“Am I Being Detained?”: Sovereign Citizens and the Battle Against Reality
For the past few weeks I’ve been enthralled by the sovereign citizen movement. They’re a delight, a confection, a box of bonbons filled with the finest and rarest flavors of conspiratorial lunacy. My favorite flavor, the one I want to examine in depth, is sovereigns’ dogged insistence on using methods that fail.
And fail.
And fail.
Sovereigns end up in court a lot. They turn routine traffic stops into six-officer pile-ons and tasings. One-day court hearings turn into years-long fiascoes with multiple stints in jail for contempt. Every contact with authority, no matter how minor, becomes a chance to assert their principles and their unique legal theories.
And they routinely, inevitably fail in court, are found guilty, and go out to do it all over again.
Among themselves, they spin the facts. Every case that hasn’t reached an absolute, unappealable conclusion is a future win. The few cases sovereigns have managed to win on the merits–despite, not because of, their legal theories–are proof that their theories are correct. Resounding failures are proof of government corruption, and allow the sovereign citizen to make additional charges against the state. But when it comes down to it, all they get are broken car windows. So, so many broken car windows.
They have their horrifying side. The violent end of the movement is responsible for a staggering number of police deaths, and the Southern Poverty Law Center lists sovereign citizens as one of the most dangerous groups in America. Those aren’t the ones I’m interested in. The sovereigns I want to analyze are the “Am I being detained?” crowd, the everyday drooling idiots getting their windows smashed on highways and byways across the world.
Explaining what sovereign citizens believe is daunting. There are multiple flavors of sovereign citizens, and they trade ideas freely without ever quite turning their beliefs into a coherent whole. Rather than diving in, I’m going to start by giving you a sampler.
“I overstand everything, I don’t understand anything.”
One of the weirdest things about this video is that that’s not actually drunken nonsense. In sovereign-citizen word magic, to understand is to stand under–that is, to consent to another’s authority. Statutes aren’t binding unless a person consents, so when a police officer or court official asks you whether you understand something, they’re asking you to consent to their authority. No consent, no authority. The guy’s so drunk that he passed out in his car at a light, but he still remembers not to fall for the cops’ sneaky linguistic tricks.
If you burst out weeping when a cop cuts your purse strap, you’re not going to make it as a sovereign citizen.
Calling the police “good sir” doesn’t soften them up much. Neither does telling them you’re the one in control. And strangely, they don’t think they need your consent to arrest you.
Coming in the numinous and evanescent future: Analysis.
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https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012abqb571.html
A nice dossier on their antics
A timeless classic. Other Canadian courts have started using the judge’s takedown of a sovereign citizen as a training tool.
My thoughts on sovereign citizens:
1. Black people doing this would be dead.
2. Misdemeanours are still a crime.
3. Just show them your fucking license!
4. Just pay the fine already, you dimwits!
5. The German version of those people are called ‘Reichsbürger’ and they are as racist as that sounds.
6. This is cargo cult law at its finest. To them legal jargon is just gibberish. So they make up gibberish of their own.
7. You can’t choose which laws apply to you and which not.
Also, the articles of confederation were replaced by the constitution in 1789, FFS.
At least they’re not going all the way back to the Magna Carta…?
There are loads of black people doing it. There’s even a special group for African-Americans, the “Moorish Science Temple.” My unscientific impression is that black sovereigns have a worse time than whites at traffic stops, but the scary violent cop-killing wing of the movement is heavily white.
For the rest of it, yes. Amen.
Exactly. Black people wouldn’t dare do this. I’m not in the least bit surprised that it’s 99% stupid white people who are up to this fuckery.
Black people are a significant part of the movement. They’re disproportionately represented in videos of sovereign citizens–which could be because white people like laughing at black people, but that still means there are black sovereigns out there to be videoed. Some of the more prominent sovereign shysters are black. And there’s an entire all-black wing, the Moorish Science Temple, that started in the 30’s as a sort of historical-revisionist black pride movement and recently absorbed sovereign ideas. The Chicago branch is particularly notorious for paper terrorism.
