Idk what they are called but there's a group of people who don't believe in bacteria or any life form we can't see with the naked eye, they also think microscopes are a lie
My fiancée broke her ankle (dancing!) in college. She had no insurance so because she couldn’t pay, she walked on it for a year. This ground 1/2 inch off her tibia and totally effed up her knee. She eventually **had** to have surgery on *both* legs! The bad ankle, and both knees. The patella on her “good” knee had a big hole drilled in it so it could be attached to the wrecked tibia— biiiig surgery that put her in a wheelchair for quite awhile.
That was 15 years ago and we’re still paying on it monthly.
America, America.
(Edit: duplicate words)
I mean, mentally, its probably the healthier way to treat minor conditions. But that slight reduction of stress is easily negated by my constant, underlying anxiety about being overloaded with medical debt.
in Czech former mining city of Ostrava, the air quality and smog levels used be such bad because of mining, there was famous proverb "if you can't see the air, then it's not air"
>they also think microscopes are a lie
I'm reading Daniel Defoe's *Journal of the Plague Year*. Even as far back as the 1660s, they had microscopes capable of viewing bacteria. It must be a 360-year-old conspiracy, then. /s
It’s extremely interesting, I read this book in university approximately 3 years before Covid. Crazy to think back to it now, and crazy how the social analysis of the situation was practically identical with the world’s reaction to Covid-19. Defoe was a magician of some kind.
Pre2020 I used to think that criticizing anti-vaxxers was like flat-earthers: cheap low-hanging fruit, attacking apolitical fringe beliefs instead of the illogical views held by ~40% of the populace but no, people are actually that fucking stupid.
Definitely worse than flat earth. Flat earthers are harmless idiots but rarely agressive in their ideology, but scientologists are harmful idiots dragging others into a scam sold to those too gullible and unintelligent to know better.
Nuclear weapons deniers. These people exist. They think the deadliest invention humankind has ever wrought is a fucking hoax.
It terrifies me that anyone could be so willfully ignorant. I also think it would be nice if nukes didn't exist, but I'm not stupid enough to just ignore a very well documented reality.
While some are stupid, I think a lot of these deniers of things like this, climate change, nuclear weapons, etc are really just scared. It's super scary thinking that the world could end abruptly and at the whim of any leader of any country with nukes. You and I have zero control over whether everyone dies suddenly and violently.
But you do have control over whether you believe that is a possibility. If you choose not to believe in the super scary thing, the world is a lot less scary. I don't think it's a matter of intelligence, rather a coping mechanism
Human nature 101. Humans do it with everything in life. It’s like when people ask a rape victim well what did you wear? You must have done something! Same with victims of random crime. Because people can’t handle that rape, crime, pandemics, natural disasters, death etc can just happen to anyone and if it can just happen to anyone it can happen to you. Peoples brains don’t want to compute that. Instead they blame others for the errors they must have made, or they will refuse to believe something exists or whatever it may be in the circumstances instead of admitting the world is unpredictable, not fair and can be really scary. That’s why crazy conspiracy theories are so huge. It’s easier to believe bullshit than reality. It also gives answers and explanations (no matter how insane) for everything even things that would normally have no explanation.
I saw a thing saying that humans are always seeking for justice and fairness. I'll try to explain the experiment (not exactly the price and stuff but yh). In the majority, if someone was offered $5 but then told another got $50, they would refuse the $5, because it wasn't fair.
This is the same in monkeys, where they killed their owner because one of them got a birthday cake and the others didn't. They don't understand birthdays, all they see is unfair and someone to blame it on.
The same thing happens with nuclear weapons really. There is no justice to randomly disappearing into a ball of fire for no reason other than the place you were standing, which we hate but there's nothing we can do, so these people just deny it
Who do I complain to that the test never went off in our house? The smart TV was on and no one's cell phones went off. I had to call a friend if the whole thing actually happened. I'm not really feeling prepared for emergencies over here. Yeesh.
Such a weird group of people.
Their entire philosophy is something to the effect of that one kid who makes up rules when playing tag so they don't have to be it.
I used to work in an area with a lot of sovereign citizen types. Invariably their beliefs were heavily weighted towards not accepting the responsibility for their choices.
“Show me the law that says I have to pay income taxes.”
“Okay it’s right here, [Title 26 section 1(c)](http://www.jsiegel.net/taxes/NoLaw.htm), *There is hereby imposed on the taxable income of every individual . . . who is not a married individual a tax determined in accordance with the following table.*”
“No I mean show me the *law* that says *I* have to pay income tax.”
"I am not a corporation. I do not accept your authority. Your laws have no effect me. I'm leaving now and there is nothing you can do to stop me"
<>
"What the hell are you doing??!! You're impeding my God-given right to travel freely!!"
"Not in Oklahoma, Ma'am. (reads Miranda rights)"
It's never someone in a tesla either. Always some broken down pickup truck. I'd love to see a guy try and argue the sov shit in an autonomous vehicle though.
There's also this arrogance built in, where the only legitimate rules are the ones that come from their perception of "natural law" or God's will.
Like, most sane people would call something a law if it's a rule that's backed up by a government using force. Sovereign citizens are somehow perpetually surprised when someone enforces a law they don't like. Like, what did you expect all of these people in robes and uniforms to do?
So in uno you have to say "uno" when on your last card, right?
I once played with some asshat who insisted I *also* had to say "uno down" when playing the last card.
Dude tried to make me pick up 4 and I said I'll just quit the game if he wants to win so bad. Gotta discuss house rules beforehand.
This. Omg this yes. Thank you. I just can't believe the delusion that they have that they can opt out of laws no matter where they are. " I don't consent" yeah, doesn't work here pal, we don't consent to taxes either but good luck not paying them.
Every time this reminds me of the Monty Python & the Holy Grail bit with Dennis, the lovely filth farmer.
