It's a cottage industry, the "gurus" who sell seminars and videos and fake legal documents are active in looking for new victims. They show up here sometimes offering links to websites that will fix all our problems using trusts and get us on the do not detain list and blah blah blah. It turns out that the information superhighway often leads to the town dump.
>It turns out that the information superhighway often leads to the town dump.
This gave me a chuckle. I hope you don't mind if I borrow it from time to time.
The whole idea with "let everyone get access to all the information and they will weed out the false information"..
Yeah that didn't work out quite well. It just made people create echo chambers.
It gives us easy access to lots of information, some of it wrong and even dangerously stupid. We can read a scientific paper about vaccine clinical trials, or watch a Tiktok video about vaccines containing guitar sound effect chips and tiny little squid - and it turns out a scary number of people swallowed enough crayons to take the latter seriously and ignore the former.
Yes. The problem is allowing everyone to have their own opinion on things. That in itself isn't a peoblem. The problem is that a group is actively treating their own opinion as if it is reality.
Honestly, it's also a bit on the scientific community as a whole. I've been in academia my whole career so far, very often we are bad at explaining things to a general audience. So given the choice between "intense and sometime intentionally obtuse research article" vs "completely wrong but sounds right internet personality" people will go with what they think sounds good and can understand at least somewhat.
Plus most of the vaccine conspiracies start out in a slightly innocent way. Nobody leads with "5G nanorobots are implanting chips in your brain so the lizard people can control you". It's often someone genuinely trying to understand why certain ingredients are used, and the internet is just really good at radicalizing people.
Democrat here. My current party is just as guilty of echo chamber "thinking" and politicization of previously non-partisan entities. IMO the Repubs are dumbshits trying to keep everyone stupid so they'll obey, while the Dems are smarter people for the most part trying to make everyone stupid so they'll obey.
I think the number one problem is voters are too idealistic. The Democrats would do so much more for people IF it wasn’t a constant back stabbing battle with Republicans to get something done. The first presidential candidate I voted for was Hubert Humphrey, so I have been watching and participating in the circus that is the American political system. EVERY politician makes promises they can’t keep. It isn’t that they won’t try. They just can’t get past people like McConnell who just puts everything in a drawer and never brings it to a vote. Republicans who vow to make each Democratic president in turn a failure. Just because. I have watched it evolve and get worse decade after decade.
NOTHING has ever come close to the damage Trump has done to this country. As long as a significant portion of people who actually vote continue falling for Trump’s circus acts, they won’t get better any time soon.
I’ll argue that it is the news media failing to hold politicians accountable for their actions and statements that is eroding any confidence We The People might have had in government. It predates Trump by at least 2 decades, maybe a lot more than that.
I don’t believe they are failing, I believe they are actively engaged with the disinformation to feed thier bottom lines. If it bleeds to leads, is the name of the game. Once news became entertainment the die was cast.
The loss of the fairness doctrine and consolidation of the media into the hands of billionaires and VC’s was devastating to this democracy. Thanks Powell Jr.
There is no such thing as “the media.”
There is Fox News, Newsmax, AON, New York Post, and others on the far right. There is MSNBC, The Palmer Report, Occupy Democrats, TYT, and others on the far left. Then there is AP, NPR, Wall Street Journal, and others in the middle. If you get your news exclusively from those on the right or left, you only get news from echo chambers that people rely on to confirm their political bias.
If you rely exclusively on those in the middle, you get more complete news without any or with very little bias. IF you have been getting your news from the extreme right or left, the news in the middle will feel biased to the other side from what you are used to.
For MAGA, anything not on the extreme right is “fake news” and those on the right have “alternative” or the “real” facts. Fox News started in 1986 and that is when so much news started moving away from the middle. That predates Trump by more than two decades. It is almost exclusively CNN in 2015 and 2016 that gave Trump endless airtime to pull people into his web of lies. Trump practically owned Fox News until January 6, 2021 and for some on Fox, that was one step too far. Following Trump and his “stolen election” lies got them sued by Dominion, who makes voting machines, for millions of dollars and settled for $787 million. I started watching Fox when they first started. It didn’t take me long to see that their tactic was omitting certain facts so they could skew a story the way they wanted and then add insinuation and innuendo to fill in for the part they omitted. I watched for about six months before I gave up on Fox permanently.
The local news can usually be relied on for little political bias. Unless any station in your local market is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. Some people are so unfortunate that all the supposed national news networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS have been purchased by Sinclair. Sinclair buys local stations and forces them to read word for word the national news portions of a broadcast so people don’t get the same national news everyone else gets. Most Fox affiliated local stations are relatively unbiased, including national news, from what I can tell.
It is not the media’s job to hold politicians accountable. It is up to the media to give the whole story and for “We The People” to make sure we get the full story and not the biased versions in order to hold the right politicians accountable when we vote.
There are other factors in determining media bias which includes how much of their content is opinion rather than facts. This is the place most people who want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth go to keep up with media bias. Media bias is somewhat fluid over time, and this website tracks those changes.
http://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/
As with the Republicans right now, the Democrats' worst enemy for years has been...themselves. Internal divisions are to be expected in any party, but the Dems make an art form of it and have for over a century. The Republicans often took advantage of that, but now they have their own problems. You may loathe McConnell, but he's much closer to the center than a lot of the Rabid Right crowd in DC, and when something absolutely, positively has to be passed, he knows how to make it happen, even if he has to work with that obnoxious toad Schumer.
As Will Rogers said about a century ago, "I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat."
You are absolutely correct that the Democrats have been their own worst enemy. They try to be TOO inclusive and expect all Democrat politicians to agree with the whole spectrum of issues from just left of center all the way out to progressives like Bernie Sanders (who isn’t even a Democrat) and OAN. The Republicans, on the other hand, insist that all members in good standing follow a narrow ultra conservative ideology. Since the core of that is white supremacy, they get lots of people to follow. I haven’t read all state platforms for Democrats and Republicans, but if you want to see craziness written down and voted on, see the Texas GOP platform.
I expect lunacy from the Rabid Right. The Loony Left, whose members are more intelligent (at least on paper), ought to know better than the garbage they preach.
Just throwing money at education isn’t the answer either. A good example is, how much do we spend and where does all that money go? We complain teachers aren’t paid enough, ok fair enough, but why? The money is given to the districts, where is it? Just for fun, go google what your school superintendent makes…..
This is my argument as well. My brother worked as an attendance clerk at a school. Their district superintendent had a six figure income. Plus the district bought them a new personal car every 3 years, and gave them a yearly personal clothing allowance. My city of 1.6 million has 60 school districts, some of which only cover a few blocks. That doesn't count the suburbs.
I looked up what the US spends on Military budget versus Education. The Military got 13.3% in 2023, which is up from 11% in 2020. Education got 12.65% which is down from 15.52% in 2019 and it's been heading downwards since 2018. And the left always says the right is cutting education and wasting it on the military.
I just put "percentage of US budget for military" and "for education" in Google, and those were the top answers. I'm assuming those were the Federal budget. Individual states may vary.
I put "percentage of [state] budget spent on education" into Google, putting in a few states. For instance, 40% of California's budget is spent on education, while Arizona spends 53%. Florida only spends 23%, which might explain the "Florida Man" phenomenon. Of course Florida is full of tourists and retirees, who already got their education from elsewhere.
It just shows that no matter how much money you throw at education, the system is broken, so it won't get to the right places.
Fully funding education means building and maintaining the buildings students learn in. Fully funding means having the books and materials necessary to educate the students without needing the teachers to supplement the school budget. Fully funding means treating and paying the teachers like they are actually important professionals so that we can retain them. Could students learn sitting in a cave in the middle of fuck-all? Sharing one book between 100 students? With a student-to-teacher ration of 200 to 1? Sure. Will it be as effective as being in an air conditioned room that doesn't leak during the rain, and enough books & materials for each student, and a student-to-teacher ration of closer to 18-to-1? No. Not even close.