Being a sovereign guru requires dedication and a certain level of personality disorder, but the rank and file are drawn from people who have constant trouble with money and/or the law. That’s the working class–all of it. And since black people are under more systemic pressure, they have more reason to look for a way out of the system.
By the same rule, there are also Latin@ sovereigns. No Asian or Middle Eastern sovereigns that I’ve found so far, possibly because of how the working class is segmented; the sovereign message hasn’t had a chance to jump between groups. There are people who claim to be Native American, Hawaiian, or First Nations sovereigns, but most of them are white people trying to suck up some native cred. (In Canada there’s a whole sovereign “tribe” of white First Nations people trying to claim legitimacy, and infinitely complicating the lives of the real tribe by the same name.)
TL;DR The sovereign movement is racially diverse and appears to have a disproportionate number of black people, despite the rougher treatment black people get when they try sovereign tricks.
You sound real ignorant. I wasnt going to say anything but I felt the need to shut your ignorant ass up. Im tired on you hating ass racist pukes continuing to degrade black people. The ones with the rich skin… Idk how U even fixed your small mind to give a response that has little to do with the subject. Its more whites trying to become sovergin then any race.
You ask Yourself this one question….. What happens when you go out in the sun or a long time? U burn..
What did she say that was racist? She observed that Black people trying the same thing would get a far more severe response from the police. How is that anti-Black?
And what does sunburn have to do with any of it?
I suspect my narcissistic mother is well on a path to becoming one of these people. They love to claim persecution, but they basically turn every interaction into a standoff by refusing to obey even the simplest of laws. Sadly, they can’t extend their endless self-pity to the long line of people who are actually killed by police for crimes like “being black and holding an object in your hands” in those cases, my mother would always side with the police, saying it was reasonable of them to fear for their lives. But during and after the standoff in Oregon, it was another story. When they were arrested, suddenly she could be bothered to learn about the injustices of out prison system.
Some of the techniques of repeating the same nonsensical statement over and over again remind me of my ex. “What car? I don’t see any cars.” It’s like gaslighting 101. Others of them leave me scratching my head: What do they expect to happen when they threaten to get the police officers into trouble for doing their jobs? Finally, as someone who has never been in trouble with the law, I would be terrified of talking to the police like that, especially once it gets to the point of getting out of the car and getting handcuffed. If they’re that brave, it seems they could use their courage for something more productive.
A lot of them seem like people who have had way too many run-ins with the police and are looking for a way to turn the tables. The fact that it’s counterproductive doesn’t occur to them, which is… amazing. There’s a whole web of gurus assuring people that these techniques work (eventually), but you’d think that no matter how much encouragement your guru gives you and how many YouTube videos you watch, someday you’d figure out that you’re looking at spending months and months in jail because you don’t want to renew your car registration.
They must be getting off on the drama and attention to some degree.
Someone on a religion website (probably Patheos) coined the term “Martyrbating” to refer to Evangelicals who constantly go on about how oppressed they are in modern times, in America, which typically boils down to “sometimes people don’t want to hear about my personal religion” or “taxpayers no longer want to support Christian religious practices” but also tie it into the actual oppression Christians face in countries where they are a religious minority and are actually persecuted. I suspect that type of mindset strongly appeals to narcissistic personalities.
“Martyrbating”, best coined designation sofar, I settled for
‘martyrdom by narcissistic proxy’, but yours was short and far more profound.
I used to be attracted to Sovereign Citizen concepts. Earning my juris doctor fixed that right up!
SC sounds like a wonderfully anarcho-libertarian concept until you try to figure out how that plays out in practice. On a fundamental level, societies have to organize themselves, and the most we can reasonably ask is that they be rational in the laws they make. Sometimes what matters most is that we’re all driving on the same side of the road and it doesn’t really make a difference which side that is as long as we all pick one. This requires a naked exercise of arbitrary power that offends the sovereigns; they should learn to comfort themselves that it is merely necessary.