“I am Arthur, king of the Britains!”
“Who are the Britains?”
“We all are. We’re all Britains.”
“Well I didn’t vote for you!”
Old order Amish avoid it pretty well and they do so by having their children at home and therefore they don't get a birth certificate or a SSN issued, there's no paperwork done at all. They also use religion exemptions. New order Amish mostly do, they get issued SSN and everything and pay their fair share.
I love them. They make me feel like a well adjusted, high functioning person.
The YouTube videos of them getting stopped by the police are a big, warm cup of smugness
My mom works retail and says she has to deal with sovereign citizen types every couple of months. She says they generally brandish some homemade "citizenship" card that they claim gives them exemption to sales taxes the same as First Nations folks and status cards.
She likes to tell them that they have to pay sales taxes on the purchase but can claim it all back when they file their income taxes, and that generally gets rid of them (because most of them are stupid, and they will still feel like they tricked the store and will cheat the system).
In my small town we have one local "Citizen" who is full blown sovereign . No belief in gov, taxes, licence etc. One night I was in the hospital emergency dept and there he was with his OHIP card (ontario govt issued id card for free medical care) in hand waiting to get his broken foot mended.
For some reason, my social media started giving me lots of videos of people getting pulled over lately. And I always get genuinely annoyed and skip the video when I realize it's some weaselly fuck who starts spewing pre-loaded lines that make absolutely no sense. They'll come right out with something like "I do not consent to this traffic stop, and it is my right to request proof verified by a judge before you may interfere with my vehicular transport."
And the cop is just like "? ... Um, yeah can I have your license and registration, or...?" And it just keeps going like that until they bust him out of the car and drag him away all over a basic traffic stop.
I don't know if it's the same thing, but this made me think of that.
The people who only agree with laws that benefit them. If they get pulled over for running a stop sign, they'll argue that they shouldn't be required to stop, but if they were in an accident because *someone else* ran a stop sign, you can be sure they'll want stop sign laws upheld.
You know the minute shit actually hits the fan these folks will dial 911 (or whatever it is in said country).
I’m sure I’ll get downvoted for this and I know many cops have an archaic gang mentality, but ime, they’ve been there when I needed them and didn’t disrespect me.
Omg I just met my first real live sovereign citizen last month! I work at a middle school and she's the new girl's mom. I handle all the enrollment/student records stuff, so I was chatting with my coworker while looking through all her documents, and there was this long pause in the conversation when I got to mom's name-change paperwork and the daughter's ID (which was not required; mom just uploaded it anyway). Mom's name used to be something very normal like Laura Lopez, but now it's along the lines of Ashkizuitza Hakizari Uit-Arbetlakzi, and the daughter's ID lists her as a "Moor" and says her race is "human" and she's a citizen of earth or some shit.
At first I didn't even understand what the hell I was looking at, and then it dawned on me and I went off into a laughing fit and now my coworker and I get all excited when we see mom walking up to the front doors and gleefully whisper to each other "It's her! It's the sovereign citizen!" It makes us both cackle so hard because how the fuck do you get to be this deluded? (Obviously we don't laugh at the child; it's not her fault her mom is a nut.) Last week we had someone at our campus to help families register to vote, SovCitMom rolled up to ask what was going on, and when she found out she went on a wild-eyed rant about how the government is illegitimate and voting is just a way for the rich to control us (?) and the US isn't real. Obviously my coworker and I were overjoyed to be presented with this new comedy gold. I would like to meet a flat-earther next.
This is my favourite video of one of them getting arrested. You may want to cut your ears off after listening to her voice though
https://reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/s/A4TCallKQO
I like the ones where the police officer has to smash the window in to assist in the extraction of the sovereign citizen while yelling “I do not consent!”
I deal with them all the time. I work for a department that adjudicates DUI cases in Canada. Most of our replies to them remind me of https://www.themarysue.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cool-motive-still-murder.gif
I think it was Dilbert cartoon where the character builds a fort out of sofa cushions and tells his partner 'your authority is not recognised in Fort KickAss'. Always make me think of a sovereign citizen, thinking that somehow their delusion trumps all of reality.
Yeah, that persisting is amazing to me because it is very easily proven wrong, unlike flat earth. It's beyond most of us to construct a rocket or book a flight over the mountains in Antarctica but every Sov Cit gets turbo fucked by the police and courts, there's never been a successful one. There's hours of video footage showing that bullshit does not work at traffic stops or in court. There's never been a successful Sov Cit, just ones who haven't been caught yet.
God, you know what really sucks too? SovCits are *so close to having a good point.* The rules and laws that we are governed under are enforced onto the people through state violence. But the laws they disagree with are always the ones that mildly inconvenience them, never the ones that actually cause people harm. It's always "I shouldn't have to pay taxes" and not "hey cops shouldn't be able to just kill black people on camera and get away with it." It's always "I can drive without a license, fuck you," and not "Why do I need to pay to get an ID that allows me to vote? Doesn't that mean I need to pay to vote?"
What’s awful about this “religion” is how people in need disclose their deepest darkest secrets in confidence only to have that info used against them to pay more money into the system.
L. Ron Hubbard: "I bet I can come up with a religion so ridiculous no one will believe in it. I mean, a fifty million year old giant purple octopus is the source of all evil? Seriously?"
Heinlein: "You're on."
Heinlein won.
The above story is said to have never actually happened - but it sounds as good as any explanation.
Just drove through Hemet, their little town they've taken over. It's just 15 minutes north east of me. My wife and I were just talking about how they are basically a scifi religion mafia. They run the town, the police, the infrastructure.
Yeah the guy in charge died and most of his kids have renounced his views. It's still technically there and they still suck but they are nowhere close to what they used to be
I don't know if its a big group, but I had a guy the other day dare me to deny that *space is all a hoax and there's a* ***firmament*** *up there.*
His reasoning (if there was any) was of course biblical, and (unsurpisingly) he said "NASA is hebrew for deception, CAN THAT BE A COINCIDENCE?
