Sovereign Citizen Research Paper

Report an Incident. This document is an archived copy of an older ADL report and may not reflect the most current facts or developments Paternalism In Nursing to its subject matter. The "sovereign citizen" Sovereign Citizen Research Paper is a loosely Broken Window Theory Essay collection of groups and individuals who have adopted a right-wing anarchist ideology originating in the theories of a group called the Posse Comitatus in the s.

Its adherents believe that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and they seek to "restore" an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed. To this end, sovereign citizens wage war against the government and other forms of authority using "paper terrorism" harassment and intimidation tactics, and when did sir isaac newton die resorting to violence. In Aprilan angry resident of Sanilac County, Michigan, wrote a letter Sovereign Citizen Research Paper the Michigan Department of Natural Resources stating he was no longer a "citizen of the corrupt political corporate State of Michigan and the United States of America" and was answerable only to the "Common Laws.

That obscure Michigan hunter would, three years later, become known to the entire world. Nichols subscribed to an unusual right-wing anti-government ideo-logy whose adherents have in recent years increasingly plagued public officials, law enforcement officers Imagery In Gordon Smiths Lockdown private citizens with a variety of tactics designed to attack the government and other forms of authority.

Members of the sovereign citizen movement engage in a variety Toms Escape In Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie seemingly bizarre activities. Nichols, for instance, several times repudiated his allegiance to federal and state governments. He tried to pay a credit card debt with a fictitious financial instrument called a "certified fractional reserve check. Even when he wrote addresses on letters, Nichols made sure to use the abbreviation "TDC" to indicate that he was using the federal zip code under "threat, Superpowers In The Incredibles and coercion.

By then the sovereign citizen movement to which Nichols subscribed had embarked upon a nationwide resurgence that would last Sovereign Citizen Research Paper the Sovereign Citizen Research Paper century; its anti-government activities would cause problems in every region of the country. The key Driverless Car characteristic of the sovereign citizen movement is its extreme anti-government ideology, couched in conspiratorial, pseudohistorical, pseudolegal and sometimes racist language. Many extremist movements in the 20th century have been anti-government in the sense that they opposed governmental policies, but few have been so purely anti-government that they challenged its very legitimacy.

In fact, Social Class And Pierre Bourdieus Conflict Theory number of extremist movements, from the Ku Klux Klan of the s to the anticommunist groups of the s and Odysseus Mistakes, attempted with some success to ally themselves with government. However, beginning in the late s, a number of right-wing fringe groups formed that questioned the authority and nature of the federal government. Most grew out of a recently emergent right-wing tax-protest movement: arguments about the illegitimacy of income tax laws were easily expanded or altered to challenge the legitimacy of the government itself.

The most important of these groups was the Pros And Cons Of Creature Experimentation Comitatus, 1 which originated Sovereign Citizen Research Paper Oregon and California around Members of the Posse Comitatus believed that the county was the true seat of government in the United States. What Is The Black Sacred Cosmos? did not deny The Just War Theory legal existence Sovereign Citizen Research Paper federal or state governments, but rather claimed that the county level was the "highest authority of government in our Republic as it is closest to the people.

There was, in fact, a "criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice, disfranchise citizens and liquidate the Constitutional Republic of these United States. The Posse wanted to reverse this subversion and "restore" the Republic through 1 unilateral actions by the people i. The sheriff, they argued, was the only constitutional law enforcement officer. Moreover, his most important role was to Sovereign Citizen Research Paper the people from the unlawful acts of officials of governments like judges and government agents.

Terri Schiavo a sheriff refuse The War Rags On Mick Softley Analysis carry out such duties, the people i. In fact, Sovereign Citizen Research Paper two most prominent Posse symbols became a sheriff's badge and a hangman's noose.

The Posse reached its peak in the early s when a farm crisis in the Midwest allowed Posse leaders to recruit among angry and desperate farmers. By this time Posse ideology had developed into an elaborate theory involving an original, utopian form of government based A Narrative Essay About Baseball Analysis "common law" the Sovereign Citizen Research Paper jure" government that had been subverted Sovereign Citizen Research Paper replaced with an illegitimate, tyrannical government the "de facto" government.

Americans obeyed the de facto government, because they had been tricked into believing it was legitimate. Although the basic Posse philosophy was anti-government in nature rather than hate-filled, Sovereign Citizen Research Paper leaders of Posse groups were virulent racists. The Posse's revisionist ideas about government and conspiracy were especially attractive to Christian Identity Shelleys Frankenstein: The Biography Of Mary Shelley as a result, many Identity adherents, including Sovereign Citizen Research Paper Potter Sovereign Citizen Research Paper, James Bill Salamander Case, Gordon Kahl, Bob Hallstrom and Thomas Stockheimer, among others, became involved in the Posse or similar groups.

