Sovereign Citizens Right or Wrong? Perhaps Both

Sovereign Citizens Right or Wrong? Perhaps Both-Most of us in Alaska are familiar with the term Sovereign Citizen. They seem to be growing in the valley as well as the interior. Most sovereign citizens are attracted to the ideology of Joe Miller, and Ron Paul. The recent case of Alaska Sovereign Schaeffer Cox put sovereigns in the media spotlight. However, in case you aren’t, sovereign citizens believe that the United States of America has been replaced by an unlawful defacto corporate government called the United States. According to them this happened in the 1800’s during the civil war under the Lincoln administration. Sovereign citizens believe that income taxes, driver’s licenses and business licenses among other legislation passed since then are unlawful because an unlawful government passed it. They are strong supporters of the constitution. They claim that the American people were better off and truly free before the civil war and that we need to restore America to what is once was. The question is are they right or wrong?  Personally I think they are both. 

Where I agree with the sovereigns

First all I think we need to define a few things; sovereign means that you are in control of your on territory. You have unalienable rights granted to you by God, nothing is between you and God. Only God can take away these rights unless you render the rights to someone else through consent. We see the terms consent in many government documents. The constitution simply reaffirms the rights granted to you by God. All of this I agree with. I agree that the constitution is the supreme law of the land. I support free speech, the 2^nd amendment, right to assemble and so on. I think most will agree that the constitution is being eroded. I believe in the will of the people. I do believe that we have the right to defend our freedoms. I remember taking an oath to defend the constitution. To me that oath still stands. I really like the idea of auditing the Federal Reserve. I believe as our founding fathers that governments are instituted to secure the freedoms. In other words, the government keeps me from treading on your rights and you from treading on mine.

Where I disagree with the sovereigns

I am a die hard Alex Jones fan, and although I believe most sovereign citizens are good people, I must disagree with them on many points. First of all this “If it’s not in the Constitution, you can’t do it” is a bunch of baloney. The question is not if it’s constitutional or not because our founders made provisions in the constitution for new amendments. But does the new law violate anyone’s rights and does it benefit the free republic, and what is the will of the people?

Although I believe that the only constitutional tax is a sales tax or corporate excise tax, I do and will always pay my income taxes. Why? Because without the income tax we would have never won WWII or the cold war. Nor would we be able to fund social security or medicare. It’s for the greater good. Remember the mission, which is to save the free republic.  Sovereign citizens drive on the public roads just like everyone else, go to public hospital just like everyone else, all of which are funded by taxes. Sound a little hypocritical?

I’m sorry there is reason we have driver’s license requirements, which is to make the highways safer. Without a federal government, America would break up into fifty anarchist banana republics. Anarchy is bad. The end road to anarchy is always tyranny. America has to have a sheriff and the sheriff is the government. Our founding fathers saw the need for government. I’m sorry some regulations are good, so this idea of repealing all post civil war legislation is just plain crazy.  However, we do need to repeal legislation that is not helpful to sustaining a free republic such as the 1968 gun control act. If we ever succumb to tyranny through invasion or whatever, we are going to wish we had some of the firearms, which were banned.

Again I believe that most sovereign citizens are good people who believe in the constitution. I agree we must always keep the government in check. In other words, limit the power of the sheriff. However, we have a process called the courts to decide what’s right and what’s not. It’s not perfect but it’s what should always be used first. Extremism isn’t the answer. Now I know the argument, it’s no vice to be extreme in defense of liberty and I agree. But refusing to buy a drivers license does not make you Paul Revere. A society can’t function with everyone choosing which laws they will or will not abide by. Again the process is the courts, calling your elected officials and the ballot box. There are numerous examples where the people have challenged government authority and won using the system. Our founders did a pretty good job even though it’s not perfect. Now if the day ever comes where citizens are being thrown in concentration camps and the constitution is burned then is the time to reach for something else.

The picture needs to be accurate

I do believe that the 60 minutes documentary painted an unfair picture of sovereigns. And as far as the southern poverty law center is concerned, which is nothing more than a left wing extremist group, has no credibility whatsoever. However, I will admit there are some nut jobs among the sovereigns as with all groups. I strongly sympathize with the officers in Arkansas who were murdered. I don’t see anywhere where these officers violated their constitutional oath as some sovereigns claim. You see extremism in every group from sovereign citizens to environmental groups. The problem is that many of these people are like cult followers. Notice I said many not all. It’s wrong to paint the whole group with a broad brush as 60 minutes did. Out of 300,000 estimated sovereign citizens, only a handful, not even 1% has acted in violence. That’s less than the American population as a whole.

From what I understand about 1% of the American population is in prison. I personally feel that the lazy nose ring, purple hair, baggy paints wearing disrespectful under 25 crowd is a greater threat to the American way of life than most sovereign citizens. Perhaps they should be the ones on an FBI watch list. But again, I do feel the sovereigns are wrong just like so many extreme groups because of their extremism, which blinds them to the ultimate goal, which is to preserve the free republic. It’s sad they try so hard to save the republic, yet they help destroy it. Kind of like the extreme environmental groups do more harm to conservation than good.

I know if I were an enemy of the American people I would try to create a scenario where no matter whose ideology prevailed the end result would be the same. That’s exactly where we are.

You see countries are like cars; you got to keep them between the ditches. Sometimes you turn right and sometimes turn left to stay on the road. Now if you have left wing socialistic democrat extremist, a right wind country club republican extremist, and a Ron Paul libertarian anarchist sovereign extremist all fighting for the wheel, you are gonna crash. Unfortunately our country is coming apart. At one time people of with different ideas could sit at the same table and have a sane conversation. But not anymore, today most Americans are a bit too extreme.

Maybe we should pray for a sober mind and maybe we could get along better and come to our senses and save the country. God knows, we have enough enemies to fight on the outside without fighting among ourselves.