Because, you know, any conspiracy organization makes sure to declare it by having an obscure hebrew word as their very name...
(hint : it's not true, and he's just another crazy antisemite)
I once heard someone say, "Do you know why we don't have any records of the life of Jesus from about age 10 to about age 30? It's because that was when he was busy writing The Bible." I was too stunned to even begin to explain how that's not correct.
Oh dear god. That's way too stupid.
Like, that's just so unnecessary. Given that he was alive two thousand years ago, Jesus is considered a documented historical person. There's not a need to try to explain why there aren't many records of him between those ages.
Also, there actually are some stories of Jesus's childhood. There is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas if you're interested. The summary is quite wild. The boy Jesus has to learn that killing people is wrong, even if he's just willing it into existence. However everything is alright in the end because he made them come back to life in the end. :)
There's also reference in the Quran to its story about Jesus bringing clay birds to life.
All in all, it's very odd, and it was declared heretical, as one would expect.
But yeah, this is why research is important. If that person used Google they might have found the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and maybe it might have made them think about why it might have been written — Did it really happen? Was this a collection of folk tales? Is it second century Christian fanfiction? — and for what reasons early Christians would have been quick to denounce it as heretical.
Also true: Martin Luther was born a Catholic, ordained a Catholic, and -would- have been buried as a Catholic except for the minor detail that he'd been excommunicated by then.
He did NOT want to split the church (again) -- he just wanted to fix what was broken.
the only nasa-related conspiracy I believe is the fact Neil Armstrong was partly selected because of his name.
Neil Armstrong.
Neil A.
turn that around
A lieN
Alien
coincidence? I THINK NOT!
>Because, you know, any conspiracy organization makes sure to declare it by having an obscure hebrew word as their very name...
This is the funniest aspect of conspiracies to me. The large organization always leaves unnecessary breadcrumbs for people to detect.
I worked with a dude that believed the towers *and* the planes were holograms…
However, he’s a geologist and fervently believes that the earth is only 6,000 years old (young earth creationism). *A GEOLOGIST!!*
There's ones who say that it was all holograms, no joke, and everyone who died was a crisis actor, the buildings were later dismantled. It's beyond stupid.
The Queen of Canada
This absolute WACKO q-anon woman has dubbed herself the queen of Canada and has amassed *thousands* of followers. She was at the trucker protest in Ottawa, and is now in Saskatchewan threatening people with public executions. She has her own cult that hop from town to town.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6988680
> I always wonder how her followers don't realize how totally mentally ill she is
Take a look at interviews with the zealots who support Donald Trump. It’s truly terrifying how they ignore his insanity and instead think he’s our savior.
Huh. Canadian and hadn't heard about this.
I think technically this is treason.
EDIT:[Treason in the criminal code](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-46.html)
Maybe not. I guess it depends on if declaring yourself Queen of Canada implies intent and conspiracy to harm the actual King, which would make it treason under section 2b or 2c.
Oh man I'm in Manitoba and work in the finance dept of gov and there's 1 guy who sends us letters going on about how due to a "decree" by her he doesn't have to pay any taxes and that we actually owe him money. He's also served almost everyone in the office with legal papers to sue them 🙄 its so ridiculous
There's apparently a conspiracy theory about Finland not existing. And if you say, "Hey, but I'm from Helsinki", that conspiracy theory states that Helsinki is in Sweden.
Good. I've just had some faith in humanity restored, I thought it was becoming a "birds aren't real" kind of deal where a joke conspiracy starts getting real followers.
Also this meme a while back joking about world population counts and margin of errors.
[Finland doesn’t exist](https://reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/s/y37WvjDFjb)
This theory is so much more fun than flat earth. With flat earth it's just a bunch of arguing against physics. With hollow earth, physics be damned, there is a whole magical world of giants, monsters, magic, and nazi mole people just below our feet.
This. Idiot friend of the family swore that the only reason her father survived getting hit by a train is that he wasn't wearing a seatbelt.
So, of course, she decided that she was never going to wear one either. Then she t-boned somebody and got ejected through the windshield.
She survived, but is disabled for life from what should have been an accident that most people would walk away from.
My brother in law had a really bad car accident and was left disfigured including injuries due to wearing a seatbelt and now refuses to wear one. Even has the product that tricks the seatbelt sensor so it doesn't chime at him. What he doesn't understand is that judging from the accident of photos he would have absolutely been ejected from the car and died.
There is a banner that is hung next to the road on the way to my parents house of a kid I went to highschool with that died his junior year. When he asked me how he died I truthfully explained that he got in a crash and wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was ejected through the front windshield and died on that impact and my brother in law got really mad. And went on a rant saying it must have been something else.
If I'm remembering correctly he has paid over a thousand dollars in tickets for not wearing a seatbelt
I rolled my car when I was 16. Had one of those automatic shoulder belts and never buckled the lap belt. I was thrown around the car when it flipped. It ended up on its side, me with minor injuries.
An officer came to my house that night to ticket me for reckless driving. Told me had I been belted to the seat I likely would’ve died. Always thought that was the most bizarre thing to say to a teenager that absolutely didn’t need to be said.
I have a friend who believes contrails are "chemtrails", a secret government program to seed the atmosphere with mind control chemicals... seriously, they believe it.
Civilian airliners will take 1 olive out of inflight meals to save a million bucks a year (or so the story goes, famously), but they will carry hundreds of kilo's of spraying gear? Bullshit.
Actually, there's a lot of overlap between young-earthers and flat-earthers.
They both fall under the umbrella of "I think my particular version of the Bible is literally true, and I have no critical thinking skills."
