Sovereign criminals

Hi all... a quick Public Service Announcement before I get to today's post.

My publisher has set up a Facebook fan page for me, where I'll be periodically posting teasers from my fiction, announcing new releases, and discussing writing, reading, and the meaning of life.  I welcome you all to join it and participate -- I'll be checking it often and would love to have some interesting conversations going.  It's called The Bonnet Conspiracy (a nod to Skeptophilia's content) -- head over there and join if you're interested.  Hope to see you there!

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You probably remember Ryan and Ammon Bundy, sons of Cliven Bundy, who decided to protest government interference in grazing rights by taking over a bird sanctuary in Oregon.

The Bundys and other members of Yokel Haram occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Sanctuary Headquarters for several weeks before the Feds shot and killed one of them (he was in the process of drawing a gun while running a roadblock) and the remainder decided that discretion was the better part of valor and gave themselves up.

The problem is (from the Bundys' standpoint, at least), "giving up" doesn't mean "all is forgiven."  They're facing multiple felony charges, and since they weren't trying to be sneaky about what they were doing, there is ample evidence for the prosecution to capitalize upon.  So you're an anti-government whackjob who has been caught dead to rights in armed occupation of a federally-owned building -- what do you do?

You claim that you're a sovereign citizen over whom the government has no jurisdiction, of course.

Ryan Bundy has filed several legal statements intended to communicate that he believes that the authorities have no right to press charges against him.  The statements, though, all sound like this:

i; ryan c, man, am an idiot of the ‘Legal Society’; and; am an idiot (layman, outsider) of the ‘Bar Association’; and; i am incompetent; and; am not required by any law to be competent; and;,. 

And this:

i; ryan c, man, accept no offer of representation, as no man is qualified to represent i; and; i; ryan c, man, will hold any man liable, in his/her private capacity, for any burden, placed upon i, man, by any man, by way of representation of i; and;,.

Alan Pyke of ThinkProgress explains that the use of lower case, the semicolons, and the other weird structure is a hallmark of legal statements from the "Sovereign Citizen" movement, which claims that governments, laws, state and federal boundaries, and so on and so forth are meaningless, and that the rights of the individual cannot be impinged upon by anything or anybody.  They also have this wacky idea that there is a "shadow government," formed of a secret cabal of bad guys (who sound an awful lot like the Illuminati), who are really running the whole show, and who get their hooks into you every time you file any document with the government -- including birth and marriage certificates, applications for driver's licenses, tax forms, and the census.  They then use your documentation as collateral for borrowing money from their evil cohorts around the world to fund their nefarious doings.

Why my birth certificate should be worth anything to a super-secret ring of evildoers in, say, Azerbaijan is kind of a mystery.  But apparently it is.  So therefore lower case letters and semicolons and armed occupation of bird sanctuaries.

Ryan Bundy [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Anyway, trying to escape prosecution by declaring himself an idiot isn't the only thing he's been doing.  Since he's been in jail, he's been stockpiling food (once a survivalist, always a survivalist, I guess), and took a bedsheet and braided it into a rope in an apparent plan for an escape attempt.  The guards objected, oddly enough.  Brought before the judge to defend himself against charges of attempted escape, he said that he was just "a rancher, trying to practice braiding rope."

So his "you can't tell me what to do" strategy seems to be falling on deaf ears so far.  Not that it'll discourage him from trying.  These types don't give up, even though the funny thing is, the sovereign citizen defense never works.  Ask actor Wesley Snipes, who tried it to avoid prosecution for tax evasion.  The judge basically said, "Nice try.  Next time try looking up the definition of the word 'jurisdiction.'  See you in three years."

So I don't expect that it's going to work any better for Bundy et al.  It's a fittingly loony postscript on an event that was pretty surreal from the outset.  You have to wonder how he's going to act once he gets to prison, which seems like the likeliest outcome.  "I refuse to share a cell.  Sovereign citizens require private quarters, as befits someone who rules his own destiny.  And steak for dinner every night."

To which I expect the warden will respond, "What we have here is... a failure to communicate."

Cliven Bundy and the rule of law

A couple of days ago, we considered the conspiracy theorists phenomenon as a gauge of the "dumbing down" of America.  So many of the things they believe -- from chemtrails to the various anti-vaxx claims to FEMA stockpiling guillotines for use on American citizens -- require a dazzling array of ignorance and specious thinking.  To buy what the conspiracy theorists are peddling, not only do you have to ignore what we know about science, you pretty much have to jettison hard evidence and inductive reasoning as a means for understanding.

Today I want to consider a darker side to the whole thing -- that conspiracy theories are an indicator of something far deeper, and far worse, than simple stupidity.  Conspiracy theories come about not only from ignorance, but from fear, paranoia, and a deep-seated rage.

Consider Cliven Bundy.