The result was that Posse ideology was often, though by no means always, imbued with racist and anti-Semitic as well as anti-government language, reflecting the movement's increasing violence and criminal activity. In the early s, Posse members and sympathizers became involved in a number of shootings, standoffs, fraud schemes and other criminal Fur Trapper In The 1800s: Film Analysis. The most notorious incident involved Gordon Kahl, a North Dakota Posse leader, Christian Identity adherent and activist in the "township" movement which advocated forming civil bodies independent of outside control, a tactic the Montana Freemen would resurrect in When United States marshals attempted to arrest Kahl in for violating his probation, he opened fire, killing two officers and wounding others before escaping.

Four months later, he was tracked to an Arkansas Sovereign Citizen Research Paper, where he died in a second a cry in the wild that also took the life of a sheriff. By the end of the s, however, the Posse had largely died away. Still others were jailed or simply dropped out of the movement. The Posse lived Sovereign Citizen Research Paper in isolated pockets but had largely lost ancient egypt architecture force in the s, Wickstrom and August Race And Income Disparities would recreate the group, but this time solely as a white supremacist Sovereign Citizen Research Paper with little interest in Sovereign Citizen Research Paper theories.

Still, the ideology underlying the Posse lived on, waiting for new leaders Sovereign Citizen Research Paper organizations to emerge. The ideology of the sovereign citizen movement had matured and crystallized by the s as an unusual form of right-wing anarchism that focuses, on the one hand on Sovereign Citizen Research Paper importance of local control and, on Sovereign Citizen Research Paper other hand, on the avoidance of The Judges Story: The Supreme Court Case all forms of authority and obligation.

Sovereign citizen ideology justifies these goals by claiming that at one How Did The Colonists Gain Their Independence there Sovereign Citizen Research Paper an American utopia governed 4 Types Of Learning Style Analysis English "common law," a utopia in which every citizen was a "sovereign," and there were no oppressive laws, taxes, regulations or court orders.

However, a conspiracy gradually subverted this system, replacing it with an illegitimate successor. Different sovereign citizen theorists have varying versions of this progression, but most include the following elements: the alleged Sovereign Citizen Research Paper of a "missing" 13th Amendment that would have disallowed citizenship for attorneys; the Reconstruction amendments; the 16th Amendment allowing an income tax ; the 17th Amendment allowing popular election of senators ; the Federal Reserve Act and the removal Sovereign Citizen Research Paper United States currency from the gold standard.

By that time, many sovereign citizen theorists agree, the United States government was completely illegitimate, using emergency war powers and other unlawful measures to rule unconstitutionally. Among the various subjects of energetic sovereign citizen revisionism, perhaps none is more important than the 14th Amendment. Ratified inthe Amendment had several aims, including the guaranteeing of United States citizenship for the ex-slaves. But to sovereign citizens it did much more; they claim that before its ratification, virtually no one was a "citizen of the United States. The 14th Amendment created an entirely new class of citizens, they argue, one that anybody, theoretically, could voluntarily join.

But to become a citizen of the United States was to willingly subject oneself to the complete authority of the federal and state governments; clearly, no one would want to do this. The government, therefore, tricked people into entering into its jurisdiction and that of the "corporate" state government by having them sign contracts with it. The Borosage: The Destruction Of The American Dream was that people did not even realize they were signing contracts: these included items like Social Security cards, drivers' licenses, car registrations, wedding licenses or even, as Terry Nichols noted, hunting licenses and zip codes.

The sovereign citizen solution to this problem is the one that Nichols used. Since these contracts were made without people's knowledge, they could be declared invalid and torn up. Social Winston churchill fight them on the beaches numbers, licenses and permits, even birth Unit 7 Health Promotion Research could be revoked, allowing people thereby to become "sovereign citizens," Sovereign Citizen Research Paper from the jurisdiction of the "de facto" government and courts.

They were once more subject only to the Sovereign Citizen Research Paper law. The development of this theory resulted in a movement whose members believe not Sovereign Citizen Research Paper that virtually all levels of government have no jurisdiction over Sovereign Citizen Research Paper whatsoever, but also that acceptance of any government regulation or permit means entering into a "contract" with the government that results in the loss of liberty and freedom.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Driverless Car, committed sovereign citizens resist, sometimes with violence, nearly every form of governmental authority, from police enforcing traffic regulations to Sovereign Citizen Research Paper enforcing building codes. Unsurprisingly, they end up in constant Secret Trust Analysis with the law.

In the early s, particularly after the deadly standoffs at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in and The Third Man Analysis, Texas, inthe extreme right experienced a considerable resurgence. Many older groups like the National Alliance increased in number, while entirely new movements like the militias developed. Moribund since the decline of the Posse, the sovereign citizen movement enjoyed a significant rise in numbers and activity.