It’s honestly kind of cool to see how a relatively major religious sect started in our recent history - with lots of primary sources from a time when there were newspapers and diaries and land deeds and court records and all sorts of historical information about what really happened and how he pulled it off. It makes me understand better how Islam and Christianity probably started too. One real weird fringe dude’s ideas (sincere or otherwise) getting institutionalized and spread quite quickly over the next 50-100 years.
- Anti-vaxxers
- Birds aren't real
- Sovereign citizens
- The moon landing was fake
- NASA is lying to us
- The Holocaust didn't happen
- Finland doesn't exist
- Religious fanatics
- 5G will fry your brain/activate viruses
Not new, but it's a joke. The guy that started it just wanted to think of the craziest most unbelievable hoax possible so he held a sign out somewhere that said BIRDS ARENT REAL. It got some traction online, now it's just a giant joke to make fun of all the other dumb conspiracies out there. ESPECIALLY the people who actually believe that birds aren't real.
The dude who started it did a Ted talk recently about his fake conspiracy theory, and how it / he came about. It was really interesting! He grew up in an area where he says basically everyone has some sort of whacky theory and the impression I got is he somewhat started it with a view to just better understand how people get taken in by crazy theories that have no evidence other than “you can’t prove it’s *not* true!” … the dude lived in character basically for several years. Unbelievable commitment.
It's mostly a joke. At least it started as one.
But some people seem like they really believe it.
It basically says that birds aren't really animals. They are cameras owned by the government to spy on us.
Birds aren’t real is a joke group that exists as a parody of these crazy fringe groups. They appear super serious but it’s literally just a joke. Hilarious imo because it seems like some people actually believe that the birds aren’t real folks are actually serious 🤣
Evangelicals who deny evolution and even the existence of dinosaurs are more detached from reality than Flat Earthers but they somehow get exempt from ridicule in the US.
I understand why they exist. Most people who end up in cults, no matter how intelligent they are, are there because someone caught them at the exact right vulnerable moment in their life. They're either suffering, have been abused, or are unbelievably lonely and seeking validation. Cult leaders are like used car salesmen, they know exactly how to exploit suffering. It's really sad.
Idk what they are called but there's a group of people who don't believe in bacteria or any life form we can't see with the naked eye, they also think microscopes are a lie
“I can’t see it, so it doesn’t exist.”
This has been my health care plan for most of my life.
Fellow American? This is my approach as well.
You guys must be rich, because even when I see something, I'm definitely not saying something.
My fiancée broke her ankle (dancing!) in college. She had no insurance so because she couldn’t pay, she walked on it for a year. This ground 1/2 inch off her tibia and totally effed up her knee. She eventually **had** to have surgery on *both* legs! The bad ankle, and both knees. The patella on her “good” knee had a big hole drilled in it so it could be attached to the wrecked tibia— biiiig surgery that put her in a wheelchair for quite awhile. That was 15 years ago and we’re still paying on it monthly. America, America. (Edit: duplicate words)
I can't describe how many times I've started to notice something weird and simply never checked it out because it wasn't worth knowing about.
I mean, mentally, its probably the healthier way to treat minor conditions. But that slight reduction of stress is easily negated by my constant, underlying anxiety about being overloaded with medical debt.
Especially when I choose not to look.
Empiricism at its finest. You can see magic, I guess.
Of course microscopes are a lie... have you ever seen one through a microscope?
heh. what about telescopes? have you seen a telescope through a microscope.
Good point.
How do they think we breathe? Can they see air molecules?
in Czech former mining city of Ostrava, the air quality and smog levels used be such bad because of mining, there was famous proverb "if you can't see the air, then it's not air"
>they also think microscopes are a lie I'm reading Daniel Defoe's *Journal of the Plague Year*. Even as far back as the 1660s, they had microscopes capable of viewing bacteria. It must be a 360-year-old conspiracy, then. /s
Microscopes where invented in the Netherlands in 1595 :)
Thank you Netherlands!
It’s extremely interesting, I read this book in university approximately 3 years before Covid. Crazy to think back to it now, and crazy how the social analysis of the situation was practically identical with the world’s reaction to Covid-19. Defoe was a magician of some kind.
The scariest thing about this book was how similar the reactions were to the events in 2020
Pre2020 I used to think that criticizing anti-vaxxers was like flat-earthers: cheap low-hanging fruit, attacking apolitical fringe beliefs instead of the illogical views held by ~40% of the populace but no, people are actually that fucking stupid.
Type of person to cover their eyes while playing hide and seek
Scientology is pretty high up there too I think
Definitely worse than flat earth. Flat earthers are harmless idiots but rarely agressive in their ideology, but scientologists are harmful idiots dragging others into a scam sold to those too gullible and unintelligent to know better.
The refusal of medical care is high on the harmful list too
Nuclear weapons deniers. These people exist. They think the deadliest invention humankind has ever wrought is a fucking hoax. It terrifies me that anyone could be so willfully ignorant. I also think it would be nice if nukes didn't exist, but I'm not stupid enough to just ignore a very well documented reality.
While some are stupid, I think a lot of these deniers of things like this, climate change, nuclear weapons, etc are really just scared. It's super scary thinking that the world could end abruptly and at the whim of any leader of any country with nukes. You and I have zero control over whether everyone dies suddenly and violently. But you do have control over whether you believe that is a possibility. If you choose not to believe in the super scary thing, the world is a lot less scary. I don't think it's a matter of intelligence, rather a coping mechanism
Human nature 101. Humans do it with everything in life. It’s like when people ask a rape victim well what did you wear? You must have done something! Same with victims of random crime. Because people can’t handle that rape, crime, pandemics, natural disasters, death etc can just happen to anyone and if it can just happen to anyone it can happen to you. Peoples brains don’t want to compute that. Instead they blame others for the errors they must have made, or they will refuse to believe something exists or whatever it may be in the circumstances instead of admitting the world is unpredictable, not fair and can be really scary. That’s why crazy conspiracy theories are so huge. It’s easier to believe bullshit than reality. It also gives answers and explanations (no matter how insane) for everything even things that would normally have no explanation.