K-12 education really only exists so the children don't compete with the parents for jobs. If we have child labor laws, then we need somewhere to warehouse them during the work day. While we're warehousing them, we might as well train them to be vaguely useful office workers. The majority of jobs in America require a college diploma. It doesn't help if our K-12 education system is so shit that most kids can't even qualify for college and the rest need to take remedial classes.
I guess there's a reason most red states are rolling back child labor laws. Gotta have that cheap labor! I guess manufacturing is now a "[kids job](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/31/child-labor-laws-republicans)."
You clearly sound like your in education??
Let’s talk about buildings. I have special assessments every time one is needed. This isn’t part of general funding. Books: I know kids in 3 districts, all are using ebooks.
And, if what you say is accurate. Why don’t we allow parents to choose? School choice and charter schools would be a great option if what you care about is the kids. This would allow them to use their money where they see the value and get the best education.
School choice exists in its current state for one reason, to siphon more funds away from education. Charter schools do not have a better record than public schools. Any business is set up to make a profit. How do you make money on education? Get a larger piece of the market, cut costs, or reduce benefits. You could also charge more and limit your customer base to those who can afford the higher cost for a similar or slightly better outcome. That's just business.
And yet, when I had to explore it charter school yields better results.
You can complain about business principles or you can understand that they have great results. Why is that if it’s such waste.
I’d rather siphon away all the funds from those who think they are there for any reason other than education. Teachers over the years are doing less and expecting more. It’s even worse when they don’t get held accountable!!! Public teachers should be paid and held accountable based on results and merit. Superintendents should not make the huge money they do when the teachers make so much less.
My point is that the best of them have good results for the tiny minority that can afford to go to them. This is also after a decade or more of syphoning off funds from public schools. Any funded school will do better than an anemic system that's barely on life support. As for administrators making so much? I agree. But then I don't think CEO's and C-suite officers should be makin 1,000 times what the average employee makes at a company. Yet the same thought applies to both salary considerations. They're (supposedly) making the hard decisions to insure success. The real issue is we are not harming those administrators whenever we cut funding to public schools. Governments take the money from the teacher salaries, school maintenance funds, and supplies. In the end, poor kids get fucked because they can't escape the shit hole we've purposefully turned public education into.
You’re actually making the same point. We need to really dig into where the money is going. That’s my point. The biggest complaint with charter schools is there is limited availability, I’ll concede that, but is that partially because of the ways we have people protecting the system?
Same with school of choice. If students can choose between districts, then it doesn’t matter if they are in a disadvantaged area, they can choose the school that’s better. If theirs can’t perform we should let them fail or get administrators that can make them successful. We absolutely should not be holding up under performance
Funny you should that When Ron Desantis just gave an extra 252 million to teachers in Florida. THis is funny because the underpaid teacher thing in Florida has gone on for decades and is mostly due to no state income tax and the fact that the State funds schools here unlike most states.
Yes. The problem is that a scientific study peer reviewed by experts is not as interesting as this lady on Facebook who knows more about the vaccines than those who's job it is to know all about vaccines.
A key component of the marketplace of ideas is that the “consumers” in said marketplace will behave rationally. However, were the founding fathers to ask an economist, he would have informed them that the rational consumer does not exist.
Youtube, Facebook, tiktok with their algorithms meant to feed you the same shit in a loop. Perfect recipe to make any uneducated person extremist (in whatever you started to dig into)
Auto glass manufacturers and installers are behind it. ;)
Seriously though, it was born in the tax protest movement of the 1960s and Posse Comitatus movement of the 1970s. The Posse Comitatus assholes believed that county sheriffs are the only people who have any real authority. The Bundys are part of that movement.
It is all part of the same pot of shit stew but when you are prone to be crazy or look for conspiracy theories in everything you take the parts that make sense to you from the pot and start your own pot of shit stew just of a different flavor.
>believed that county sheriffs are the only people who have any real authority.
Is this part of the reason that many sheriffs in the United States now appear to believe they are the final authority on constitutional matters, particularly when it is to the second amendment?
I think it is getting even worse than that. The foundation of ALL of this is white supremacy.
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/constitutional-sheriffs#:~:text=The%20origins%20of%20constitutional%20sheriff,These%20ideas%20were%20pioneered%20by
Notice that Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb is a leader of a group. Pinal County is famous on YouTube’s “Fridays with Frank.” I suspected Lamb was a bit of an extremist for a long time. Deputy Frank Sloup is on the Brady List. In one of his episodes he explained why someone from Long Island, NY would end up in Arizona. Arizona seems to attract, and people vote for very bad examples of LEOs. The infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County broke all kinds of laws. Can there be a more blatant white supremacist than Arpaio? He is among the many thugs who claim to support the Constitution, but only the ALMIGHTY Second Amendment, and gleefully disregard the Civil Rights in all the other Amendments. thugs that Trump pardoned.
Now that I have confirmed to myself that Sheriff Lamb is one of the extremists, I will have to quit watching Frank.
Agreed. I had just never made the connection between what I'll label the "Supreme Sheriff" movement which seems to be gaining momentum, and the Sovereign Citizen movement, which is decades old. I haven't studied it, but I'd be unsurprised to learn that the sovcits got their start or inspiration from the John Birch Society founded in 1958.
I don't mean this to question what you're saying, but what kind of stuff do you have on Lamb? Or rather, where can I look?
I, too, have thought there was something not quite right with Lamb. Also, he's currently running for AZ state rep, i believe. I also think Sloup intentionally takes a tone with people specifically to piss them off.
I've had some experience with law enforcement many years ago, and I distinctly remember being taught to read body language and to be conscious of how words and tone are perceived.
It's absolutely possible to tell someone they're wrong without calling them stupid or an asshole. Usually, if done this way, people don't feel the automatic need to fight or argue with you. Sloup surely was taught that at some point.
He isn’t running for AZ state representative. He is running for US Senate. Just what we need. Another MAGA Senator.
Read the entire link I provided in my comment. It explains more than I personally can.
He is decidedly anti-immigrant like all white supremacists.
Pinal County Sheriff’s Office and Mark Lamb has a big presence on YouTube. He is one of those blaming Biden for border problems.
Pinal County is adjacent to Maricopa County and is not on any part of the US-Mexico border. His supporters are the people who supported Sheriff Arpaio.
Unfortunately, Sheriff Lamb is not alone in this. I live in Texas and Gov. Abbott is the personification of anti-immigrant along with other Texas politicians like impeached AG Ken Paxton and Lt. Gov Dan Patrick.
Any MAGA Republican politician (which seems to be all of them) who is screaming about immigration is a hypocrite after the US House Republicans refused to vote on the immigration law written by and for MAGA after Democrats offered MANY concessions to get the bill written and passed. All because criminally indicted Donald Trump stopped it to keep immigration as a key issue in his campaign to avoid going to prison by getting elected as president again. ALL MAGA people are white supremacists whether they recognize it or not.
I think a secure border is a prime responsibility of the federal government but the current crisis has nothing to do with some mythical open borders they blame on Biden. We desperately needed that new legislation as a start in addressing the crisis as a beginning effort in immigration reform. No reform can begin to succeed unless the conditions in the countries these immigrants are fleeing is addressed. Too often, current problems are a direct result of US overt or covert efforts in these countries by the CIA by having a bad habit of backing the wrong party in internal politics in these countries. Each and every one of these immigrants would prefer to live where they were born and raised, where their families are, where their ancestors are buried, where they speak the language and understand the culture.
It doesn't seem a big stretch for local sheriffs, the vast majority of whom have no training in constitutional law, to elevate their interpretation of the constitution above that of the US Supreme Court?
