 00:16:56.070 the Reichsberger movement. who believe modern 00:16:56.070 --> 00:16:58.889 Germany is just a corporation created by the 00:16:58.889 --> 00:17:01.450 Allies after World War II, and they actually 00:17:01.450 --> 00:17:03.789 plotted an armed overthrow of the government. 00:17:04.089 --> 00:17:06.009 You've got sovereign movements popping up in 00:17:06.009 --> 00:17:08.490 Australia, the UK, the Netherlands, and even 00:17:08.490 --> 00:17:11.170 in places with incredibly strict laws, like Singapore. 00:17:11.529 --> 00:17:13.630 Why is this spreading everywhere? Well, if you 00:17:13.630 --> 00:17:15.990 track the explosions in the movement's popularity 00:17:15.990 --> 00:17:18.589 globally, they map perfectly onto periods of 00:17:18.589 --> 00:17:21.190 collective societal stress and economic downturns. 00:17:21.190 --> 00:17:23.910 That makes sense. The 1980s American farm crisis 00:17:23.910 --> 00:17:27.019 saw massive surge as desperate farmers looked 00:17:27.019 --> 00:17:29.440 for magical legal ways to save their land from 00:17:29.440 --> 00:17:32.339 bank foreclosures. The 2008 subprime mortgage 00:17:32.339 --> 00:17:35.140 crisis triggered a huge wave of new adherents 00:17:35.140 --> 00:17:38.190 trying to save their homes. And most recently, 00:17:38.410 --> 00:17:41.890 the COVID -19 pandemic, with its economic lockdowns 00:17:41.890 --> 00:17:45.009 and mandates, acted as a massive global catalyst. 00:17:45.470 --> 00:17:48.029 When people are facing eviction, crippling debt 00:17:48.029 --> 00:17:51.109 or unprecedented societal stress, vulnerability 00:17:51.109 --> 00:17:53.569 is universal. And when there is vulnerability, 00:17:54.109 --> 00:17:56.809 there are grifters. Let's talk about the consequences 00:17:56.809 --> 00:17:59.670 of buying into this open source conspiracy. Because 00:17:59.670 --> 00:18:02.269 the collision between this fantasy and the actual 00:18:02.269 --> 00:18:04.829 justice system is devastating. It really is. 00:18:04.910 --> 00:18:07.589 Let's be incredibly clear here. The sources emphasize 00:18:07.589 --> 00:18:10.490 that these tactics have a 100 % failure rate 00:18:10.490 --> 00:18:14.150 in court. Not a single sovereign citizen argument 00:18:14.150 --> 00:18:16.750 has ever been legally upheld. You have famous 00:18:16.750 --> 00:18:19.730 cases like the actor Wesley Snipes. Right, Wesley 00:18:19.730 --> 00:18:21.730 Snipes. He went to federal prison for three years 00:18:21.730 --> 00:18:24.089 for tax evasion because he used sovereign arguments 00:18:24.089 --> 00:18:26.710 claiming he He was a non -resident alien immune 00:18:26.710 --> 00:18:29.289 from taxes. And in much more tragic circumstances, 00:18:29.509 --> 00:18:31.809 Daryl Brooks, the man who drove his SUV into 00:18:31.809 --> 00:18:34.609 a Christmas parade in Waukesha, tried to use 00:18:34.609 --> 00:18:36.970 a sovereign citizen defense during his murder 00:18:36.970 --> 00:18:39.569 trial. That was incredibly hard to watch. It 00:18:39.569 --> 00:18:42.430 was. He constantly interrupted the judge, claimed 00:18:42.430 --> 00:18:44.730 he was a sovereign entity, and demanded to know 00:18:44.730 --> 00:18:46.930 if the court had subject matter jurisdiction. 