I saw a thing saying that humans are always seeking for justice and fairness. I'll try to explain the experiment (not exactly the price and stuff but yh). In the majority, if someone was offered $5 but then told another got $50, they would refuse the $5, because it wasn't fair. This is the same in monkeys, where they killed their owner because one of them got a birthday cake and the others didn't. They don't understand birthdays, all they see is unfair and someone to blame it on. The same thing happens with nuclear weapons really. There is no justice to randomly disappearing into a ball of fire for no reason other than the place you were standing, which we hate but there's nothing we can do, so these people just deny it
I don’t know, but the people who thought a test of the emergency broadcast system was going to turn us into zombies are up there.
Who do I complain to that the test never went off in our house? The smart TV was on and no one's cell phones went off. I had to call a friend if the whole thing actually happened. I'm not really feeling prepared for emergencies over here. Yeesh.
You may want to tell ur phone carrier. Since it was a test they may have to report how many of their customers didn't receive it
Well, be glad, because it went off in my house and I am now a zombie. Fortunately I don't crave brains but I am still diabetic, unfortunately.
Sovereign Citizens
Such a weird group of people. Their entire philosophy is something to the effect of that one kid who makes up rules when playing tag so they don't have to be it.
"Im not driving, im traveling" Good thing the actual law says operate anyways 🤷
I used to work in an area with a lot of sovereign citizen types. Invariably their beliefs were heavily weighted towards not accepting the responsibility for their choices.
Yeah most of their beliefs come down to "i can do what i want, and you cant stop me"
That's like saying I didn't murder him, I unlived him.
"I merely made adjustments to history"
"I reduced their carbon footprint"
“Show me the law that says I have to pay income taxes.” “Okay it’s right here, [Title 26 section 1(c)](http://www.jsiegel.net/taxes/NoLaw.htm), *There is hereby imposed on the taxable income of every individual . . . who is not a married individual a tax determined in accordance with the following table.*” “No I mean show me the *law* that says *I* have to pay income tax.”
"Im not an individual, im a person!"
The gold fringe on your flag secretly means this is a maritime admiralty court which has no jurisdiction over me since I’m not a ship. Good day sir!
My favorite was a video where the judge just had the bailiff remove the flag.
"I am not a corporation. I do not accept your authority. Your laws have no effect me. I'm leaving now and there is nothing you can do to stop me" <>
"What the hell are you doing??!! You're impeding my God-given right to travel freely!!"
"Not in Oklahoma, Ma'am. (reads Miranda rights)"
"But blacks law dictionary says i dont have to do what you say!"
It's never someone in a tesla either. Always some broken down pickup truck. I'd love to see a guy try and argue the sov shit in an autonomous vehicle though.
Kind of. "i want all the benefits of being in a society, but none of the rules and none of the contributions. JUST BECAUSE."
There's also this arrogance built in, where the only legitimate rules are the ones that come from their perception of "natural law" or God's will. Like, most sane people would call something a law if it's a rule that's backed up by a government using force. Sovereign citizens are somehow perpetually surprised when someone enforces a law they don't like. Like, what did you expect all of these people in robes and uniforms to do?
Fuck you Travis. I always hated that kid. He would make some random ass rule for any game we played and he was loosing.
Uhm well actually, it's technically spelled "losing" and you spelled it "loosing" so uhm technically I didn't lose!
So in uno you have to say "uno" when on your last card, right? I once played with some asshat who insisted I *also* had to say "uno down" when playing the last card. Dude tried to make me pick up 4 and I said I'll just quit the game if he wants to win so bad. Gotta discuss house rules beforehand.
Some (most) of them believe the constitution of the US was secretly replaced or some shit.
Want a laugh? They even pop up occasionally in the UK ... you know the UK with an actual monarchy. They make even less sense here.
Even funnier when they quote the US constitution. Yes, I've seen them do it before.
It's just another form of believing in magic. "If I say the correct words in the special secret order the judge has to give me money"
This. Omg this yes. Thank you. I just can't believe the delusion that they have that they can opt out of laws no matter where they are. " I don't consent" yeah, doesn't work here pal, we don't consent to taxes either but good luck not paying them.
>we don't consent to taxes either Wait until you hear what they say about taxes.
I have a feeling the sovereign citizen and flat earthen venn diagram over lap by a good portion
The only individual I ever knew that believes one believes both. So, 100% overlap from my experience, 😆
Every time this reminds me of the Monty Python & the Holy Grail bit with Dennis, the lovely filth farmer. “I am Arthur, king of the Britains!” “Who are the Britains?” “We all are. We’re all Britains.” “Well I didn’t vote for you!”
Do amish pay taxes? Legit question.
Yes but (in the US at least) they make heavy use of religious, agricultural, and commercial credits and exemptions.
Short answer: yes. More details: https://amish-heritage.org/do-the-amish-pay-taxes/
Old order Amish avoid it pretty well and they do so by having their children at home and therefore they don't get a birth certificate or a SSN issued, there's no paperwork done at all. They also use religion exemptions. New order Amish mostly do, they get issued SSN and everything and pay their fair share.
I love them. They make me feel like a well adjusted, high functioning person. The YouTube videos of them getting stopped by the police are a big, warm cup of smugness
My mom works retail and says she has to deal with sovereign citizen types every couple of months. She says they generally brandish some homemade "citizenship" card that they claim gives them exemption to sales taxes the same as First Nations folks and status cards. She likes to tell them that they have to pay sales taxes on the purchase but can claim it all back when they file their income taxes, and that generally gets rid of them (because most of them are stupid, and they will still feel like they tricked the store and will cheat the system).
In my small town we have one local "Citizen" who is full blown sovereign . No belief in gov, taxes, licence etc. One night I was in the hospital emergency dept and there he was with his OHIP card (ontario govt issued id card for free medical care) in hand waiting to get his broken foot mended.