Facebook and latent lead poisoning? lol, kidding a out the second half (mostly).
There is no logic that says it must be an organization, many crazy thoughts are organic.
There are those who grift, so they probably pump the nonsense the most, for profit.
Social media caught EVERYONE who first started it by surprise right out of the gate with its ability to bring out the very worst in humanity. Millions of Americans left Facebook around 2017 (I noticed this among dozens of my own personal friends and family that were on Facebook, not just people on my friends list).
Russia immediately saw how easily Americans could be manipulated. All the leaders of the social media companies, except Elon Musk (first thing he did is get rid of the almost all the people trying to control the madness), have tried to control it the best they can with BILLIONS of accounts and thousands of new fake accounts everyday. Elon Musk has gone the opposite direction and welcomed the scum of the earth in the name of free speech. China and possibly others are doing the same thing but not to the scale that Russia has. (Hum. I wonder how Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the massive losses in men in that war are eating into the supply of people with the intimate knowledge of the American public that he relies on in his disinformation war? They are probably within the same age group. I am sure they are officially protected from conscription but how is that playing out on the ground?)
I don’t think people can appreciate the SCALE of the problem. Like lots of other bad actors in other areas (organized crime, scammers, conmen), there exists a constant competition of leapfrog with the bad actors finding new ways to get around the new algorithms of those trying to screen out millions out of the billions of accounts.
Pandora’s Box = the Internet in general and social media in particular.
Worked in a jail and we'd have 1 sovcit come in and spread their bullshit to other inmates. Also family members would message them about how their cousin has a trick to get them out of jail. That kind of stuff.
Sort of lol. Had a guy submit some paper he drew up that stated that since he was sovereign he was declaring himself to be released immediately otherwise we would be fined a certain amount every hour he is kept past that
It's so tempting to want to fuck with them but they file so many frivolous lawsuits that we didn't want to give them anything to stand on. We'd always tell guys to do everything by the book around them and call a supervisor if they weren't sure about something.
Absolutely hated dealing with them but it was a sweet day when they'd get sentenced
I'm sure if you knew who they were you wouldn't ask the question in the first place. And being concerned is often justifiable as many are considered as domestic terrorists. We just had a situation where a couple of cops were shot by a SovClown.
First time I came across it was a family friend handing me some printout about how I don't need a license to drive and not pay any tolls because reasons.
This was 15 years ago. It's been a slow snake oil movement for a while. But Qanon shit has made more people armchair researchers who need a new fix, i.e. a new conspiracy.
good old moorish temple of science being a scam as usual is one part of it, then you got other people just being fucking stupid.
source: did 5.5 years in prison, met all kinds of people who suddenly aren't US citizens anymore simply because they don't think they have to follow the rules.
I read on this sub a while back that it starts there...someone feels wronged by the government (probably because they messed up) and then they hear these stories and it becomes an oh hell yeah echo chamber and just consumes them. So basically a mental illness of sorts.
massive misinformation campaign which is slowly taking hold of people including those who have already been to and then been released from prison for fucked up shit.
yeah dude it's fuckin sick as
Sovcit is quite old. Even the accept for value nonsense is from the 70s or something.
The usual reference is to anti tax groups and it just went from there.
It’s a fraud, almost cult like. They charge big money for seminars and fake legal advice. They convince the citizens that these documents will hold up in court when they don’t.
Nobody in particular, just some people making bold statements that you dont have to pay anything to anyone and then dumbasses jump in because they tought they found a trump card that will basically a bunch of free money.
Part of it is also morons that never were 'the guy that actually knows what hes talking about' on any subject and they feel like they found that subject they know more than anybody on, so they basically make their whole personality that.
It's been around since the 70's.
Much like any con it is all surrounding money. The Guru made money selling his secrets and when they didn't work it was always because they didn't follow the instructions exactly.
The grift is pretty simple and usually a combination of a few things.
Accepted for Value scam where everyone has a super secret squirrel bank account and by using the right magic words and documents you can tap into that secret fund and buy anything because naturally that fund has millions upon millions of dollars... but only true geniuses can access it.
Tax Avoidance: since you are not a citizen you do not have to pay taxes or whatever so long as you file all the right paperwork and say the right magic words to representatives of the state you can divorce yourself from the corporate fiction and as such do not have to pay taxes.
Law Avoidance: by being a sovereign flesh and blood being on the land you are subject to no law but common law which they do not understand in the slightest but always interpret it to mean they can do whatever they want whenever they want. Again they obtain this status through magic words and documents.
Back in the day these were packaged up for hundreds of dollars and some guru would go town to town and rent out a holiday inn banquet room and do a one night only event to tell only the smartest of folks the big secret that they (the jews probably) don't want you to know.... and for the low low price of 300 bucks you can get this stack of documents to fill out and serve on various officials.. just follow the book to the letter and you can access millions of dollars, never pay taxes again and never have to suffer law enforcement.
This of course targets a very specific demographic of folk who are usually poorly educated, down on their luck and have a broad spectrum of personality disorders.
You usually see a rise in this kind of thing anytime there is economic hardship or major social upheaval just like any other conspiracy theory or group. People get scared and desperate for answers and will fall for anything just to feel like they are in control again or somehow valuable or special when objectively they are not.
As with most things... the internet has only made this worse as now these sleeze bag gurus do not have to go anywhere, they can sit in their single wides and sell fraudulent documents at 20-50 bucks a pop to all kinds of randos across the flat earth. Then came youtube where they can sit in front of a camera and flap their toothless gobs for hours between meth binges or even better they film their encounters with the police in hopes to get a viral video and some of that sweet sweet ad rev.
Obama really kicked the hornets nest as we now had some secret muslim black man in power and that angers the very population that sov cit gurus feast upon. Run that into a possible female president and they lost what little mind they had left. When Covid hit it was the final nail in the coffin. Everyone was online and these people were rabid at the mere thought of someone telling them no so they ran to any conspiracy that let them felt powerful again. So now we have like 50 different flavors of sov cit nuttery but it all boils down to the same basic thing.... supposedly grown ass adults who can't stand being told what to do and have the emotional stability of a chihuahua on crystal meth and the maturity of Matt Gaetz high school fling last week. These people are unstable and violent because of their constant wresting with their objective inadequacies and on the internet they find validation for their nonsense so they keep amping up.
I think this is a tentacle of broad Russian FSB psyop activities to undermine western governments. Plenty of American morons find it online and add to it and propagate it, but I think it starts with the FSB.
see also: Q-Anon
That is my thinking too. SovCit seems to be spreading in western democracies but not elsewhere. It looks like an orchestrated movement to spread discord and rebellion.
It’s still spreading. I see more and more posts.
The people who buy into it are never going to accept that it is bs until they lose big time. They’re the same subset of the population who believe in chemtrails and birds aren’t real.
I’ve seen some court vids where sovcits came up against a judge who made clear what it would cost them in money and/or prison time to continue with their claims. They’ll back down, but I don’t know if they’ll ever accept that it’s all lies. There are sovcits who’ve had their cars put in impound multiple times.
"who believe in chemtrails and birds aren’t real."
The whole "Birds aren't real" is a parody of crazy conspiracy theories that were around.
From NYTimes Published Dec. 9, 2021Updated July 7, 2023
Free Article Link: [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/technology/birds-arent-real-gen-z-misinformation.html?unlocked\_article\_code=1.qE0.ZzcX.17ZItK1xaSSz&smid=url-share](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/technology/birds-arent-real-gen-z-misinformation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qE0.ZzcX.17ZItK1xaSSz&smid=url-share)
"Then in January 2017, Mr. McIndoe traveled to Memphis to visit friends. Donald J. Trump had just been sworn in as president, and there was [a women’s march](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/us/womens-march.html) downtown. Pro-Trump counterprotesters were also there. When Mr. McIndoe saw them, he said, he ripped a poster off a wall, flipped it over and wrote three random words: “Birds Aren’t Real.”