00:18:47.710 --> 00:18:50.329 The judge explicitly shut it down, calling the 00:18:50.329 --> 00:18:52.910 legal theories absolute nonsense that had no 00:18:52.910 --> 00:18:55.509 place in reality. He was sentenced to life without 00:18:55.509 --> 00:18:58.769 parole. But despite the 100 % failure rate, the 00:18:58.769 --> 00:19:02.220 grifter economy thrives. The sources mentioned 00:19:02.220 --> 00:19:04.920 gurus like Winston Shroud and Heather Ann Tucci 00:19:04.920 --> 00:19:07.960 -Jarroff. They sell fake promissory notes, how 00:19:07.960 --> 00:19:10.220 -to manuals, and standard document templates 00:19:10.220 --> 00:19:12.660 to vulnerable followers. It's a huge business. 00:19:12.920 --> 00:19:15.180 Shroud actually mailed a fake bill of exchange 00:19:15.180 --> 00:19:18.460 for one quadrillion dollars to a bank. And Tucci 00:19:18.460 --> 00:19:20.480 -Jarroff convinced people she had legally foreclosed 00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:22.680 on all world governments and banks. And where 00:19:22.680 --> 00:19:25.680 are they now? Federal prison. Both of them. Yeah. 00:19:26.119 --> 00:19:28.619 So... I have to ask, if the gurus teaching this 00:19:28.619 --> 00:19:30.880 stuff keep going to federal prison, why do people 00:19:30.880 --> 00:19:32.720 keep buying into it? It's like buying a parachute 00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:34.660 from a guy who just face -blended into the pavement. 00:19:34.920 --> 00:19:38.359 Because desperation overrides logic. The gurus 00:19:38.359 --> 00:19:41.079 are selling highly sophisticated legal snake 00:19:41.079 --> 00:19:44.980 oil. They use complex, intimidating jargon that 00:19:44.980 --> 00:19:48.099 sounds just real enough to a lay person who doesn't 00:19:48.099 --> 00:19:50.460 understand the intricacies of the law. So they 00:19:50.460 --> 00:19:52.779 sound smart to someone who's panicked. Exactly. 00:19:53.180 --> 00:19:55.619 They promise a magic bullet to make your problems 00:19:55.619 --> 00:19:58.599 disappear. And the tragic irony is profound. 00:19:59.180 --> 00:20:01.740 Everyday people turn to these theories to free 00:20:01.740 --> 00:20:03.900 themselves from what they perceive as government 00:20:03.900 --> 00:20:06.529 oppression. or financial ruin. But it backfires. 00:20:06.750 --> 00:20:09.269 Horribly. By following this advice, by stopping 00:20:09.269 --> 00:20:11.529 their tax payments, driving with fake plates 00:20:11.529 --> 00:20:14.369 and filing bogus documents, they triggered the 00:20:14.369 --> 00:20:16.910 exact ruin they were trying to avoid. They lose 00:20:16.910 --> 00:20:19.430 their homes to real foreclosures, they alienate 00:20:19.430 --> 00:20:22.009 their families, and they end up in real physical 00:20:22.009 --> 00:20:24.750 prisons. And we cannot ignore the incredibly 00:20:24.750 --> 00:20:27.450 dark, violent side of this movement. The FBI 00:20:27.450 --> 00:20:30.390 actually classifies sovereign citizen extremists 00:20:30.390 --> 00:20:33.009 as domestic terrorists. That's a very important 00:20:33.009 --> 00:20:35.309 point. Terry Nichols, one of the perpetrators 00:20:35.309 --> 00:20:38.410 of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, subscribed 00:20:38.410 --> 00:20:41.369 to sovereign citizen ideology. There was the 00:20:41.369 --> 00:20:44.009 81 -day armed standoff with the Montana Freeman 00:20:44.009 --> 00:20:48.170 in 1996, and the 2016 targeted shootings of police 00:20:48.170 --> 00:20:50.710 officers in Baton Rouge. It's terrifying. When 00:20:50.710 --> 00:20:52.769 a person truly believes they are completely immune 00:20:52.769 --> 00:20:55.039 from the law, and that law enforcement officers 00:20:55.039 --> 00:20:58.000 are just illegitimate, armed agents of a hostile 00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:01.240 corporation, a simple