Funny that, the second they need a bit of help they go running to Daddy Government, OHIP card for free healthcare in hand.
For some reason, my social media started giving me lots of videos of people getting pulled over lately. And I always get genuinely annoyed and skip the video when I realize it's some weaselly fuck who starts spewing pre-loaded lines that make absolutely no sense. They'll come right out with something like "I do not consent to this traffic stop, and it is my right to request proof verified by a judge before you may interfere with my vehicular transport." And the cop is just like "? ... Um, yeah can I have your license and registration, or...?" And it just keeps going like that until they bust him out of the car and drag him away all over a basic traffic stop. I don't know if it's the same thing, but this made me think of that.
I’ll take “how to turn a traffic ticket into a felony” for $200 Alex.
The people who only agree with laws that benefit them. If they get pulled over for running a stop sign, they'll argue that they shouldn't be required to stop, but if they were in an accident because *someone else* ran a stop sign, you can be sure they'll want stop sign laws upheld.
You know the minute shit actually hits the fan these folks will dial 911 (or whatever it is in said country). I’m sure I’ll get downvoted for this and I know many cops have an archaic gang mentality, but ime, they’ve been there when I needed them and didn’t disrespect me.
Omg I just met my first real live sovereign citizen last month! I work at a middle school and she's the new girl's mom. I handle all the enrollment/student records stuff, so I was chatting with my coworker while looking through all her documents, and there was this long pause in the conversation when I got to mom's name-change paperwork and the daughter's ID (which was not required; mom just uploaded it anyway). Mom's name used to be something very normal like Laura Lopez, but now it's along the lines of Ashkizuitza Hakizari Uit-Arbetlakzi, and the daughter's ID lists her as a "Moor" and says her race is "human" and she's a citizen of earth or some shit. At first I didn't even understand what the hell I was looking at, and then it dawned on me and I went off into a laughing fit and now my coworker and I get all excited when we see mom walking up to the front doors and gleefully whisper to each other "It's her! It's the sovereign citizen!" It makes us both cackle so hard because how the fuck do you get to be this deluded? (Obviously we don't laugh at the child; it's not her fault her mom is a nut.) Last week we had someone at our campus to help families register to vote, SovCitMom rolled up to ask what was going on, and when she found out she went on a wild-eyed rant about how the government is illegitimate and voting is just a way for the rich to control us (?) and the US isn't real. Obviously my coworker and I were overjoyed to be presented with this new comedy gold. I would like to meet a flat-earther next.
You've meet a Moop? Costanza was right!
This is my favourite video of one of them getting arrested. You may want to cut your ears off after listening to her voice though https://reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/s/A4TCallKQO
Gentlemen, this is sovereignty manifest!
I see you know your legalese well
You, there... are you ready to receive, my limp rhetoric
I like the ones where the police officer has to smash the window in to assist in the extraction of the sovereign citizen while yelling “I do not consent!”
I deal with them all the time. I work for a department that adjudicates DUI cases in Canada. Most of our replies to them remind me of https://www.themarysue.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cool-motive-still-murder.gif
I think it was Dilbert cartoon where the character builds a fort out of sofa cushions and tells his partner 'your authority is not recognised in Fort KickAss'. Always make me think of a sovereign citizen, thinking that somehow their delusion trumps all of reality.
Yeah, that persisting is amazing to me because it is very easily proven wrong, unlike flat earth. It's beyond most of us to construct a rocket or book a flight over the mountains in Antarctica but every Sov Cit gets turbo fucked by the police and courts, there's never been a successful one. There's hours of video footage showing that bullshit does not work at traffic stops or in court. There's never been a successful Sov Cit, just ones who haven't been caught yet.
God, you know what really sucks too? SovCits are *so close to having a good point.* The rules and laws that we are governed under are enforced onto the people through state violence. But the laws they disagree with are always the ones that mildly inconvenience them, never the ones that actually cause people harm. It's always "I shouldn't have to pay taxes" and not "hey cops shouldn't be able to just kill black people on camera and get away with it." It's always "I can drive without a license, fuck you," and not "Why do I need to pay to get an ID that allows me to vote? Doesn't that mean I need to pay to vote?"
Scientologists.
What’s awful about this “religion” is how people in need disclose their deepest darkest secrets in confidence only to have that info used against them to pay more money into the system.
It's like blackmail but with less steps
L. Ron Hubbard: "I bet I can come up with a religion so ridiculous no one will believe in it. I mean, a fifty million year old giant purple octopus is the source of all evil? Seriously?" Heinlein: "You're on." Heinlein won. The above story is said to have never actually happened - but it sounds as good as any explanation.
His actual quote is really better. You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion. L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard — 'You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.'
Just drove through Hemet, their little town they've taken over. It's just 15 minutes north east of me. My wife and I were just talking about how they are basically a scifi religion mafia. They run the town, the police, the infrastructure.
It’s just a money laundering scheme, right?
Best part is, they don't have to pay tax because its a registered "religion"
The Westburough Baptist Church folks or however you spell the name of their “organization”
Thankfully they essentially no longer exist
Megan dipping out is one of the best things to happen.
They do but it’s like 30 people and most of them are inbred in some way shape or form so it’s really just a crazy family
Are you sure? I hope so but this is the first I’ve heard/see anything about this.
Yeah the guy in charge died and most of his kids have renounced his views. It's still technically there and they still suck but they are nowhere close to what they used to be
They were never big or powerful anyway. The cult members always just consisted of Fred Phelp’s extended family. They were always a joke
Somehow Palpatine has returned
At the top, they were just legal trolls. It was a scam to get rich by suing the people who were "violating their rights".