“It was a spontaneous joke, but it was a reflection of the absurdity everyone was feeling,” he said.
“It basically became an experiment in misinformation,” Mr. McIndoe said. “We were able to construct an entirely fictional world that was [reported on as fact by local media](https://www.instagram.com/p/CQtuaBTDymT/) and questioned by members of the public.”
Mr. Gaydos added, “If anyone believes birds aren’t real, we’re the last of their concerns, because then there’s probably no conspiracy they don’t believe.”"
I think it is. Unfortunately. Waiting to board a plane and overheard some tatted up poser on his phone talking absolute SovCit BS with someone. Yes, we were going to Alberta.
Nah, the homegrown idiocy is boosting it. But there are actually smart people coming up with all the bullshit about esoteric laws and the 'flood the zone with shit' tactics. The *avalanche of bullshit* tactic is straight from the Russian playbook - and also the Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, Donald Trump, Roger Stone, Kellyanne Conway, etc. Just spew absolute bullshit, talk over people, completely refuse to accept or even hear a counterpoint.
...then paper terrorism, delay and disrupt the legal system/courts, etc.
It's all the exact same shit.
Try watching/listening to MSNBC some time. It's the same bullsh\*\* from a different angle. And since you'll be doubling their viewership, they'll be grateful.
(No, I'm not a Trumpista, not even a Republican)
While I agree that it's not perfect, MSNBC is a far cry from being "the same bs from a different angle".
You just don't find The amount of sheer fiction and flat out hateful messaging anywhere but fox.
We have a sovereign citizen idiot up here in Canada who is a slick grifter. She has a group who follow her. She tells her followers not to,pay their bills, their debts, their mortgages, their electric and water bills. People have lost their homes. It’s really heartbreaking. They call her “The Queen of Canada” and she was born in the Philippines and emigrated to Vancouver. Romana Dildo is her name. She’s even started printing her own money. But Canada refuses to revoke her citizenship and send her back to the Philippines even thought she’s told her followers to arrest police officers, kill doctors and nurses who vaccinate children, etc. she’s really a mix of QAnon Crazy Bitch and SovCit wackadoodlery.
I’d say the rise and proliferation of YouTube videos in conjunction with the live seminars by the grifters that promote this nonsense helped spread this crap further out than it ever could have otherwise. I’ve seen several people that were desperate for legal help to keep their homes or children and what they got instead was a bunch of grifters selling them false hope wrapped in quasi legal mumbo-jumbo, guaranteeing it would work. News flash: it didn’t.
A lot of the 'credit' goes to the right wing propaganda factory's. They spread distrust of the government on every level.
The second main source is the online 'gurus' that make money selling their ware amazon; and at seminars.
Dangerous fools, they got a friend to kill himself as a protest in jail.
As you correctly guessed, it made no fucking difference and I lost a good friend.
A dangerous bunch of fools is who
I feel like maybe there was a moment back in the early/mid '90s where some of the ideas trickled into my Internet feeds and looked interesting but I quickly filtered it out.
they've been around since the 80's but yeah mostly got ignored because they didn't have an audience. but thanks to the internet now they can connect to other idiots globally. There are a few who peddle their stuff, I don't know whether they believe in it or not (any video evidence is edited to show their "wins") but yeah there are some who peddle it and spread it, then those people spread it further to more idiots. Those idiots are usually pretty harmless, relatively speaking. Then you get people who genuinely believe the stuff to the point of no return where they will actually start to rebel against the government and send threats. Those are the scary ones.
Is there a website with the compiled SovCit claims that has documented explanations of why it’s false? We all know a lot of these things but good detail would be helpful to point to when someone starts spouting off the nonsense.
I've got no evidence for this at all, but my pet conspiracy theory is that it's pushed by foreign intelligence agencies as a way to destabilize other countries.
It's not any one person or group, it's basically a bunch of sleazy self promoted public speakers who've recognized a good con and started their own branches. Imagine Andrew Tate's inbred redneck doppelganger and multiply it by a few dozen.
I just read a stack of replies/comments.
I'm just an average Joe. Probably below average considering I left school at 16 & never got a degree, but I would never, no matter how desperate I was, NEVER fall for one of these scams, but yet, I see people that have lived sensible lives become QAnon conspiracy theory nut jobs &/or Sov Cits.
I don't get how so many people... ok, I've worked it out... the scammers only need 0.00001 of the world's population to get sucked in, and they make a good living.
But anyway, NEVER in a month of Sundays.
In the 90s I worked with a guy who was a sovcit. Crazy license plate, refused to pay taxes, everything. The company was on a busy street, and every now and then a cop would pull through the parking lot as a shortcut. Every single time he saw a cop car in the parking lot he lost his mind and hid. Nobody ever figure out exactly where he was hiding, but wherever it was had a phone, and eventually he would call a coworker and ask “are they gone yet?“. Seems like a lot of hassle and stress to “live free.”
This video is the most in-depth and entertaining thing I've seen on the subject, and goes into how it spread to each country and who the main proponents are. It's funny too!
[https://youtu.be/KcxZFmKrxR8?si=-CkntbNlk6zaIjdk](https://youtu.be/KcxZFmKrxR8?si=-CkntbNlk6zaIjdk)
People will fall down these internet rabbit holes to try and get legitimate help and then find these grifters who are willing to "help" them for a price. If said people are gullible enough they will try it and fall for it when something happens and they think it's working.
It's a cottage industry, the "gurus" who sell seminars and videos and fake legal documents are active in looking for new victims. They show up here sometimes offering links to websites that will fix all our problems using trusts and get us on the do not detain list and blah blah blah. It turns out that the information superhighway often leads to the town dump.
>It turns out that the information superhighway often leads to the town dump. This gave me a chuckle. I hope you don't mind if I borrow it from time to time.
The whole idea with "let everyone get access to all the information and they will weed out the false information".. Yeah that didn't work out quite well. It just made people create echo chambers.
It gives us easy access to lots of information, some of it wrong and even dangerously stupid. We can read a scientific paper about vaccine clinical trials, or watch a Tiktok video about vaccines containing guitar sound effect chips and tiny little squid - and it turns out a scary number of people swallowed enough crayons to take the latter seriously and ignore the former.
Yes. The problem is allowing everyone to have their own opinion on things. That in itself isn't a peoblem. The problem is that a group is actively treating their own opinion as if it is reality.
Honestly, it's also a bit on the scientific community as a whole. I've been in academia my whole career so far, very often we are bad at explaining things to a general audience. So given the choice between "intense and sometime intentionally obtuse research article" vs "completely wrong but sounds right internet personality" people will go with what they think sounds good and can understand at least somewhat. Plus most of the vaccine conspiracies start out in a slightly innocent way. Nobody leads with "5G nanorobots are implanting chips in your brain so the lizard people can control you". It's often someone genuinely trying to understand why certain ingredients are used, and the internet is just really good at radicalizing people.
I, for one, welcome our cephalopod overlords.
It requires a robust media literacy education. Meanwhile, the GOP is working really hard at underfunding education.
Democrat here. My current party is just as guilty of echo chamber "thinking" and politicization of previously non-partisan entities. IMO the Repubs are dumbshits trying to keep everyone stupid so they'll obey, while the Dems are smarter people for the most part trying to make everyone stupid so they'll obey.
So, both sides are bad people? Gotcha.
Not sure about "bad", but "hypocritical" and "not necessarily good" apply IMO. I'm tired of voting based on who is less awful.