Could you share what you found attractive about SC concepts? It would be interesting to hear your side, since it’s so hard to get a straight answer from a current believer.
I agree with you re: anarchist fantasies. True anarchy is a wonderful utopian concept that, like all light and sparkly things, gets gnashed up as a snack by the first flesh-and-blood animal it meets. Humans are hierarchical. We can’t escape it. Trying to escape it takes vast energy and time, as any commune knows; it’s a constant battle to rein in everyone’s impulse to form cliques and grab for power. Most communes fall apart almost immediately, and the few that survive are what 70’s communards called “middle-class” communes–places where there are set rules and effective means of enforcement. You know, like in an orderly civil society.
Hello, there. This is the first time I’ve posted on your blog. I’ve followed your work on estranged parents’ forums (all offering excellent and thoughtful analysis) and enjoyed it. However, the title of this particular post gets under my skin a bit.
First, though, I want to make one thing clear: “sovereign citizens” are very silly people. Many of them are just overprivileged white people with a bad case of the Dunning-Krugers, and others have clear mental health issues.
That being said, every reliable resource I have found regarding civil rights and talking to the police has stated that if the police want to speak to you, should (a) ask if you’re free to go, (b) leave immediately if they say that you are, and (c) ask if you’re being detained — and why — if they tell you that you aren’t. It’s wise to do these things because cops don’t always follow the law, because everyone is a potential criminal, and because they certainly are not known for having respect for people’s rights.
Let’s not conflate people validly exercising their constitutional rights with whatever it is “sovereign citizens” are doing.
Welcome!
The difference between normal exercise of constitutional rights and sovereign citizens is that they deploy that script in situations like, say, being pulled over, in which (a) obviously you’re not free to go, (b) leaving without permission will get you into a world of trouble, and (c) yes, you are being detained. It’s a traffic stop.
The sovereign script is to immediately ask whether they’re free to go, then ask whether they’re being detained, and when the cop say yes, to declare that detainment = arrest and then flip the fuck out. Bonus points for asking over and over again whether you’re being detained, regardless of how often the officer answers. That’s why at least one forum for discussing sovereign citizens is called, “Am I Being Detained?” I haven’t watched videos of legitimate activists, protesters, and general civil rights-flexing types in action, admittedly, but asking “Am I being detained?” over and over after being told yes is a classic sovereign citizen/cop-baiter move.
*facepalm* if the answer to “am I being detained?” is yes, the next words out of your mouth should be “I am invoking my right to an attorney, and I am invoking my right to remain silent.” And then shut up!
Do not keep arguing! Arguing is going to a) give the cop ammunition to use against you in court, and in some cases b) agitate and provoke the cop, thus increasing the risk that you’ll end up on the receiving end of police brutality. “Flipping out” on a cop is a dumb thing to do!
This is drilled into the heads of activists and protesters and basically anyone who is serious about making real changes and taking a stand against authoritarianism. The fact that they are acting like this just demonstrates that they are deeply unserious, goofy people who don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.
(And yes of course you shouldn’t do this at a traffic stop; you CAN, of course, that is a choice you’re able to make, but you have to understand that choosing not to comply at a traffic stop absolutely WILL have consequences, and the courts will NOT rule in your favor. You are free to decide that those consequences are worth it! But do understand that that IS what you’re choosing.)
When I was a public defender we called the rare spectacle of a sovereign citizen arguing in court a “code brown,” because everything they said was poop. Just reading this is giving me hives, these people are a menace.
The ACLU has a guide for What to do if you’re Stopped by Police, Immigration Agents, or the FBI. Under some circumstances they do recommend asking if you’re being detained! Not if you’re a driver, though; I suppose you may be right about it being obvious.