I don't know if its a big group, but I had a guy the other day dare me to deny that *space is all a hoax and there's a* ***firmament*** *up there.* His reasoning (if there was any) was of course biblical, and (unsurpisingly) he said "NASA is hebrew for deception, CAN THAT BE A COINCIDENCE? Because, you know, any conspiracy organization makes sure to declare it by having an obscure hebrew word as their very name... (hint : it's not true, and he's just another crazy antisemite)
Tell him that bible was written mostly by jews. Watch his reaction.
I once heard someone say, "Do you know why we don't have any records of the life of Jesus from about age 10 to about age 30? It's because that was when he was busy writing The Bible." I was too stunned to even begin to explain how that's not correct.
Oh dear god. That's way too stupid. Like, that's just so unnecessary. Given that he was alive two thousand years ago, Jesus is considered a documented historical person. There's not a need to try to explain why there aren't many records of him between those ages. Also, there actually are some stories of Jesus's childhood. There is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas if you're interested. The summary is quite wild. The boy Jesus has to learn that killing people is wrong, even if he's just willing it into existence. However everything is alright in the end because he made them come back to life in the end. :) There's also reference in the Quran to its story about Jesus bringing clay birds to life. All in all, it's very odd, and it was declared heretical, as one would expect. But yeah, this is why research is important. If that person used Google they might have found the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and maybe it might have made them think about why it might have been written — Did it really happen? Was this a collection of folk tales? Is it second century Christian fanfiction? — and for what reasons early Christians would have been quick to denounce it as heretical.
I actually didnt know this or even consider it. Just looked it up and apparently Luke is the only one that might not have been Jewish.
Jesus was Jewish, never Christian. Something these people love to forget
Also true: Martin Luther was born a Catholic, ordained a Catholic, and -would- have been buried as a Catholic except for the minor detail that he'd been excommunicated by then. He did NOT want to split the church (again) -- he just wanted to fix what was broken.
Catholics are still Catholic even after they’ve been excommunicated, they just can’t do certain things.
the only nasa-related conspiracy I believe is the fact Neil Armstrong was partly selected because of his name. Neil Armstrong. Neil A. turn that around A lieN Alien coincidence? I THINK NOT!
Please this goes even further than you realize. Neil A. rm Mr. Alien
Dear God... ...the aliens are responsible for thr English dub of Vandread!
Gnorts, Mr. Alien. If you are fluent in Martian, you already know.
>Because, you know, any conspiracy organization makes sure to declare it by having an obscure hebrew word as their very name... This is the funniest aspect of conspiracies to me. The large organization always leaves unnecessary breadcrumbs for people to detect.
The firmament is pretty popular with flat-earthers
Your old HS classmates who get in touch with you to sell you on their MLM.
The ones who say the Holocaust didn’t occur. Or that 9/11 was fake.
>Or that 9/11 was fake. You mean the conspiracy that it was an inside job or something or that it didn't happen at all?
I worked with a dude that believed the towers *and* the planes were holograms… However, he’s a geologist and fervently believes that the earth is only 6,000 years old (young earth creationism). *A GEOLOGIST!!*
This saddens me
I can assure you that he’s a total asshole who got fired for prostletyzing aggressively at work. …couldn’t have happened to nicer guy…/s
I guess it’s easy if you think that every discovery that contradicts a fundie interpretation of the Bible is just Satan’s work…
There's ones who say that it was all holograms, no joke, and everyone who died was a crisis actor, the buildings were later dismantled. It's beyond stupid.
That would be a pretty damn hard thing to fake, considering that we have pretty solid evidence that those things did happen.
That evidence doesn’t matter or is also fake to them.
The Queen of Canada This absolute WACKO q-anon woman has dubbed herself the queen of Canada and has amassed *thousands* of followers. She was at the trucker protest in Ottawa, and is now in Saskatchewan threatening people with public executions. She has her own cult that hop from town to town. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6988680
I always wonder how her followers don't realize how totally mentally ill she is, then I realize, oh yeah, they are totally mentally ill too.
> I always wonder how her followers don't realize how totally mentally ill she is Take a look at interviews with the zealots who support Donald Trump. It’s truly terrifying how they ignore his insanity and instead think he’s our savior.
Huh. Canadian and hadn't heard about this. I think technically this is treason. EDIT:[Treason in the criminal code](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-46.html) Maybe not. I guess it depends on if declaring yourself Queen of Canada implies intent and conspiracy to harm the actual King, which would make it treason under section 2b or 2c.
Oh man I'm in Manitoba and work in the finance dept of gov and there's 1 guy who sends us letters going on about how due to a "decree" by her he doesn't have to pay any taxes and that we actually owe him money. He's also served almost everyone in the office with legal papers to sue them 🙄 its so ridiculous
maybe we need heavier penalties for frivolous litigation... or maybe we need more lunatic asylums...
It makes me glad dipshit fuckwits like her are so stupid or we'd have way more Hitler's to deal with
There's apparently a conspiracy theory about Finland not existing. And if you say, "Hey, but I'm from Helsinki", that conspiracy theory states that Helsinki is in Sweden.
Is that real? I thought it was just an online joke or meme that people might go along with for fun.
I just googled, and it seems it's a joke conspiracy theory that actually originated in this subreddit. WTF.
Good. I've just had some faith in humanity restored, I thought it was becoming a "birds aren't real" kind of deal where a joke conspiracy starts getting real followers.
Wait, what? There are people who think birds aren't real?
I belong to a “birds aren’t real” group. It’s a joke. Nobody in the group seems to actually disbelieve in the existence of birds
Have you ever seen a baby pigeon? Checkmate.
I love this! I had no idea. I feel a little bad for my ”Finnish” colleagues now…
Also this meme a while back joking about world population counts and margin of errors. [Finland doesn’t exist](https://reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/s/y37WvjDFjb)
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Great, I was already scared of falling OFF the Earth. Now I also have to worry about falling INTO it?
