The Jordan Harbinger Show - 1020: Sovereign Citizens | Skeptical Sunday

Episode Date: July 21, 2024

Is there a legal "cheat code" for avoiding US laws? Michael Regilio investigates this and other wild things sovereign citizens believe on Skeptical Sunday! Welcome to Skeptical Sunday, a special edition of The Jordan Harbinger Show where Jordan and a guest break down a topic that you may have never thought about, open things up, and debunk common misconceptions. This time around, we’re joined by skeptic, comedian, and podcaster Michael Regilio! On This Week's Skeptical Sunday, We Discuss: The Sovereign Citizen Movement is a fringe group that believes they are not subject to US laws or government authority. They often engage in pseudo-legal arguments and tactics to avoid taxes, licenses, and other societal obligations. The ideology has spread beyond the US to countries like Canada, the UK, Australia, and parts of Europe, indicating it's a growing international phenomenon. The movement has roots in anti-Semitism, white nationalism, and conspiracy theories. It appeals to people in financial distress by promising ways to eliminate debts and access secret government accounts. Sovereign citizen beliefs have no legal validity and have never been successful in court. However, the movement has an estimated 200,000-300,000 adherents in the US. Some sovereign citizens have engaged in violence against law enforcement and government officials. The movement is considered one of the most dangerous domestic extremist groups by US authorities. While sovereign citizen beliefs are misguided and potentially dangerous, the best response is to promote good ideas and accurate information. By educating ourselves and others about the law, government, and civic responsibilities, we can help counter the spread of these harmful ideologies. Connect with Jordan on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on Skeptical Sunday, drop Jordan a line at [e-mail] and let him know! Connect with Michael Regilio at Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, and make sure to check out the Michael Regilio Plagues Well With Others podcast here or wherever you enjoy listening to fine podcasts! Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1020  This Episode Is Brought To You By Our Fine Sponsors: jordanharbinger.com/deals  Sign up for Six-Minute Networking — our free networking and relationship development mini...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host Michael Regelio on the Jordan Harbinger show. We decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long-form conversations with the variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers. On Sundays, though, we do Skeptical Sunday. a rotating guest co-host and I break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions. Topics such as why circumcision might not be a thing you want to do to your kid or yourself, astrology, recycling, hypnosis, homeopathy, and more. And if you're new to the show or you want a handy way to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs.

These are collections of our favorite episodes organized by topic to help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Topics like persuasion and influence, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more, just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today, we got a weird one, but that's what Sceptical Sunday is all about, right? Imagine you're pulled over by the police. The officer comes to the car window and asks for your license and registration. You tell him, you don't need a license or registration because you are not subject to the laws of the land. And when the officer questions your license plate that you printed out on an inkjet printer or something, you respond. It's self-issued and proclaim that police

have no authority. And this obviously ends in your arrest slash tasing. And as unbelievable as this sounds, this happens all the time because here in the United States, there are some headstrong individuals living under, let's just say, a very different social contract than the rest of us. They are sovereign citizens. Or at least that's what they seem to think. And Michael Rogelio is here to break us free from the mystery of the sovereign citizen movement. Hey, Jordan, do you consider yourself a free man? I suppose I do. Well, you're wrong. You are a slave to a corporate overlord you don't even know exists. Okay. All right. So right off the bat, this sounds a little bit like a conspiracy theory,

nonsense kind of thing. Well, welcome to the philosophy of sovereign citizens. So what is a sovereign citizen? I mean, the name sort of implies one thing, but it can't be that. So what does it mean? Well, sovereign citizens are people who don't acknowledge the legitimacy of the United States government. sovereign citizens don't pay taxes. They don't have IDs. They don't register their cars. They don't even acknowledge zip codes. And unsurprisingly, they have contentious run-ins with the law. It sounds like it would be hard to mail something, but I can get behind the not paying taxes thing. I just don't see how it works at scale. The police, though, don't seem to be too concerned if you have faith

and believe in their authority or not. It's kind of like science. They're more interested in the fact that you don't have a driver's license or an address with a zip code on it that you maybe don't answer to your name. There's a lot of problems that they have that don't require you to believe in them. I know. But sovereign citizens, they don't just not believe in the police. They don't believe the courts have jurisdiction over them. They do believe certain special procedures like writing specific phrases on bills they don't want to pay and other loopholes can make them immune from, well, everything. They believe in a nutshell. They are not subject to the laws of the United States of America. So I think I've heard of things like this with the bills in Canada, though.

