60 Minutes: A look at the "sovereign citizen" movement

[RamboLiberal]

This is a story about a group of Americans you've likely never heard of: they're called "sovereign citizens." Many don't pay taxes, carry a driver's license or hold a Social Security card. They have little regard for the police or the courts, and some have become violent.

The FBI lists them among the nation's top domestic terror threats.

By some estimates, there are as many as 300,000 sovereign citizens in the U.S. And with the sluggish economy and mortgage mess, their ranks are growing.

It's just the kind of movement that attracted people like Jerry Kane. A divorced, out-of-work truck driver from Ohio, Kane became a sovereign citizen in 2003 when he lost his house to foreclosure. To earn a living, he and his son began crisscrossing the country peddling a debt reduction scam.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/15/60minutes/main20062666.shtml?tag=cbsContent;cbsCarousel

[guruoo]

1. knr

[Iwillnevergiveup]

2. Very chilling segment

in its' entirety, but the part focused on Jerry Kane and his son was like something out of "Fargo."

K&R

[Fuddnik]

3. Or this stupid Sarasota detective who joined. And got fired.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/link-to-sovereign-citizen-movement-costly-for-police-officer/1169433


Link to sovereign citizen movement costly for police officer

By Michael Kruse, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Sunday, May 15, 2011

SARASOTA — Last spring a respected detective for this city's police department went to the local courthouse and did something stupid.

At the time, Tom Laughlin, a twice-married 41-year-old father of four, was worried about the unstable economy. He found unsettling politicians' talk about cutting the pensions of public employees, and he didn't like President Barack Obama's health care plan. He had some vague notion of wanting to get back to this country's "roots."

Following the advice of his older brother, he filed a set of strange documents, declaring himself "a flesh and blood, living, breathing, biological man," and an "American National Sovereign." The documents seemed to say he was no longer a citizen and didn't have to follow any laws. "I, one Thomas Michael Laughlin Senior, Free man ... "

What he thought he was doing, he has insisted ever since, was making a simple political statement.

(snip)

[izzybeans]

4. There was a judge in Indiana that wrote detective novels w/ these

Groups as the antagonist. Joe Hensley. The stories were loosely based on actual cases he saw as a judge. Judge Hensley saw them coming decades ago.

[fasttense]

5. They seem to have a special combination of gullibility, ignorance, desperation

and blood lust.

"You can't really believe in what they peddle unless you've turned off a common sense switch. They think that if they sign documents in red crayons it takes them out of the jurisdiction of the court," J.J. MacNab explained. "They think that if they sign their name on an angle or put a thumb print in blood, I mean, I can come up with several hundred of these examples that sound ludicrous to someone outside. To the people within the movement, they make perfect sense."

[Alcibiades]

6. I've been interested in these folks for years

This is what the militia movement has morphed into. These folks believe a lot of crazy things, including that any court documents wherein a person's name is spelled in all caps are invalid, because this supposedly refers to a "fictitious corporate entity" rather than an actual person, what they like to call a "flesh-and-blood man." It all rests on a complicated conspiracy theory wherein the international bankers (and we all know who they are) assumed ownership of all Americans who acknowledge the authority of the federal government. Of course, they don't like to carry any sort of documents, and have bizarre notions of what constitutes a valid legal process, so they often wind up in court. When they do, that's when things get really interesting.

Many of the crimes they commit are federal, so they stand there in federal court and deny the authority of the legal proceedings. Most federal judges are unaccustomed to having their authority questioned in this way, and so it opens up questions regarding the defendant's competency and sanity: just to be on the safe side, they order a psychological evaluation. What's really odd is that any number of black people, including, apparently, Wesley Snipes, have been caught up in this, apparently unaware of the racism of the movement's origins.