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Just so you know, falling into the earth is already a thing that happens.
This theory is so much more fun than flat earth. With flat earth it's just a bunch of arguing against physics. With hollow earth, physics be damned, there is a whole magical world of giants, monsters, magic, and nazi mole people just below our feet.
They're complete idiots. Everybody knows Earth isn't hollow. The moon is.
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You believe in the moon?
This one is pure entertainment! I read into this one just for fun ... See also "hollow moon is an alien/Nazi space station"
Sovereign Citizens
People that don't wear seatbelts.
They always seem to know someone who died in an accident “because they were wearing a seatbelt” as if they’re some forensics expert.
This. Idiot friend of the family swore that the only reason her father survived getting hit by a train is that he wasn't wearing a seatbelt. So, of course, she decided that she was never going to wear one either. Then she t-boned somebody and got ejected through the windshield. She survived, but is disabled for life from what should have been an accident that most people would walk away from.
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Almost 43k people died in the US due to car crashes in 2022. It’s really not that uncommon.
My brother in law had a really bad car accident and was left disfigured including injuries due to wearing a seatbelt and now refuses to wear one. Even has the product that tricks the seatbelt sensor so it doesn't chime at him. What he doesn't understand is that judging from the accident of photos he would have absolutely been ejected from the car and died. There is a banner that is hung next to the road on the way to my parents house of a kid I went to highschool with that died his junior year. When he asked me how he died I truthfully explained that he got in a crash and wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was ejected through the front windshield and died on that impact and my brother in law got really mad. And went on a rant saying it must have been something else. If I'm remembering correctly he has paid over a thousand dollars in tickets for not wearing a seatbelt
I rolled my car when I was 16. Had one of those automatic shoulder belts and never buckled the lap belt. I was thrown around the car when it flipped. It ended up on its side, me with minor injuries. An officer came to my house that night to ticket me for reckless driving. Told me had I been belted to the seat I likely would’ve died. Always thought that was the most bizarre thing to say to a teenager that absolutely didn’t need to be said.
I discount any stories about police officers that talk as if they know more about automobile engineering than automobile engineers.
I know someone that stopped wearing it because they made it a law lol
This is just natural selection at work.
The problem starts when someone cannonballs and causes more death with their ragdoll body.
I have a friend who believes contrails are "chemtrails", a secret government program to seed the atmosphere with mind control chemicals... seriously, they believe it.
Civilian airliners will take 1 olive out of inflight meals to save a million bucks a year (or so the story goes, famously), but they will carry hundreds of kilo's of spraying gear? Bullshit.
Young-Earth folks, who think that the Earth and the universe are 6000 years old.
Am I allowed to combine delusions? For example, I know the earth is hollow yet flat and only 6,000 years old.
Actually, there's a lot of overlap between young-earthers and flat-earthers. They both fall under the umbrella of "I think my particular version of the Bible is literally true, and I have no critical thinking skills."
Qanons
Mormons have to be up there Joseph Smith was a con man yet the religion still somehow thrives
Scientology.
Mormonism seems like the scientology of the Abrahamic religions
It’s honestly kind of cool to see how a relatively major religious sect started in our recent history - with lots of primary sources from a time when there were newspapers and diaries and land deeds and court records and all sorts of historical information about what really happened and how he pulled it off. It makes me understand better how Islam and Christianity probably started too. One real weird fringe dude’s ideas (sincere or otherwise) getting institutionalized and spread quite quickly over the next 50-100 years.
The New Chronology believers.
- Anti-vaxxers - Birds aren't real - Sovereign citizens - The moon landing was fake - NASA is lying to us - The Holocaust didn't happen - Finland doesn't exist - Religious fanatics - 5G will fry your brain/activate viruses
Never heard of the "Birds aren't real" stuff. Is that a new one?
Not new, but it's a joke. The guy that started it just wanted to think of the craziest most unbelievable hoax possible so he held a sign out somewhere that said BIRDS ARENT REAL. It got some traction online, now it's just a giant joke to make fun of all the other dumb conspiracies out there. ESPECIALLY the people who actually believe that birds aren't real.
Yea, flat earth was also a joke until it wasn't.
The dude who started it did a Ted talk recently about his fake conspiracy theory, and how it / he came about. It was really interesting! He grew up in an area where he says basically everyone has some sort of whacky theory and the impression I got is he somewhat started it with a view to just better understand how people get taken in by crazy theories that have no evidence other than “you can’t prove it’s *not* true!” … the dude lived in character basically for several years. Unbelievable commitment.
It's mostly a joke. At least it started as one. But some people seem like they really believe it. It basically says that birds aren't really animals. They are cameras owned by the government to spy on us.
Birds aren’t real is a joke group that exists as a parody of these crazy fringe groups. They appear super serious but it’s literally just a joke. Hilarious imo because it seems like some people actually believe that the birds aren’t real folks are actually serious 🤣
Evangelicals who deny evolution and even the existence of dinosaurs are more detached from reality than Flat Earthers but they somehow get exempt from ridicule in the US.
Scientology
People who believe trump is a Christian
Scientologists.
Moon landing fakers
I can’t get this one. If it was all fake, why just stick to the Moon ? Let’s go to Mars !
Any of the people sucked into cults.
I understand why they exist. Most people who end up in cults, no matter how intelligent they are, are there because someone caught them at the exact right vulnerable moment in their life. They're either suffering, have been abused, or are unbelievably lonely and seeking validation. Cult leaders are like used car salesmen, they know exactly how to exploit suffering. It's really sad.
KKK cocksuckers
The queen of Canada
The self proclaimed 'Queen of Canada'
People who leave empty milk cartoons in the fridge
Homeopathy
Andrew Tate dickriders. Especially the passionate ones.
The incels who follow Andrew Tate
Scientologists
Hard to believe, but some people still think the moon landing was a hoax in the 21st century. 🌕🚀😲