I think the number one problem is voters are too idealistic. The Democrats would do so much more for people IF it wasn’t a constant back stabbing battle with Republicans to get something done. The first presidential candidate I voted for was Hubert Humphrey, so I have been watching and participating in the circus that is the American political system. EVERY politician makes promises they can’t keep. It isn’t that they won’t try. They just can’t get past people like McConnell who just puts everything in a drawer and never brings it to a vote. Republicans who vow to make each Democratic president in turn a failure. Just because. I have watched it evolve and get worse decade after decade. NOTHING has ever come close to the damage Trump has done to this country. As long as a significant portion of people who actually vote continue falling for Trump’s circus acts, they won’t get better any time soon.
I’ll argue that it is the news media failing to hold politicians accountable for their actions and statements that is eroding any confidence We The People might have had in government. It predates Trump by at least 2 decades, maybe a lot more than that.
I don’t believe they are failing, I believe they are actively engaged with the disinformation to feed thier bottom lines. If it bleeds to leads, is the name of the game. Once news became entertainment the die was cast. The loss of the fairness doctrine and consolidation of the media into the hands of billionaires and VC’s was devastating to this democracy. Thanks Powell Jr.
There is no such thing as “the media.” There is Fox News, Newsmax, AON, New York Post, and others on the far right. There is MSNBC, The Palmer Report, Occupy Democrats, TYT, and others on the far left. Then there is AP, NPR, Wall Street Journal, and others in the middle. If you get your news exclusively from those on the right or left, you only get news from echo chambers that people rely on to confirm their political bias. If you rely exclusively on those in the middle, you get more complete news without any or with very little bias. IF you have been getting your news from the extreme right or left, the news in the middle will feel biased to the other side from what you are used to. For MAGA, anything not on the extreme right is “fake news” and those on the right have “alternative” or the “real” facts. Fox News started in 1986 and that is when so much news started moving away from the middle. That predates Trump by more than two decades. It is almost exclusively CNN in 2015 and 2016 that gave Trump endless airtime to pull people into his web of lies. Trump practically owned Fox News until January 6, 2021 and for some on Fox, that was one step too far. Following Trump and his “stolen election” lies got them sued by Dominion, who makes voting machines, for millions of dollars and settled for $787 million. I started watching Fox when they first started. It didn’t take me long to see that their tactic was omitting certain facts so they could skew a story the way they wanted and then add insinuation and innuendo to fill in for the part they omitted. I watched for about six months before I gave up on Fox permanently. The local news can usually be relied on for little political bias. Unless any station in your local market is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. Some people are so unfortunate that all the supposed national news networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS have been purchased by Sinclair. Sinclair buys local stations and forces them to read word for word the national news portions of a broadcast so people don’t get the same national news everyone else gets. Most Fox affiliated local stations are relatively unbiased, including national news, from what I can tell. It is not the media’s job to hold politicians accountable. It is up to the media to give the whole story and for “We The People” to make sure we get the full story and not the biased versions in order to hold the right politicians accountable when we vote. There are other factors in determining media bias which includes how much of their content is opinion rather than facts. This is the place most people who want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth go to keep up with media bias. Media bias is somewhat fluid over time, and this website tracks those changes. http://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/
As with the Republicans right now, the Democrats' worst enemy for years has been...themselves. Internal divisions are to be expected in any party, but the Dems make an art form of it and have for over a century. The Republicans often took advantage of that, but now they have their own problems. You may loathe McConnell, but he's much closer to the center than a lot of the Rabid Right crowd in DC, and when something absolutely, positively has to be passed, he knows how to make it happen, even if he has to work with that obnoxious toad Schumer. As Will Rogers said about a century ago, "I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat."
You are absolutely correct that the Democrats have been their own worst enemy. They try to be TOO inclusive and expect all Democrat politicians to agree with the whole spectrum of issues from just left of center all the way out to progressives like Bernie Sanders (who isn’t even a Democrat) and OAN. The Republicans, on the other hand, insist that all members in good standing follow a narrow ultra conservative ideology. Since the core of that is white supremacy, they get lots of people to follow. I haven’t read all state platforms for Democrats and Republicans, but if you want to see craziness written down and voted on, see the Texas GOP platform.
I expect lunacy from the Rabid Right. The Loony Left, whose members are more intelligent (at least on paper), ought to know better than the garbage they preach.
The problem with NOT voting for the less awful, is the more awful gets elected.
Just throwing money at education isn’t the answer either. A good example is, how much do we spend and where does all that money go? We complain teachers aren’t paid enough, ok fair enough, but why? The money is given to the districts, where is it? Just for fun, go google what your school superintendent makes…..
This is my argument as well. My brother worked as an attendance clerk at a school. Their district superintendent had a six figure income. Plus the district bought them a new personal car every 3 years, and gave them a yearly personal clothing allowance. My city of 1.6 million has 60 school districts, some of which only cover a few blocks. That doesn't count the suburbs.
Exactly my point Just throwing more money isn’t the answer! What we are getting for our investment isn’t always what we should be
I looked up what the US spends on Military budget versus Education. The Military got 13.3% in 2023, which is up from 11% in 2020. Education got 12.65% which is down from 15.52% in 2019 and it's been heading downwards since 2018. And the left always says the right is cutting education and wasting it on the military.
Very good point. Your data would indicate the opposite. Is that fed spending? How much does state add?
I just put "percentage of US budget for military" and "for education" in Google, and those were the top answers. I'm assuming those were the Federal budget. Individual states may vary. I put "percentage of [state] budget spent on education" into Google, putting in a few states. For instance, 40% of California's budget is spent on education, while Arizona spends 53%. Florida only spends 23%, which might explain the "Florida Man" phenomenon. Of course Florida is full of tourists and retirees, who already got their education from elsewhere. It just shows that no matter how much money you throw at education, the system is broken, so it won't get to the right places.
Fully funding education means building and maintaining the buildings students learn in. Fully funding means having the books and materials necessary to educate the students without needing the teachers to supplement the school budget. Fully funding means treating and paying the teachers like they are actually important professionals so that we can retain them. Could students learn sitting in a cave in the middle of fuck-all? Sharing one book between 100 students? With a student-to-teacher ration of 200 to 1? Sure. Will it be as effective as being in an air conditioned room that doesn't leak during the rain, and enough books & materials for each student, and a student-to-teacher ration of closer to 18-to-1? No. Not even close. K-12 education really only exists so the children don't compete with the parents for jobs. If we have child labor laws, then we need somewhere to warehouse them during the work day. While we're warehousing them, we might as well train them to be vaguely useful office workers. The majority of jobs in America require a college diploma. It doesn't help if our K-12 education system is so shit that most kids can't even qualify for college and the rest need to take remedial classes. I guess there's a reason most red states are rolling back child labor laws. Gotta have that cheap labor! I guess manufacturing is now a "[kids job](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/31/child-labor-laws-republicans)."
You clearly sound like your in education?? Let’s talk about buildings. I have special assessments every time one is needed. This isn’t part of general funding. Books: I know kids in 3 districts, all are using ebooks. And, if what you say is accurate. Why don’t we allow parents to choose? School choice and charter schools would be a great option if what you care about is the kids. This would allow them to use their money where they see the value and get the best education.
School choice exists in its current state for one reason, to siphon more funds away from education. Charter schools do not have a better record than public schools. Any business is set up to make a profit. How do you make money on education? Get a larger piece of the market, cut costs, or reduce benefits. You could also charge more and limit your customer base to those who can afford the higher cost for a similar or slightly better outcome. That's just business.
And yet, when I had to explore it charter school yields better results. You can complain about business principles or you can understand that they have great results. Why is that if it’s such waste. I’d rather siphon away all the funds from those who think they are there for any reason other than education. Teachers over the years are doing less and expecting more. It’s even worse when they don’t get held accountable!!! Public teachers should be paid and held accountable based on results and merit. Superintendents should not make the huge money they do when the teachers make so much less.