traffic stop can escalate 00:21:01.240 --> 00:21:03.920 into deadly violence in seconds. Which is why 00:21:03.920 --> 00:21:06.079 law enforcement agencies around the world now 00:21:06.079 --> 00:21:08.500 have to actively train their officers on how 00:21:08.500 --> 00:21:11.079 to identify the specific language and documents 00:21:11.079 --> 00:21:13.180 of sovereign citizens. They need special training 00:21:13.180 --> 00:21:15.380 for this now. Oh, absolutely. They have to learn 00:21:15.380 --> 00:21:18.119 de -escalation tactics specifically for OPCA 00:21:18.119 --> 00:21:20.400 litigants because what starts as a dispute over 00:21:20.400 --> 00:21:22.700 a piece of cardboard on a license plate can turn 00:21:22.700 --> 00:21:25.029 into a life or death situation if the individual 00:21:25.029 --> 00:21:27.150 believes they have a constitutional right to 00:21:27.150 --> 00:21:29.170 forcefully defend their sovereignty against an 00:21:29.170 --> 00:21:31.369 illegal corporate agent. So what does this all 00:21:31.369 --> 00:21:35.250 mean for you listening right now? Well the next 00:21:35.250 --> 00:21:38.109 time you're scrolling online and you see a viral 00:21:38.109 --> 00:21:40.630 video of someone arguing with a police officer 00:21:40.630 --> 00:21:43.269 about Joyner or demanding speed to the local 00:21:43.269 --> 00:21:46.579 county sheriff or insisting they aren't driving, 00:21:46.740 --> 00:21:48.940 they are traveling. You'll know exactly what's 00:21:48.940 --> 00:21:51.599 going on. Exactly. You won't just see a confusing 00:21:51.599 --> 00:21:54.619 funny argument. You will understand the intricate 00:21:54.619 --> 00:21:57.779 alternate reality that person is living in. You'll 00:21:57.779 --> 00:22:00.599 understand the corporate government myth, the 00:22:00.599 --> 00:22:03.480 straw man, the red ink, the paper terrorism, 00:22:03.660 --> 00:22:06.220 and the tragic cycle of grift and desperation 00:22:06.220 --> 00:22:09.690 that put them in that car. This raises an important 00:22:09.690 --> 00:22:11.269 question and it's something I really want to 00:22:11.269 --> 00:22:13.410 leave you to ponder long after we finish today. 00:22:13.490 --> 00:22:16.130 It's easy to dismiss these individuals as internet 00:22:16.130 --> 00:22:19.250 punchlines. But what if the global rise of the 00:22:19.250 --> 00:22:21.750 sovereign citizen movement is actually a symptom 00:22:21.750 --> 00:22:24.750 of a much deeper mainstream crisis of trust? 00:22:24.940 --> 00:22:28.180 If the traditional social contracts, things like 00:22:28.180 --> 00:22:31.039 fair wages, affordable housing, a tax code that 00:22:31.039 --> 00:22:33.160 makes sense, and accessible justice continue 00:22:33.160 --> 00:22:35.559 to feel fundamentally broken to everyday people, 00:22:36.119 --> 00:22:38.619 will we see even more radical widespread attempts 00:22:38.619 --> 00:22:41.539 by ordinary citizens to individually opt out 00:22:41.539 --> 00:22:44.119 of society entirely? It really makes you wonder 00:22:44.119 --> 00:22:46.539 how many people are out there right now feeling 00:22:46.539 --> 00:22:48.700 so overwhelmed by the system that they are desperately 00:22:48.700 --> 00:22:50.579 searching for the right cheat code to a game 00:22:50.579 --> 00:22:52.710 they feel they are losing. Thank you so much 00:22:52.710 --> 00:22:54.509 for joining us on this deep dive into the sovereign 00:22:54.509 --> 00:22:56.410 citizen movement. Keep questioning the world 00:22:56.410 --> 00:22:57.849 around you, and we'll see you next time.