There's someone who says she's like the rightful queen and she's like, all you have to do is write this magic phrase on the bill. And people are like, why did my electricity get shut off? And it's because she's mentally ill and just a Twitter grifter. But what do they believe? Do they think they're above the law? What's happening here? Well, no. The thing about this is these people don't think they're above the law. They think they're in a different dimension from the law. Or at least I think they think they're in a different dimension from the law. I really can't stress enough how hard it is to comprehend most of their beliefs. Body camp footage of them trying to explain this stuff to a cop has made for several viral videos. Yeah, I've seen a few of those. You can, you can only

declare you aren't subject to laws until the copies of phony so many times before they slap on the cuffs or worse. Right. And the videos of them in courtrooms are even more strange. They always represent themselves and they use this weird language that they think is credible, but it's just jargon from someone who doesn't understand law. It's described as pseudo-legalese. Ah, yes, pseudo-law. My favorite class back at Michigan Law School, but they have to represent themselves if they're going to do this because if they get a regular lawyer, the lawyer's going to go, yeah, that's not real and I'm not going to go up there and do that because I'm going to lose my license and you're going to get thrown in jail and I'm going to, yeah, get disbarred.

So no, thank you. So they have to fire. every lawyer that goes into that court and represent themselves, which is a terrible idea. Yeah, I mean, I've seen the videos and of like judges trying to, I don't know if you'd say humor them or accommodate them. I saw one guy who was like, I'm not him. I'm a represent. I am the flesh and blood representative of the corporate being that is that name that you represent. And the judge just finally says, okay, you know what? I'm throwing you both in jail. So, I mean, they believe they are pulling the mask. back on a deep and terrible truth. Okay, but what is the truth that they are revealing? What exactly

do they believe? I get you don't want to pay your car insurance or, you know, your taxes on your property, but what's the truth that they think they're unveiling? Okay, this is the hardest thing to deal with when dealing with sovereign citizens is that no two of them think the same thing for the same reasons. They just, they, it's a loose conglomeration. And it depends on which sovereign citizens, you ask. That is on brand, though. It would be weird if they were all sovereign, but they like, head one association. Of course. That would mean they were together. These guys are all kind of like, I'm my own thing and nothing applies to me. That's what it sounds like so far. And that's because there are no founding documents of the movements, no manifestos or sovereign citizen constitution.

There are varying ideas of what proves their sovereignty. However, there are some things that the plurality of sovereign citizens believe. And I'm here to tell you, it's all baffling. But most theories have the same conclusion. An illegitimate corporation replaced the federal government, and that corporation runs the country today. So when you say corporation, we're using the actual term like a company. So instead of Microsoft, it's just like America or the United States or whatever. That's what they're alleging, asserting. Yes. And this corporation has abandoned the justice system and uses maritime law or admiralty law. You know, the laws of the sea. I do. Yeah. And It's funny. The law firm I used to work for that was a finance firm started off as Admiralty Law, because it's, you know, 150 years old. But that's like stuff where when your shipment is attacked by pirates on the way to the United States from the Caribbean, something, something, here's where the law. I mean, it doesn't make any sense. For one thing, it's not law of land. It's law of, anyway, that's the whole point. So does that make sovereign citizens, pirates, privateers? Is that where they're going with this or what? I mean, who's to say, but in many ways, yes. Admiralty, law.