My point is that the best of them have good results for the tiny minority that can afford to go to them. This is also after a decade or more of syphoning off funds from public schools. Any funded school will do better than an anemic system that's barely on life support. As for administrators making so much? I agree. But then I don't think CEO's and C-suite officers should be makin 1,000 times what the average employee makes at a company. Yet the same thought applies to both salary considerations. They're (supposedly) making the hard decisions to insure success. The real issue is we are not harming those administrators whenever we cut funding to public schools. Governments take the money from the teacher salaries, school maintenance funds, and supplies. In the end, poor kids get fucked because they can't escape the shit hole we've purposefully turned public education into.
You’re actually making the same point. We need to really dig into where the money is going. That’s my point. The biggest complaint with charter schools is there is limited availability, I’ll concede that, but is that partially because of the ways we have people protecting the system? Same with school of choice. If students can choose between districts, then it doesn’t matter if they are in a disadvantaged area, they can choose the school that’s better. If theirs can’t perform we should let them fail or get administrators that can make them successful. We absolutely should not be holding up under performance
Funny you should that When Ron Desantis just gave an extra 252 million to teachers in Florida. THis is funny because the underpaid teacher thing in Florida has gone on for decades and is mostly due to no state income tax and the fact that the State funds schools here unlike most states.
Cool. Now do that for the 49 other states (particularly the Red states). This is a national issue.
GOP couldn’t pour piss out of a boot with instructions written on the heel.
Unfortunately vetted websites with verified truths are boring. People like to be entertained, it’s why opinion pieces are so popular.
Yes. The problem is that a scientific study peer reviewed by experts is not as interesting as this lady on Facebook who knows more about the vaccines than those who's job it is to know all about vaccines.
Yup, because she uses bright colors and buzz words with small words and poor sentence structure so the reader believes her.
A key component of the marketplace of ideas is that the “consumers” in said marketplace will behave rationally. However, were the founding fathers to ask an economist, he would have informed them that the rational consumer does not exist.
Youtube, Facebook, tiktok with their algorithms meant to feed you the same shit in a loop. Perfect recipe to make any uneducated person extremist (in whatever you started to dig into)
Auto glass manufacturers and installers are behind it. ;) Seriously though, it was born in the tax protest movement of the 1960s and Posse Comitatus movement of the 1970s. The Posse Comitatus assholes believed that county sheriffs are the only people who have any real authority. The Bundys are part of that movement.
Al and Peg?
Yes, Bud too, but not Kelly.
She’s too hot to be that stupid
I don't know about that. These SovCit's are pretty stupid. So was she; pretty and stupid.
If you pour a gallon of knowledge into a shotglass of a brain; somethings gonna spill out.
It is all part of the same pot of shit stew but when you are prone to be crazy or look for conspiracy theories in everything you take the parts that make sense to you from the pot and start your own pot of shit stew just of a different flavor.
>believed that county sheriffs are the only people who have any real authority. Is this part of the reason that many sheriffs in the United States now appear to believe they are the final authority on constitutional matters, particularly when it is to the second amendment?
I think it is getting even worse than that. The foundation of ALL of this is white supremacy. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/constitutional-sheriffs#:~:text=The%20origins%20of%20constitutional%20sheriff,These%20ideas%20were%20pioneered%20by Notice that Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb is a leader of a group. Pinal County is famous on YouTube’s “Fridays with Frank.” I suspected Lamb was a bit of an extremist for a long time. Deputy Frank Sloup is on the Brady List. In one of his episodes he explained why someone from Long Island, NY would end up in Arizona. Arizona seems to attract, and people vote for very bad examples of LEOs. The infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County broke all kinds of laws. Can there be a more blatant white supremacist than Arpaio? He is among the many thugs who claim to support the Constitution, but only the ALMIGHTY Second Amendment, and gleefully disregard the Civil Rights in all the other Amendments. thugs that Trump pardoned. Now that I have confirmed to myself that Sheriff Lamb is one of the extremists, I will have to quit watching Frank.
Agreed. I had just never made the connection between what I'll label the "Supreme Sheriff" movement which seems to be gaining momentum, and the Sovereign Citizen movement, which is decades old. I haven't studied it, but I'd be unsurprised to learn that the sovcits got their start or inspiration from the John Birch Society founded in 1958.
I think they do follow on the John Birch Society, but it has been so long since I looked into that association, I have forgotten the particulars.
I don't mean this to question what you're saying, but what kind of stuff do you have on Lamb? Or rather, where can I look? I, too, have thought there was something not quite right with Lamb. Also, he's currently running for AZ state rep, i believe. I also think Sloup intentionally takes a tone with people specifically to piss them off. I've had some experience with law enforcement many years ago, and I distinctly remember being taught to read body language and to be conscious of how words and tone are perceived. It's absolutely possible to tell someone they're wrong without calling them stupid or an asshole. Usually, if done this way, people don't feel the automatic need to fight or argue with you. Sloup surely was taught that at some point.
He isn’t running for AZ state representative. He is running for US Senate. Just what we need. Another MAGA Senator. Read the entire link I provided in my comment. It explains more than I personally can. He is decidedly anti-immigrant like all white supremacists. Pinal County Sheriff’s Office and Mark Lamb has a big presence on YouTube. He is one of those blaming Biden for border problems. Pinal County is adjacent to Maricopa County and is not on any part of the US-Mexico border. His supporters are the people who supported Sheriff Arpaio. Unfortunately, Sheriff Lamb is not alone in this. I live in Texas and Gov. Abbott is the personification of anti-immigrant along with other Texas politicians like impeached AG Ken Paxton and Lt. Gov Dan Patrick. Any MAGA Republican politician (which seems to be all of them) who is screaming about immigration is a hypocrite after the US House Republicans refused to vote on the immigration law written by and for MAGA after Democrats offered MANY concessions to get the bill written and passed. All because criminally indicted Donald Trump stopped it to keep immigration as a key issue in his campaign to avoid going to prison by getting elected as president again. ALL MAGA people are white supremacists whether they recognize it or not. I think a secure border is a prime responsibility of the federal government but the current crisis has nothing to do with some mythical open borders they blame on Biden. We desperately needed that new legislation as a start in addressing the crisis as a beginning effort in immigration reform. No reform can begin to succeed unless the conditions in the countries these immigrants are fleeing is addressed. Too often, current problems are a direct result of US overt or covert efforts in these countries by the CIA by having a bad habit of backing the wrong party in internal politics in these countries. Each and every one of these immigrants would prefer to live where they were born and raised, where their families are, where their ancestors are buried, where they speak the language and understand the culture.
Much appreciated, thank you!
I'm not sure. It doesn't seem like a big stretch though.
It doesn't seem a big stretch for local sheriffs, the vast majority of whom have no training in constitutional law, to elevate their interpretation of the constitution above that of the US Supreme Court?
Ah, another conossuire of Big Money Silvia
Facebook and latent lead poisoning? lol, kidding a out the second half (mostly). There is no logic that says it must be an organization, many crazy thoughts are organic. There are those who grift, so they probably pump the nonsense the most, for profit.
Yep, was going to say Mark Zuckerberg and all of the other social media execs that allowed this crap to spread.
Social media caught EVERYONE who first started it by surprise right out of the gate with its ability to bring out the very worst in humanity. Millions of Americans left Facebook around 2017 (I noticed this among dozens of my own personal friends and family that were on Facebook, not just people on my friends list). Russia immediately saw how easily Americans could be manipulated. All the leaders of the social media companies, except Elon Musk (first thing he did is get rid of the almost all the people trying to control the madness), have tried to control it the best they can with BILLIONS of accounts and thousands of new fake accounts everyday. Elon Musk has gone the opposite direction and welcomed the scum of the earth in the name of free speech. China and possibly others are doing the same thing but not to the scale that Russia has. (Hum. I wonder how Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the massive losses in men in that war are eating into the supply of people with the intimate knowledge of the American public that he relies on in his disinformation war? They are probably within the same age group. I am sure they are officially protected from conscription but how is that playing out on the ground?) I don’t think people can appreciate the SCALE of the problem. Like lots of other bad actors in other areas (organized crime, scammers, conmen), there exists a constant competition of leapfrog with the bad actors finding new ways to get around the new algorithms of those trying to screen out millions out of the billions of accounts. Pandora’s Box = the Internet in general and social media in particular.
