I'm confused - where does the TEA party end and "Sovereign Citizens" begin?

eclipsenow

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Hi guys,
I've not bumped into the Sovereign Citizens conspiracy movement before but it appears to have followers here in Australia. Have you encountered it in real life or on the net? What do the people or online persona's you've met claim? The Guardian describes it below - but for all I can tell - half the TEA party I speak to sound a bit like this as well?

Described by the Southern Poverty Law Centre in the US as an extremist group, the sovereign citizen movement is a haphazard collection of pseudo-legal beliefs broadly coalesced around the notion that modern government is illegitimate.

“Sovereign citizens believe that they get to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore, and they don’t think they should have to pay taxes,” the SPLC says.

In extreme cases, sovereign citizens in the US have been linked to violence. In 2010 a father and son linked to the movement shot to death two police officers in West Memphis, Arkansas, who had pulled them over in a routine traffic stop. The two men were later killed in a shootout with police.

The movement is rooted in racism and antisemitism, though, as the SPLC acknowledges, many followers are unaware of its origins. Acts of deadly violence have usually directed against government officials.
The threads that don't connect: Covid gives Australian conspiracy theorists a common home
 

RocksInMyHead

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Tea Party is more about eliminating taxes and minimizing the government. They generally stay within the law, but support candidates who will further their goals. Sovereign Citizens actively refuse to pay their taxes or participate in anything that involves the government (except when it benefits them, because hypocrisy). Tea Party also involves other right-wing beliefs besides small government/no taxes, which aren't really tied into the Sovereign Citizen movement at all, as far as I'm aware.
 
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Arcangl86

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TEA party are hard core libertarians who believe in as small a government as possible. But they believe in government and will follow it, even if they might be unhappy about it. Sovereign Citizens refuse to recognize the federal government, and in many cases the state governments, but are a tiny bit shy of being full on anarchists. I can definitely see the racist roots of it though since they believe that the 14th Amendment resulted in the overthrow of the government of the people, for the people and by the people for a corporation.
 
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essentialsaltes

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A sovereign citizen tried to pass this artwork off as "legal tender payments". I might give em 5 bucks for the effort, but not ten thousand billions.

EdBNUf5XgAArzpZ
 
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FireDragon76

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Hi guys,
I've not bumped into the Sovereign Citizens conspiracy movement before but it appears to have followers here in Australia. Have you encountered it in real life or on the net? What do the people or online persona's you've met claim? The Guardian describes it below - but for all I can tell - half the TEA party I speak to sound a bit like this as well?

Described by the Southern Poverty Law Centre in the US as an extremist group, the sovereign citizen movement is a haphazard collection of pseudo-legal beliefs broadly coalesced around the notion that modern government is illegitimate.

“Sovereign citizens believe that they get to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore, and they don’t think they should have to pay taxes,” the SPLC says.

In extreme cases, sovereign citizens in the US have been linked to violence. In 2010 a father and son linked to the movement shot to death two police officers in West Memphis, Arkansas, who had pulled them over in a routine traffic stop. The two men were later killed in a shootout with police.

The movement is rooted in racism and antisemitism, though, as the SPLC acknowledges, many followers are unaware of its origins. Acts of deadly violence have usually directed against government officials.
The threads that don't connect: Covid gives Australian conspiracy theorists a common home

It has been in England and Australia for some time, not just the US. Sometimes in the UK and Australia, they call themselves Freemen.

Basically, it's rooted in legal quackery. The internet has helped spread their ideas. People that are attracted to the Sovereign Citizen rhetoric tend to be economically desperate and on the fringes of society.
 
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eclipsenow

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A sovereign citizen tried to pass this artwork off as "legal tender payments". I might give em 5 bucks for the effort, but not ten thousand billions.

EdBNUf5XgAArzpZ
Ha ha ha - the moment I saw that I thought "Medication!" Someone has been avoiding their meds!
CiZVB.jpg
 
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eclipsenow

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It has been in England and Australia for some time, not just the US. Sometimes in the UK and Australia, they call themselves Freemen.

Basically, it's rooted in legal quackery. The internet has helped spread their ideas. People that are attracted to the Sovereign Citizen rhetoric tend to be economically desperate and on the fringes of society.

Yes, Americans need to know that Sovereign Citizen Karen's are invading Australia! Here she is at our version of HardWareHouse - Bunnings - refusing to mask up. Oh Karens - why do you all have the same shrill voice?


This led to the ABC creating - (may The Man from Snowy River rest in peace) the Ballad of the Bunnings Karen.
 
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Nithavela

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A sovereign citizen tried to pass this artwork off as "legal tender payments". I might give em 5 bucks for the effort, but not ten thousand billions.

EdBNUf5XgAArzpZ
I think it's not Billions, but Bullions. You know, gold bars.
 
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trunks2k

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Tea Party: Government is generally bad and should be as small as possible, nearly non-existent, and pretty much no taxes and regulation. Think libertarians, but more socially conservative.

Sovereign Citizens: Government and law is not what you think. You don't have to obey the law if you use the right legal language to get out of it. In the eyes of the government "you" are really not you, but a name on a piece of paper that somehow gives you access to millions of dollars if you use the right magic legal language. Nobody can legally make you do anything unless you agree to it.
 
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Fantine

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If the tea party supports the criminal actions of the president and the Accomplice General they are not supporters of law.

If they support a president who condones Russia's paying Afghanis to kill American soldiers they support treason.

And you will say "prove it." There's the rub--obstruction is one of the crimes. Hopefully on 1/21 the evidence will be released.

Why? Because unless it is the hard-core doubters will never realize how they were rescued from the brink of fascism and might repeat their mistake.
 
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Albion

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The Sovereign Citizens idea is of recent vintage. The fact that it was described with words like "haphazard" and "collection" should tip us off to the idea that this group is no "movement," but is so scattered and disorganized as to be barely identifiable.

But there are two things we know for a certainty--

1. It has nothing to do with the TEA Party movement which has no similar beliefs as described in the case of "Sovereign Citizens" and certainly not any "half" as was written in the original post here.

Maybe a few disgruntled former TEA Party people left that movement because it did NOT support those notions about disobeying the law, etc. and tried to reorganize, but that's not what was claimed.

2. The SPLC is itself widely considered to be an extremist organization that, in addition to its Leftist ideology stakes its claim to fame on being seen as an investigative outfit claiming to have uncovered extremist movements, even if it has to invent them.
 
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DaisyDay

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The SPLC is itself widely considered to be an extremist organization
If by "widely" you only include right-winger demagogues, then sure, but if you include mainstream people, then not so much.
 
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grasping the after wind

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If by "widely" you only include right-winger demagogues, then sure, but if you include mainstream people, then not so much.

I have never been called a right wing demagogue before. The SPLC has a history of labelling groups as extremist that few "mainstream people " would consider extreme. They are not an organization with a clean record of unbiased investigation.

splc problems - Bing
 
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DaisyDay

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grasping the after wind

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Really? Okay...
Actually, their record is pretty good, plus they include annotated reasoning and examples.

Lol. That's pretty lame.

SPLC's long record of unjustified accusations is lame.
 
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