RWNJs Are Renouncing Their Citizenship and Pledging ‘Allegance’ [sic] To Donald Trump

Nothing like grievance culture mixed with conspiracy theory and stirred up by a tabloid headliner who thrives on conflict and whose middle name is chaos. There are enough lost souls in America, evidently, that they’ve decided to forfeit their allegiance to the United States, their home, and instead pledge allegiance to King Trump in the Twilight Zone.

I found this on Twitter in Patriot Takes feed. If I find more, I’ll share it so we can have a good laugh.

You’ve all heard this particular conspiracy theory, I presume? That the United States as we know it is really not the United States as we know it, it’s some corporate entity and all the presidents since 1873 have been “illegitimate” other than the twice-impeached one term former occupant, and he’s the real thing? He and his Diet Coke are the real thing? The Sovereign Citizen conspiracy theory is what I’m talking about.

It’s my favorite CT by far. Sovereign citizens believe that they get to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore, and they don’t think they need to pay taxes. I love this CT. This is just so great. Anarchy justified by stupidity. What a system of government. And no wonder Donald Trump fits right in. Southern Poverty Law Center:

Sovereign citizens believe that they — not judges, juries, law enforcement or elected officials — get to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore, and they don’t think they should have to pay taxes. Sovereigns are clogging up the courts with indecipherable filings and when cornered, many of them lash out in rage, frustration and, in the most extreme cases, acts of deadly violence, usually directed against government officials. In May 2010, for example, a father-son team of sovereigns murdered two police officers with an assault rifle when they were pulled over on the interstate while traveling through West Memphis, Ark.

The movement is rooted in racism and anti-Semitism, though most sovereigns, many of whom are African American, are unaware of their beliefs’ origins. In the early 1980s, the sovereign citizens movement mostly attracted white supremacists and anti-Semites, mainly because sovereign theories originated in groups that saw Jews as working behind the scenes to manipulate financial institutions and control the government. Most early sovereigns, and some of those who are still on the scene believed that being white was a prerequisite to becoming a sovereign citizen. They argued that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which guaranteed citizenship to African Americans and everyone else born on U.S. soil, also made black Americans permanently subject to federal and state governments, unlike themselves.

The Sovereign belief system

The contemporary sovereign belief system is based on a decades-old conspiracy theory. At some point in history, sovereigns believe, the American government set up by the founding fathers — with a legal system the sovereigns refer to as “common law” — was secretly replaced by a new government system based on admiralty law, the law of the sea and international commerce. Under common law, or so they believe, the sovereigns would be free men. Under admiralty law, they are slaves, and secret government forces have a vested interest in keeping them that way. Some sovereigns believe this perfidious change occurred during the Civil War, while others blame the events of 1933 when the U.S. abandoned the gold standard. Either way, they stake their lives and livelihoods on the idea that judges around the country know all about this hidden government takeover but are denying the sovereigns’ motions and filings out of treasonous loyalty to hidden and malevolent government forces.

Though this all sounds bizarre, the next layer of the argument becomes even more implausible. Since 1933, the U.S. dollar has been backed not by gold, but by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. government (in fact, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ended private ownership of gold in large amounts in 1933; governments could still sell gold for dollars to the U.S. Treasury for a fixed amount after that, until that practice was ended by President Richard Nixon in 1971). According to sovereign “researchers,” this means that the government has pledged its citizenry as collateral, by selling their future earning capabilities to foreign investors, effectively enslaving all Americans. This sale, they claim, takes place at birth. When a baby is born in the U.S., a birth certificate is issued, and the hospital usually requires that the parents apply for a Social Security number at that time. Sovereigns say that the government then uses that birth certificate to set up a kind of corporate trust in the baby’s name — a secret Treasury account — which it funds with an amount ranging from $600,000 to $20 million, depending on the particular variant of the sovereign belief system. By setting up this account, every newborn’s rights are cleverly split between those held by the flesh-and-blood baby and the ones assigned to his or her corporate shell account.

The sovereigns believe the evidence for their theory is found on the birth certificate itself. Since most certificates use all capital letters to spell out a baby’s name, JOHN DOE, for example, is actually the name of the corporate shell identity, or “straw man,” while John Doe is the baby’s “real,” flesh-and-blood name. As the child grows older, most of his legal documents will utilize capital letters, which means that his state-issued driver’s license, his marriage license, his car registration, his criminal court records, his cable TV bill and correspondence from the IRS all will pertain to his corporate shell identity, not his real, sovereign identity.

The process sovereigns have devised to split the straw man from the flesh-and-blood man is called “redemption,” and its purpose is two-fold. Once separated from the corporate shell, the newly freed man is now outside of the jurisdiction of all admiralty laws. More importantly, by filing a series of complex, legal-sounding documents, the sovereign can tap into that secret Treasury account for his own purposes. Over the past 30 years, hundreds of sovereigns have attempted to perfect the process by packaging and promoting different combinations of forms and paperwork. While no one has ever succeeded, for the obvious reason that these theories are not true, sovereigns are nonetheless convinced with the religious certainty of a true cult believed that they’re close. All it will take, say the promoters of the redemption scam, is the right combination of words.

Does this mean we can build a big, beautiful wall around Mar-a-Lago and deport them all there? Trump will be glad to have them, I'm sure.

— RS Thomas (Team Pfizer) ?️‍? (@RSThomas42) May 13, 2021

This is sovereign citizen bs. I did a divorce against one a couple of years ago. He's currently a guest of the feds after attempting to flee the country with his kids, attempting to kidnap a woman at gunpoint and making threats against me, my client, the judge and his own lawyer

— Lawtalkingal (@Lawtalkingal333) May 13, 2021

Conspiracy theory is a religion. Lin Wood and those loonies are the high priests of it. Trump is their deity. And the collection plates continue to fill, apparently.