'The Sovereign Citizen Movement: A Comparative Analysis with Similar Foreign Movements and Takeaways for the United States Judicial System' by Mellie Ligon in (2021) 35(2) Emory International Law Review 297 comments
he Moorish Sovereign Citizens Movement began as an offshoot of the overarching Sovereign Citizens Movement in the United States in the 1990s by former followers of the Washitaw Nation and Moorish Science Temple of America. The Moorish Sovereign Citizens Movement follows an anti-government ideology, based in the idea the current American government is illegitimate and has been operating under false pretenses since as early as the 19th century. Though disagreement among the members of the movement regarding what spurred this covert change from a legitimate to an illegitimate government exists, examples of the different catalysts include the U.S. abandonment of the gold standard in the 1930s and the Reconstruction Era of the 1860s and 1870s following the U.S. Civil War. Members of the movement live scattered across the United States and do not follow a single ideology or teaching, but they all engage in similar tactics of disruption—levying false liens against government officials they deem have wronged them, filing countless motions to flood the system, and employing a nonsensical legal language of their own in court appearances and filings. This comment engages in an overview of this movement in the United States and subsequently compares it to parallel movements in Canada and Ireland, specifically by looking to their cases involving individuals with similar ideologies and tactics. Finally, it discusses takeaways from non-U.S. movements for potential application in the U.S. setting.
Ligon states
Sovereign citizens claim that “there are two types of law: common law and admiralty law[,]”which emerged from this covert government switch. They also contend the U.S. government “has been operating under commercial law” since it abandoned the gold standard in 1933. Under this belief system, commercial law is equated with the law of the seas, admiralty law. Therefore, sovereigns argue, the fact U.S. courts have been operating under admiralty law has deprived all Americans of the common law court systems designed by the Founding Fathers ever since 1933. This deprivation to a sovereign citizen means that American courts have no jurisdiction unless they receive explicit consent from those upon whom regulations or sanctions have been placed.
Followers contend that because this fake government backs U.S. currency by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. government, the fake U.S. government uses its citizens as collateral “by selling their future earning capabilities to foreign investors, effectively enslaving all Americans.” Sovereign citizens posit this citizen collateral occurs at birth when the government forces parents to apply for Social Security cards and birth certificates for their newborn children. According to this assertion, the birth certificates create a corporate shell account for each newborn child in the United States, and the capitalization of all letters of the names on the certificates represents the straw man identities of each child. Consequently, when an individual’s name is spelled with normal capitalization (e.g. “John Doe” instead of “JOHN DOE”), it represents the individual’s “‘real,’ flesh-and-blood” name. The straw man theory and belief in the illegitimacy of the government work in tandem. Followers believe all legal proceedings are financial transactions because they presume the United States has been administering the legal system under commercial law since the abandonment of the gold standard in the 1930s. They then erroneously interpret the Uniform Commercial Code and maintain they are therefore not citizens of the United States due to this bait-and-switch by the U.S. government. Followers rely almost exclusively on the Uniform Commercial Code and most do not pay taxes, register their vehicles, use postal codes, or maintain driver’s licenses.
'A Revolting Itch: Pseudolaw as a Social Adjuvant' by Donald J. Netolitzky in (2021) 22(2)Politics, Religion and Ideology 164-188 comments
Pseudolaw is a collection of legal-sounding but false rules that purport to be superior laws suppressed by conspiratorial actors. Pseudolaw replaces conventional law. Modern pseudolaw emerged around 2000 in right-wing and often racist US Sovereign Citizen communities, but has subsequently spread world-wide to groups with diverse political, racial, economic, and social objectives. Pseudolaw purports to shift authority away from state and institutional actors and to individuals, and is attractive to dissident groups who resist conventional authority. Pseudolaw is politically agnostic since pseudolaw does not change or create the ideologies and objectives of these dissident groups, but instead empowers them. Pseudolaw aggravates interactions between its host populations and conventional government, court, and law enforcement actors. As pseudolaw expanded outside of its Sovereign Citizen incubator, pseudolaw ceased to be sequestered knowledge taught by gurus and held by privileged groups. Pseudolaw has merged into the cultic milieu: a collection of rejected and marginal ideas, resources, and history. A broad range of conspiratorial and outsider communities and individuals mine the cultic milieu. In this context pseudolaw has become a separate legal system available to those who seek a different explanation for law, and the extraordinary privileges and immunities that pseudolaw falsely promises.