Bundy, as most you probably already know, is the Nevada cattle rancher who fell afoul of the Bureau of Land Management when it came out that he'd been grazing his cattle on public land for decades without paying the requisite lease fees.  When the BLM came after him, Bundy turned it into a David-vs.-Goliath struggle, with the BLM and the federal government cast as the giant who was gonna end up with a rock to the head if they didn't watch their step.  Right wingers, especially the Tea Party, took up his anti-government cry -- despite the fact that these same politicians shriek on nearly a daily basis about "welfare cheats," who (like Bundy) are stealing from the federal coffers.

Oh, wait.  Bundy is old, white, male, wears a cowboy hat, and votes Republican.  There's your difference, then.

Be that as it may, Bundy proceeded to assemble a ragtag band of defenders, including the far-right nutjobs who call themselves the "Oath Keepers," some members of the Sovereign Citizens Movement, and various other self-styled "Patriots."  The whole thing began to shake itself apart when internal dissent in the ranks nearly had Bundy's defenders at each other's throats, not to mention when Bundy revealed himself as a racist (in an interview, he said outright that African Americans had been better off as slaves) and a liar (he claimed to have "ancestral rights" to the land dating back to the 1870s, and it turned out that land records proved that his family bought the ranch he lives on in 1948).

Bundy's reach was more pervasive than the battle over grazing rights, however.  His defiance seems to have given some inspiration to like-minded types, to judge by "Operation American Spring," a group of Bundy-clones who planned to descend upon Washington D.C. "ten million strong," intending to stay there until President Obama resigns or is overthrown.  The problem is, the estimate turned out to be off by 9,999,850 or so, because the Mall (where they had intended to stage their massive protest) was empty except for a few placard-carrying protestors who were mostly ignored by passersby.

It's easy to laugh at this -- one wag on Twitter quipped, "Drone hustling, shape-shifting Socialist/Kenyan dictators don't scare me...but that clammy drizzle was too much!"  The hashtag #AmericanSpringExcuses quickly trended, generating tweets like, "Put hood on backwards, ran into a tree which was put there by liberal fascist socialist dictators. #AmericanSpringExcuses."   And I certainly was laughing along with them.

But to laugh and then dismiss the more serious aspect of this is, I think, a terrible mistake.  Take what was said by one of the nutcases who showed up in D. C. for what turned into Operation Epic Fail: "This is the America that you all live in today, and it has to end.  I’m telling you right now, it’s going to take — in my view — a little blood, it’s going to happen, this day is coming and you better be willing to pay for it."

How is it that our leaders don't see people like Bundy and the nameless protestor in Washington for what they are -- domestic terrorists?  Look, it's not that I think the government is perfect; it can be inept, wasteful, bumbling, and occasionally cross the line into evil.  But do you really want to jettison it entirely?  Anarchy isn't pretty; ask anyone who has lived in Sudan, Ethiopia, or Somalia.  When people become "sovereign citizens" they usually respond by victimizing each other, and the strongest victimizer becomes the leader -- and you're right back to having a government, although one I doubt any of us would want to live in.  Notwithstanding its faults, our federal and state governments provide us with education, infrastructure, commerce, and security.

Could the government be better?  Of course.  Do I think things would improve in the United States if the government collapsed?

Not just no, but hell no.

By ignoring Bundy and his ilk, or just considering them inept clowns who can't even run a demonstration right, we are potentially overlooking the next David Koresh or Timothy McVeigh.  I know that officials have to act carefully, because these people don't mind spilling blood; their attitude is that if innocent people die in their attempt to achieve their goals, that is simply too bad.  And the likelihood of any misstep turning into further fuel for the fire (and any deaths amongst the militiamen being seen as martyrdom) is high.

But why is law enforcement in Nevada turning a blind eye to what these folks are doing -- acts that now include armed militia members setting up checkpoints along roads in Clark County and demanding identification from drivers proving that they live in the area?  Hotel owners in the nearby town of Mesquite received credible bomb threats when it was discovered that they had rented rooms to BLM employees during the standoff.  A federal livestock wrangler was menaced on Interstate 15, in broad daylight, by men wearing hoods and brandishing a Glock -- along with a handwritten sign saying, "You need to die."

I recognize the danger, here.  Officials in Nevada and Utah are dealing with violent lunatics who are heavily armed and unafraid to use deadly force.  They are also propelled by an ideology that is, at its basis, steeped in counterfactual paranoia, in part fostered by the divisive "America is being murdered!" rhetoric you hear from pundits on the far right.

But you reap what you sow, a lesson that the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks and Sean Hannitys and Pat Buchanans have yet to learn.  If you create a climate in which patriotic Americans feel threatened and besieged, some of them will respond with a preemptive strike.  If you continually portray the government as evil and dangerous, you will spawn individuals who consider it virtuous to overthrow it.

Order, justice, democracy, and the rule of law may not always work.  They fail, they falter, just like any other human-made institution.  But they're the best thing we have for protecting us against the baser instincts of our neighbors.  And I'll take that over the morals and ethics of the likes of Cliven Bundy any day.