is a big deal in sovereign theory. They assert they are not subject to the court's rulings because they are only subject to common law. And the court is a secret admiralty law. Okay, hold on. The court that they're in for a crime they committed on land for, let's say, driving a car that's stolen or was never purchased or their tax lien, whatever, they're saying, aha, this court doesn't affect me because it's actually a court that's the law of

the sea. and then or it's not a court of the law of the sea, and I'm only subject to the law of the sea. I'm trying to wrap my mind around this crap. It's not working. And you will never get there because it's not mind wrap around a bull. But the fact of the matter is,

no, they do assert that they are subject to common law, but again, their description or their definition of that is way off, and that this corporation, which took over the country, is somehow working on maritime law, and they're not subject to it. In fact, sovereign citizens claim, American flags with gold trim or gold fringe are proof of admiralty court. So if one hangs in the courtroom, they say the court is illegitimate and holds no authority. Even though they're supposed to be

under the admiralty law, the flag in the courtroom is of admiralty law, but still somehow nothing applies to them, even though that's supposed to be the thing, because that court shouldn't have that flag, thus everything they do is a farce. I guess so. They don't feel like they're under admiralty law, though. They feel like they, if they're under any law, and again, these are disparate groups with different beliefs, but if they're under any law, they're under common law, and that gets weird to. Right. Okay. So I wonder how they define common law, because that does mean something in actual legal terms, but I assume that they then have their own ridiculous non-definition that gets them out of basically all rights and responsibility, or all responsibilities,

and only leaves them with rights. Because so far, what it sounds like to me is they want all the rights of living in a country that's free, but they want none of the responsibilities that go along with that. Licensing, taxes, not shooting at police that come on your land to get something that doesn't belong to you. So for the record, a lawyer would tell you something along the lines of common law is the body of law created by judges in similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions. And that's a fancy way of saying that when a court makes a decision about something that isn't just codified in law because it's a weird scenario that's dependent on a set of facts, the court might say, well, in this case, even though this isn't under

a formal definition of what is pornographic, the court decides that things that have this are pornographic. And so later, when that exact case arrives again or comes up again, and it's very similar, people would argue, hey, in previous decisions, the Supreme Court decided that this was pornographic, therefore this other new instance is also pornographic. And so common law courts look to pass decisions of courts to synthesize legal principles of past cases. So I'm guessing sovereign citizen types, they just have a different idea of this and maybe they freeze common law at a year that's convenient for them to get away with whatever the hell they want. Again, it depends on who you ask. Some sovereign say common law is what the United States of America

started with and it's validated by the Constitution. Others insist that biblical or divine mandates from God create common law. Common law overrides what's sovereignty is illegitimate laws of the United States. So I assume someone with a legal background like yourself can confirm this is all sovereign citizen patter. Sure. So in a way, they're not wrong about the United States starting with some common law because common law comes from England or the UK or whatever now. And so, yes, that was the set of laws because we essentially adopted a large part of that legal system and then we wrote laws on top of that, like the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. We fought a war over that kind of thing, in part over that kind of thing. But that doesn't

mean that every law after that is somehow nonsense. That's ridiculous. That doesn't make any sense. Yeah, that's patter, as you put it. Yeah. I'm still unclear on how they came to this conclusion, but it's starting to sound more and more like just kookery, and there's no logical process by which they get there. Right. And it's understandable that it's not clear because it's not clear. But for what I've read, sovereign citizens bounce between a few theories to justify why they believe the courts rule with maritime law. Bear with me. There's a theory that when Abraham Lincoln declared martial law in 1863, he effectively dissolved the federal government. That sounds like the plot to Wild Wild West with Will Smith. Am I wrong? It's not far off because it is a sci-fi adventure when you get into

the minds of sovereign citizens. Everything they believe sounds like it's out of a movie. Another theory states that maritime law became the law of the land in 1933 because the United States went off the gold standard. Some claim admiralty law is based on principles of international commerce somehow, and others argue the 14th Amendment provides citizenship only to African Americans leaving white people without U.S. citizenship and without legal obligation. How convenient. I've seen things like this. A friend of mine, a couple friends of mine work at Vice, and they went to this seminar where a guy was like, anybody you know that's vaccinated, you can just move into their house because they're going to die in a year, and you then will legally own the house.

And so there were these people at this kind of like empty seminar room who had bought tickets to see this kooky guy speak about how you can literally just walk into a person's house and take all their stuff, and you can make some magical declaration, sovereign citizen, something, something, and you just, now you're the rightful owner of everything. And then they're going to die anyways before the court gets around to kicking you out, and you're going to be something, something squatters rights. It's just all total delusional crap. Going back to what you said before, this is extreme.

