Besides some of the consistency problems the "sovereign citizen" folk have in other areas, such as philosophically, the very name they call themselves is completely self-contradictory. "Sovereign"? "Citizen"? Pick one or the other- you can't be both.
"Sovereign" individuals own their own life and the products of that life. It doesn't mean they are immune to being robbed by thieves, but anyone can be robbed.
"Citizens" are owned by a State. They are said, by definition, to "owe allegiance" to that State. That's the opposite of self ownership.
They are basically claiming to be "self-owning property"- a "self-owning slave". That term would make just as much sense. Which is none.
I understand the sentiment- or at least some of it. They want to express their independence, while celebrating what they think of as "their country" or "patriotic heritage". But, really, there must be a more sensible way to express that sentiment. Or, just drop all the contradictions and come to the free side. We have... well, everything worth having.
.
Kent,
ReplyDeleteOpinions vary as to whose ox is getting gored:
Denninger's:
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=229583
Paul Krugman's:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/opinion/paul-krugman-the-latest-frivolous-attack-on-obamacare.html
Most people would say that these two gents are polar opposites. I think they are both snuggling, State Felaters, and totally ignoring a most important point that needs to be mentioned.
Dave
They are complaining about how to fix the engine on a car that has already gone over the cliff and is sailing through the air on a parabolic course that intersects the hard earth below. Ah, those who don't see the "big picture"...
DeleteThere are those who misconstrue my declaration of Sovereign Statehood. It's probably natural that they think I'm part of a Sovereign Citizen group. I'm not.
ReplyDeleteI avoid groups as the plague. I am a sovereign state. Too many "libertarians" (quotes = LINO's -- libertarians in name only; but who am I to judge???) can't navigate the hump of word games long enough to sort out and cease squirming and hollering when they hear the word "state".
I'll bet you are a state. It might be a state of sorrow, or a state of happiness -- even a sovereign state. But it is a state.
Political "states" are a different matter. David Calderwood defines the political state as follows:
"...The state is the central abstraction by which a catastrophically wrong idea is placed into practice. It is the organized system for employing violent action (or its threat) on the part of individuals, for as noted before, only individuals act. This rationalization occurs on two levels, first by diffusing responsibility to a fiction and second by inducing a group-think inversion of standards..."
Declaring Sovereign Statehood is my way of expressing sui juris.
The only jurisdiction anybody wearing a costume and carrying a "badge" has over me is the loaded firearm s/he wears. I always believe a man with a loaded gun. Delmar England expressed it more succinctly:
"...Socialism, communism, democracy, monarchy, etc, all presumably represent different forms of government. Root level definition of government is initiation of force and coercion. A dark alley mugging is no less government than any other initiation of force and coercion. The official government version may be politicized, organized, centralized and canonized and “socially approved,” but this does not dismiss the definitive commonality of the operative premise. If and when governmentalists see their kinship with a common robber, they may be a bit more inclined to reconsider their philosophy..."
If it's going to be, it's up to me. Sam