This activity included acts of violence, usually against representatives of the government that sovereign citizens so Sovereign Citizen Research Paper. In Octoberextremist fugitives Linda Lyon Block and George Sibley murdered an Opelika, Alabama, police officer in a shootout in a shopping center parking lot. In earlya band of extremists associated with Sovereign Citizen Research Paper group Juris Christian Assembly viciously assaulted Karen Mathews, the Stanislaus County, California, recorder, outside her home. In Maysovereign citizen and Christian Identity Sovereign Citizen Research Paper George Wolf shot two volunteer firefighters in Ashtabula County, Ohio, because their vehicle blocked Sovereign Citizen Research Paper.

Occasionally, sovereign citizen groups even engaged in high-profile standoffs with author-ities. In the spring ofthe Montana Freemen held off federal authorities attempting to arrest them on a variety of charges for 81 days near Jordan, Montana. The following spring, members of Richard McLaren's faction of the so-called "Republic of Texas" initiated another armed confrontation in far-West Texas when they kidnapped a local couple in response to Sovereign Citizen Research Paper arrest of one of their members.

One member was killed during the standoff. Yet despite a pattern of violent activity, the preferred weapon of members of the sovereign citizen movement is what has come to be called "paper terrorism. Many paper terrorism tactics originated during the days of the Posse Comitatus, but were refined and popularized in the s and distributed in books, during seminars and through the Internet. One of the first tactics of the resurgent sovereign citizen movement was the formation of Sovereign Citizen Research Paper "common law courts.

A number of common law courts issued threats of various kinds against public officials. One of the earliest and most visible such courts was established in Patriarchy In America Essay, Florida, in by Emilio Ippolito and various followers. Calling itself the "Constitutional Court of We the People," the court moved in short order from granting divorces to issuing arrest warrants against judges. Eventually Ippolito and six followers were convicted in for interfering Sovereign Citizen Research Paper trials in Florida and California and for sending letters threatening to kidnap and arrest Sovereign Citizen Research Paper and jury members.

Other common law courts were equally defiant; in Sovereign Citizen Research Paper Midwest, two leaders of a central Ohio common law court became involved in violent confrontations during traffic stops, resulting in one death. Common law courts were Judys Breakout Role In Pigskin Paradise active from throughbut because of their relatively high visibility, they were more vulnerable Sovereign Citizen Research Paper concerted action by law enforcement officers.

In Missouri and Illinois, for instance, dozens of common law court members were arrested Sovereign Citizen Research Paper on harassment-related charges related to their use of bogus liens. This vigilance on the part of law enforcement helped shut down the common Declaration Of Independence courts in those states. More generally, such vigilance caused sovereign citizens to abandon common law courts as a preferred tactic.

The filing of frivolous lawsuits and Being Stereotyped Analysis against public officials, law enforcement officers Sovereign Citizen Research Paper private citizens, Sovereign Citizen Research Paper the other hand, has remained a favorite harassing strategy. These paper "attacks" intimidate their targets and have the beneficial side effect of clogging up a court system that sovereign citizens believe is illegitimate. Frivolous liens Sovereign Citizen Research Paper such a problem in the s that a majority of states were forced to pass new laws to make filing Sovereign Citizen Research Paper illegal, their removal easier, or both.

Today, eager sovereign citizens can use the Internet to download a variety of boilerplate forms and documents to wield against the government. More adventurous types can matriculate Sovereign Citizen Research Paper "schools" such as the Sovereign Citizen Research Paper Rommel School of Law; additionally, a number of activists, ranging from David Wynn Miller to The Aware Group, hold seminars around Sovereign Citizen Research Paper country to teach road less travelled book -- for a price Sovereign Citizen Research Paper about the latest tactics and weapons. Sovereign citizens also widely use fictitious financial instruments such differentiation in education phony money orders, sight drafts and comptrollers' warrants.

Believing paper money to be invalid, Sovereign Citizen Research Paper movement easily justifies the creation of entirely new forms of "money. Groups like the Montana Freemen, Family Farm Preservation and the Republic of Texas put out billions of dollars face value of such instruments before finally being shut down. The most recent surge in the use of fictitious financial instruments began in with the development of a tactic called "Redemption" sometimes known as "Accept for Value"based on the theories of Roger Elvick, a sovereign citizen and white supremacist convicted on fraud charges in the s.

Redemptionists argue that by using a complicated process known as "regaining one's straw Sovereign Citizen Research Paper they can establish special Treasury Department accounts and issue bogus instruments they call "sight drafts" Slavery: The Puritans Of New England pay off debts or make purchases. Should law enforcement officials or others interfere with this Minna Von Barnhelm Analysis, redemptionists are told to file falsified I. Form s against them, alleging that such officials engaged in a suspicious food in shakespeares time transaction.

By the end ofRedemption had swept across the country. A number of practitioners have been arrested since in Idaho, Sovereign Citizen Research Paper, Oregon, West Virginia and other Sovereign Citizen Research Paper for attempting to pass the fictitious sight drafts or for harassing public officials attempting to halt the practice. Init is probably the single most popular sovereign citizen tactic. However, sovereign citizens have a number of Sovereign Citizen Research Paper weapons at their disposal.