The strange world of the Sovereign Citizens

One of the features of writing this blog that turns out to be a mixed blessing is that I frequently am sent suggestions by readers for topics for future posts.  I say it's a "mixed blessing" because while some people who read Skeptophilia are fellow skeptics and rationalists who are acting as a team of free-lance (and unpaid) investigative reporters on my behalf, there are some of them who are (to put not too fine a point on it) batshit crazy.  Thus, for example, the person who joined in with me in chuckling about how silly the people are who believe in the power of crystal-infused wands to mitigate chronic pain, but only because she'd found some crystals that really worked, because they were magical rocks that came from the sky.

I considered writing back and explaining to her the definition of the words "sky," "meteorite," and "planet," but decided that it probably was better to leave well enough alone.

There's a more insidious downside to writing this blog, though, and it usually comes about because of the good intentions of my most faithful readers.  There are about a half-dozen folks who send me topics with great regularity, and although I don't think any of them know the others, you would think (by looking at their submissions) that they are in cahoots and are engaging in some sort of Loony Topic One-Upmanship Contest.  Each time I get an email with a link from one of them, it should come with a message, "You think what the others sent you was insane -- wait till you see this!"  Mostly, though, they are just accompanied by some innocent-sounding text, like, "I thought you'd find this interesting."

So, of course, I have to click the link, meaning that I spend the next half-hour with an expression like this:

Which brings me to my friend Peter.

Peter is a skeptic and rationalist par excellence, and a frequent reader and contributor to Skeptophilia.  For which, I will say up front, I am very grateful.  But last week, he sent me an email in which he asked a seemingly innocent question, which was, "Have you ever heard of the 'Sovereign Citizens' movement?"

I said that I hadn't.  In response, he sent me a link to the following video clip.  (Note: by posting this, I am in no way suggesting that you should watch it.  In fact, when I watched it, the only thing that persuaded me not to slam my head face-first into the wall was that I didn't want to have to explain a broken nose and missing front teeth to my wife.  You should only watch this video if you have a strong tolerance for music from 50s informational video shorts and narrators who sound like June Cleaver on Prozac.  Don't say you haven't been warned.)

The gist, for those of you who took my advice and didn't watch the video, is that the government owns you because of your birth certificate, and that any time you register something, it belongs to the government because "regis" means "king."  (Nota bene:  do not fuck around with a linguist.  "Register" comes from the Latin verb regerere, meaning "to record" -- from re-, again, and gerere, to carry or bear.  It has nothing to do with the Latin word for "king," which is rex, and comes from a Proto-Indo European root "*reg-" meaning "right" or "rule.")

Be that as it may, the video goes on to inform you that at birth, your existence was recorded by the government and that has created a "straw man," which is dead.  Or maybe that you're dead and the straw man is alive.  It's a little hard to tell, frankly.  The gist of it seems to be that by paying taxes and signing your name and following laws, you're creating this "fake you" that the government owns, and that the "real you" needs to just stop doing all of that stuff.

So, I was watching this, and wondering if this was some kind of parody, and increasingly it dawned on me: these people are serious.  They really want you to "destroy your straw man" by tearing up your birth certificate, car registration, marriage license, and so on.  Which is how this all connects to the "Sovereign Citizen" movement.

The idea of the Sovereign Citizen movement is that we sheep-like ordinary folk are willingly handing over our rights, money, and freedom to governments, and that we should just stand up and take 'em all back.  Stop paying taxes, stop going along with things like registering children, cars, homes, and so on, stop going along with military draft registration.  In fact, just stop having anything whatsoever to do with the government.  This movement has apparently gained a lot of traction up in Canada, where an estimated 30,000 people consider themselves "sovereign citizens" who have severed all ties with the Canadian government -- including, in some cases, following the law.

In one sense, the Sovereign Citizen movement has a point; when you think about it, it is kind of silly that we've drawn some arbitrary lines all over the Earth and said, "If you are inside this set of invisible lines, you have national health care, gays can marry, you have free public education through college, and you're expected to pay 50% income tax rates; a mile away, across that invisible line, none of that is true."

Can you imagine trying to explain that to an intelligent alien species?

The problem, of course, is that however much you go around saying you're a sovereign citizen and you don't have to pay taxes and all, the government still has a considerable power to compel you, or at least make your life miserable if you don't cooperate.  And the reality is that however strange the idea might seem, governments do provide us with some reasonably nice benefits (e.g. police, fire departments, roads, and public schools).  So even if they curtail our rights some, and require us to do jury duty and file for marriage licenses and the rest, on the balance, I'll still take this over anarchy.

So the "sovereign citizens" end up coming across a little bit like the people who have founded "micronations" by semi-officially seceding their houses from the country in which they reside.  The general response by the powers-that-be is, "Okay, have fun playing in your pillow fort, but when the time comes to do your chores, you still have to do them.  Or else."

Anyhow, my thanks to Peter for telling me about all this, even if it started out with a link that had me wearing my "horrified expression" for six minutes straight.  And I don't want to discourage people from sending me topics -- I honestly love hearing from my faithful readers.  I will continue to look at all the links you send, I promise, whatever the cost to my poor aching facial muscles.  And you can continue to read what I write, free of charge.

You don't even have to register.