Of Sovereign Citizens and Their Ilk

They operate under a number of different names - Sovereign Citizens, Freemen on the Land, Auditors, and so on.  Largely, it’s all built on a series of conspiracy theories and outright nonsense which are used to suggest that the government and social structures we live within are invalid, and therefore can be ignored. 

The reality is, of course quite different, but they can make quite a headache for anyone who comes in contact with them - whether that is landlords, banks, utility companies, law enforcement, or even just general business interactions.  

I’ve spent a bit of time on YouTube watching some of these people in their interactions with law, as well as having read Justice Rooke’s delightful 2012 ruling in Meads v. Meads.  If you haven’t read Rooke’s ruling, I suggest you do so - because he does a wonderful job of tearing the gibberish these twits spout apart and forming it into nice, digestible pieces before pouring a big dollop of “not in Canada” all over it. 

But, that’s not the purpose of this post.  I wanted to spend a little bit of time digging through the somewhat bizarre looking constructs that you see when these people get in front of a court because they reflect a worldview that is itself oddly twisted.

“Travelling” and “Driving”.  To the latest incarnations of Sovereign Citizens (SovCit), there’s a difference here.  When they get pulled over for a routine traffic stop, one of the things you will often hear them spout to the officer is that they were “travelling” not “driving”. 

To most of us, that’s a distinction without a difference.  You’re sitting behind the steering wheel of a motor vehicle, and therefore directing it down the road - therefore, “driving”.  Not to a SovCit.  In their worldview, “driving” is commercial - so in many ways, their conceptualization harkens back to the days that led to the formation of the Teamsters as a union, when the job was literally to “drive” heavy loads drawn by a team of horses or oxen.  They argue that going from “point A to point B” as a private person is merely “travelling”.  

Why the distinction?  Well - in the bizarre world these people think they are living in, everything is a “contract” - a commercial transaction.  So, by accepting a driver’s license, you are “contracting” with the state.  They then reason that if they don’t have a driver’s license, that they are not subject to the conditions the state places on “driving”.  

By extension, they then reason that if you aren’t subject to those conditions, the state has not jurisdiction over you as long as you are “travelling” in your private vehicle.  They also justify driving an unregistered, uninsured vehicle by arguing that it’s “private property”, and they are entitled to do with it as they please.  

The logic is beyond irrational.  They will spout an amazing amount of gibberish, even demanding cash before they will give out their name (because everything is a transaction, you see).

It all stems from a misguided idea that if the government exists solely as a contractual entity, that an individual can separate itself by merely “refusing to contract with the government”. While governments certainly need limits on their power, it is laughable to think that the world we live in can be reduced to simple transactional contracts.