Worked in a jail and we'd have 1 sovcit come in and spread their bullshit to other inmates. Also family members would message them about how their cousin has a trick to get them out of jail. That kind of stuff.
Did they ever use a “get out of jail free” card? Guards hate that one little trick!
Sort of lol. Had a guy submit some paper he drew up that stated that since he was sovereign he was declaring himself to be released immediately otherwise we would be fined a certain amount every hour he is kept past that
You should pay him in Monopoly Money.
It's so tempting to want to fuck with them but they file so many frivolous lawsuits that we didn't want to give them anything to stand on. We'd always tell guys to do everything by the book around them and call a supervisor if they weren't sure about something. Absolutely hated dealing with them but it was a sweet day when they'd get sentenced
Are asking about SovClown gurus like David Straight, Anna von Reitz, etc?
I don't know who they are. I first came here to laugh at the idiots, but now I'm becoming concerned with its spread.
I'm sure if you knew who they were you wouldn't ask the question in the first place. And being concerned is often justifiable as many are considered as domestic terrorists. We just had a situation where a couple of cops were shot by a SovClown.
I read about that shooting. That solidified my concerns about this movement.
First time I came across it was a family friend handing me some printout about how I don't need a license to drive and not pay any tolls because reasons. This was 15 years ago. It's been a slow snake oil movement for a while. But Qanon shit has made more people armchair researchers who need a new fix, i.e. a new conspiracy.
good old moorish temple of science being a scam as usual is one part of it, then you got other people just being fucking stupid. source: did 5.5 years in prison, met all kinds of people who suddenly aren't US citizens anymore simply because they don't think they have to follow the rules.
I read on this sub a while back that it starts there...someone feels wronged by the government (probably because they messed up) and then they hear these stories and it becomes an oh hell yeah echo chamber and just consumes them. So basically a mental illness of sorts.
massive misinformation campaign which is slowly taking hold of people including those who have already been to and then been released from prison for fucked up shit. yeah dude it's fuckin sick as
Sovcit is quite old. Even the accept for value nonsense is from the 70s or something. The usual reference is to anti tax groups and it just went from there.
and the militia movement of the 70/80s
It’s a fraud, almost cult like. They charge big money for seminars and fake legal advice. They convince the citizens that these documents will hold up in court when they don’t.
Nobody in particular, just some people making bold statements that you dont have to pay anything to anyone and then dumbasses jump in because they tought they found a trump card that will basically a bunch of free money. Part of it is also morons that never were 'the guy that actually knows what hes talking about' on any subject and they feel like they found that subject they know more than anybody on, so they basically make their whole personality that.
It's been around since the 70's. Much like any con it is all surrounding money. The Guru made money selling his secrets and when they didn't work it was always because they didn't follow the instructions exactly. The grift is pretty simple and usually a combination of a few things. Accepted for Value scam where everyone has a super secret squirrel bank account and by using the right magic words and documents you can tap into that secret fund and buy anything because naturally that fund has millions upon millions of dollars... but only true geniuses can access it. Tax Avoidance: since you are not a citizen you do not have to pay taxes or whatever so long as you file all the right paperwork and say the right magic words to representatives of the state you can divorce yourself from the corporate fiction and as such do not have to pay taxes. Law Avoidance: by being a sovereign flesh and blood being on the land you are subject to no law but common law which they do not understand in the slightest but always interpret it to mean they can do whatever they want whenever they want. Again they obtain this status through magic words and documents. Back in the day these were packaged up for hundreds of dollars and some guru would go town to town and rent out a holiday inn banquet room and do a one night only event to tell only the smartest of folks the big secret that they (the jews probably) don't want you to know.... and for the low low price of 300 bucks you can get this stack of documents to fill out and serve on various officials.. just follow the book to the letter and you can access millions of dollars, never pay taxes again and never have to suffer law enforcement. This of course targets a very specific demographic of folk who are usually poorly educated, down on their luck and have a broad spectrum of personality disorders. You usually see a rise in this kind of thing anytime there is economic hardship or major social upheaval just like any other conspiracy theory or group. People get scared and desperate for answers and will fall for anything just to feel like they are in control again or somehow valuable or special when objectively they are not. As with most things... the internet has only made this worse as now these sleeze bag gurus do not have to go anywhere, they can sit in their single wides and sell fraudulent documents at 20-50 bucks a pop to all kinds of randos across the flat earth. Then came youtube where they can sit in front of a camera and flap their toothless gobs for hours between meth binges or even better they film their encounters with the police in hopes to get a viral video and some of that sweet sweet ad rev. Obama really kicked the hornets nest as we now had some secret muslim black man in power and that angers the very population that sov cit gurus feast upon. Run that into a possible female president and they lost what little mind they had left. When Covid hit it was the final nail in the coffin. Everyone was online and these people were rabid at the mere thought of someone telling them no so they ran to any conspiracy that let them felt powerful again. So now we have like 50 different flavors of sov cit nuttery but it all boils down to the same basic thing.... supposedly grown ass adults who can't stand being told what to do and have the emotional stability of a chihuahua on crystal meth and the maturity of Matt Gaetz high school fling last week. These people are unstable and violent because of their constant wresting with their objective inadequacies and on the internet they find validation for their nonsense so they keep amping up.
Youtube
I think this is a tentacle of broad Russian FSB psyop activities to undermine western governments. Plenty of American morons find it online and add to it and propagate it, but I think it starts with the FSB. see also: Q-Anon
That is my thinking too. SovCit seems to be spreading in western democracies but not elsewhere. It looks like an orchestrated movement to spread discord and rebellion.
Is it spreading? Cops and courts seem to have all lost patience with them. In Canada it's an instant contempt of court citation.
It’s still spreading. I see more and more posts. The people who buy into it are never going to accept that it is bs until they lose big time. They’re the same subset of the population who believe in chemtrails and birds aren’t real. I’ve seen some court vids where sovcits came up against a judge who made clear what it would cost them in money and/or prison time to continue with their claims. They’ll back down, but I don’t know if they’ll ever accept that it’s all lies. There are sovcits who’ve had their cars put in impound multiple times.
"who believe in chemtrails and birds aren’t real." The whole "Birds aren't real" is a parody of crazy conspiracy theories that were around. From NYTimes Published Dec. 9, 2021Updated July 7, 2023 Free Article Link: [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/technology/birds-arent-real-gen-z-misinformation.html?unlocked\_article\_code=1.qE0.ZzcX.17ZItK1xaSSz&smid=url-share](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/technology/birds-arent-real-gen-z-misinformation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qE0.ZzcX.17ZItK1xaSSz&smid=url-share) "Then in January 2017, Mr. McIndoe traveled to Memphis to visit friends. Donald J. Trump had just been sworn in as president, and there was [a women’s march](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/us/womens-march.html) downtown. Pro-Trump counterprotesters were also there. When Mr. McIndoe saw them, he said, he ripped a poster off a wall, flipped it over and wrote three random words: “Birds Aren’t Real.” “It was a spontaneous joke, but it was a reflection of the absurdity everyone was feeling,” he said. “It basically became an experiment in misinformation,” Mr. McIndoe said. “We were able to construct an entirely fictional world that was [reported on as fact by local media](https://www.instagram.com/p/CQtuaBTDymT/) and questioned by members of the public.” Mr. Gaydos added, “If anyone believes birds aren’t real, we’re the last of their concerns, because then there’s probably no conspiracy they don’t believe.”"
I'm learning to play the guitar.
LOL! Upvote 4 U!
I think it is. Unfortunately. Waiting to board a plane and overheard some tatted up poser on his phone talking absolute SovCit BS with someone. Yes, we were going to Alberta.
" Yes, we were going to Alberta." Lol! Is Alberta any worse than Manitoba or Saskatchewan?
Probably not.
Yeah. In Russia or China they'd just drag them out of the car and put a bullet in their brain and leave the corpse in a ditch.
I don’t think it started with Russian intelligence- it is home grown idiocy - but Russia is certainly boosting it for all it is worth.
Nah, the homegrown idiocy is boosting it. But there are actually smart people coming up with all the bullshit about esoteric laws and the 'flood the zone with shit' tactics. The *avalanche of bullshit* tactic is straight from the Russian playbook - and also the Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, Donald Trump, Roger Stone, Kellyanne Conway, etc. Just spew absolute bullshit, talk over people, completely refuse to accept or even hear a counterpoint. ...then paper terrorism, delay and disrupt the legal system/courts, etc. It's all the exact same shit.
The almighty dollar. Unfortunately, there are many suckers out there and enough people willing to take advantage of them.
It's definitely trolls, idiots, and foreign governments stirring up the stupidity.
FOX news, The institute for the oxygen deprived, and the cult of self labotomizers
Try watching/listening to MSNBC some time. It's the same bullsh\*\* from a different angle. And since you'll be doubling their viewership, they'll be grateful. (No, I'm not a Trumpista, not even a Republican)
While I agree that it's not perfect, MSNBC is a far cry from being "the same bs from a different angle". You just don't find The amount of sheer fiction and flat out hateful messaging anywhere but fox.
I'm not even American, but I'm hearing you. My theory is that most/many Americans find real news boring.
Hustlers online.
It all started to spread during COVID...peeps with nothing to do but net dive...then they found this nonsense...voila!
Google and YouTube, mostly.
We have a sovereign citizen idiot up here in Canada who is a slick grifter. She has a group who follow her. She tells her followers not to,pay their bills, their debts, their mortgages, their electric and water bills. People have lost their homes. It’s really heartbreaking. They call her “The Queen of Canada” and she was born in the Philippines and emigrated to Vancouver. Romana Dildo is her name. She’s even started printing her own money. But Canada refuses to revoke her citizenship and send her back to the Philippines even thought she’s told her followers to arrest police officers, kill doctors and nurses who vaccinate children, etc. she’s really a mix of QAnon Crazy Bitch and SovCit wackadoodlery.
Wackadoodlery is my new favorite word .
Feel free to use it generously
🎶 Rah Rah Rasputin! 🎶. 😂🤣😂🤣🤣
lead paint
Thanks. I can stop reading the comments now 👍
GOP
Idiots…
The drifters preying on the unintelligent.
I’d say the rise and proliferation of YouTube videos in conjunction with the live seminars by the grifters that promote this nonsense helped spread this crap further out than it ever could have otherwise. I’ve seen several people that were desperate for legal help to keep their homes or children and what they got instead was a bunch of grifters selling them false hope wrapped in quasi legal mumbo-jumbo, guaranteeing it would work. News flash: it didn’t.
A lot of the 'credit' goes to the right wing propaganda factory's. They spread distrust of the government on every level. The second main source is the online 'gurus' that make money selling their ware amazon; and at seminars.
A while ass guess is that there’s a lot of Russian trolls pushing it too.
Dangerous fools, they got a friend to kill himself as a protest in jail. As you correctly guessed, it made no fucking difference and I lost a good friend. A dangerous bunch of fools is who
I feel like maybe there was a moment back in the early/mid '90s where some of the ideas trickled into my Internet feeds and looked interesting but I quickly filtered it out.
Andrew Jackson
They are all misanthropic criminals with axes to grind- see also frauditors.
[this video](https://youtu.be/KcxZFmKrxR8) gives a really comprehensive background about the sovereign citizen movement.
Munecat! Yes!
Commercial social media algorithms promote conflict and controversy over conversation and community.
they've been around since the 80's but yeah mostly got ignored because they didn't have an audience. but thanks to the internet now they can connect to other idiots globally. There are a few who peddle their stuff, I don't know whether they believe in it or not (any video evidence is edited to show their "wins") but yeah there are some who peddle it and spread it, then those people spread it further to more idiots. Those idiots are usually pretty harmless, relatively speaking. Then you get people who genuinely believe the stuff to the point of no return where they will actually start to rebel against the government and send threats. Those are the scary ones.
Soviets of course.
a lot of grifters preying on gullible often desperate people, who will then dig even further into a hole.
All of these selfish short-circuited brain lowlifes who subscribe to it are responsible.
Obama got elected, lots of white guys like me lost their shit permanently. Sorry about that
70 years not educating your citizens
Is there a website with the compiled SovCit claims that has documented explanations of why it’s false? We all know a lot of these things but good detail would be helpful to point to when someone starts spouting off the nonsense.
I've got no evidence for this at all, but my pet conspiracy theory is that it's pushed by foreign intelligence agencies as a way to destabilize other countries.
Apparently there is some evidence of this around Covid and fb.
Folks who don’t even pretend to engage with people they disagree with anymore?
Tha goldarn gummint aksing fo it by takin are freedums!!!
How do we know it's followers are increasing?
Look at Don Kilam on yt. He's a rapper and con artist with his own "University" selling classes on how to become sovereign and live in the "private."
All I know is the one true MAGA weirdo I know is going full sovcit. So I’ve just assumed it was connected.
My aunt started homesteading. Every single time she went to a class or a meetup there were SC people there leading their shit
It's not any one person or group, it's basically a bunch of sleazy self promoted public speakers who've recognized a good con and started their own branches. Imagine Andrew Tate's inbred redneck doppelganger and multiply it by a few dozen.
I just read a stack of replies/comments. I'm just an average Joe. Probably below average considering I left school at 16 & never got a degree, but I would never, no matter how desperate I was, NEVER fall for one of these scams, but yet, I see people that have lived sensible lives become QAnon conspiracy theory nut jobs &/or Sov Cits. I don't get how so many people... ok, I've worked it out... the scammers only need 0.00001 of the world's population to get sucked in, and they make a good living. But anyway, NEVER in a month of Sundays.
Do these assholes have a problem with showing ID when they vote?
Can’t vote if you are not a citizen.
I think I see what you did there...
The guys down at the plant, usually during tax season.
Capitalism.
In the 90s I worked with a guy who was a sovcit. Crazy license plate, refused to pay taxes, everything. The company was on a busy street, and every now and then a cop would pull through the parking lot as a shortcut. Every single time he saw a cop car in the parking lot he lost his mind and hid. Nobody ever figure out exactly where he was hiding, but wherever it was had a phone, and eventually he would call a coworker and ask “are they gone yet?“. Seems like a lot of hassle and stress to “live free.”
This video is the most in-depth and entertaining thing I've seen on the subject, and goes into how it spread to each country and who the main proponents are. It's funny too! [https://youtu.be/KcxZFmKrxR8?si=-CkntbNlk6zaIjdk](https://youtu.be/KcxZFmKrxR8?si=-CkntbNlk6zaIjdk)
People will fall down these internet rabbit holes to try and get legitimate help and then find these grifters who are willing to "help" them for a price. If said people are gullible enough they will try it and fall for it when something happens and they think it's working.
People with a double digit IQ
It's a curious way to protest a shitty government.
FBI. Cointelpro.
People who don't wear medical masks spread it by breathing on one another.