So are there no black sovereign citizens? It's just white people that do this? Well, no, but I mean, the roots of the movement did grow out of white nationalism. That's just a fact, which makes it all the more shocking that the modern sovereign citizen movement has an African-American branch. Let me introduce you to the Moorish citizens. More sovereign, more confusing? Or like, Moors is in the freaking...

Yeah. Moroccan. Exactly. The Moorish sovereigns citizens were established in the 1990s. Morish sovereigns believe African Americans

are a unique class. They believe they have special rights that give them sovereign immunity and are not subject to American laws. That's interesting. Okay, so you're talking

about the Moroccans that swept into Spain and Portugal, and my history is a little shady on this, but I don't understand why that would affect African Americans.

Right. Then again, I keep trying to make logical connections to something that somebody makes up when they wake up on a, when they roll out of bed and decide they don't want to pay a parking ticket. So I'm probably just giving way too much credit. Exactly. We're not going to make sense

of any of this today. So just accept that. Just give up. This is, there is a theory. This is the Morish theory that a 1787 treaty between the United States and Morocco grants them immunity from U.S. laws. The thing is, there was no such treaty. Even if there was, what would the treaty look like? okay, we're just going to put all the people that have a certain pigmentation in their skin under the laws of this treaty and everybody else's, I mean, that's patently ridiculous and also imagine adjudicating that. Sir, you are not dark enough to fall under this treaty. I've got my meter out and you just, you need to get more sun and get a tan if you want to be immune to U.S. law. I mean, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, okay. You want no sense. Look, promise me

you'll ask no further questions on this one, but some more sovereign citizens. claim that the United States is secretly Morocco. Oh, man, I would have saved so much money on my trip to actual Morocco if I'd known I was already living there. How can they base their beliefs on a non-existent treaty? Does somebody have a copy of this and they say this has just been hidden from the books? Is that the idea? Oh, I've never seen a copy of it or even anyone trying to back this up. They just believe it exists, period. That's it. They believe it exists, but nobody is a copy of it. So it's not that they think they're their own country, but they think they are exempt from citizenship, which makes them exempt from laws. And apparently they've never been to

another country where they're also not a citizen. They do have to follow the laws because they're a foreigner by definition and still subject to the laws of the land. Ah, man, exhausting. I mean, it's, again, disparate. They all believe different things. But some sovereign citizens believe there are two classes of citizens within the United States. One class is sovereign or original citizens, a second class is federal or U.S. citizens, and that was created by the 14th Amendment. Sovereign citizens have all the rights of the Constitution, but federal citizens don't. Okay. I'm so tempted to shred this thing, but how do we know which class of citizen we are? Yeah, they say federal citizens voluntarily surrendered their freedoms in exchange for benefits

from the United States government. But sovereign citizens renounce federal citizenship and reclaim their rights as common law citizens. Yeah, so they must use their own roads and have their own army, Navy, and Air Force to defend their land. Of course. And their own power plants. Yeah. So this sounds insane, not to mention ridiculously and needlessly complicated. Uh-huh. Well, Jordan, that's because it is insane and ridiculously and needlessly complicated. Gotcha. Sovereign citizens' arguments have no basis in law and have never been successful in court. Shocking. They think it's illegal to be processed in a courtroom. The rationale becomes more and more like gibberish, but they all end on the idea that the corporation that replaced the government is being held prisoner by foreign banks.

Therefore, they believe they are subject to no authority other than themselves. It's funny that you say they think it's illegal to be processed in a courtroom. So they do have some laws that they think they're subject to, but only the ones that seem really convenient to them not having to follow any of the other laws that they don't like. That is some mental gymnastics. Without founding documents or universally accepted beliefs, how can they agree on anything? Does it matter if they agree on anything? Maybe they don't because they all live 600 miles apart. I don't know. Well, the main commonality is they all maintain a leave me alone credo. Leave me alone government. Leave me alone banks. And of course they agree that somewhere in the past, this one they all seemed to believe,

the U.S. government dissolved and became a U.S. corporation. Why did the government dissolve according to sovereign citizens. Okay, here we go. Okay. Yes. Take a deep breath and a drink of water, because this is going to make no friggin' sense. To take the existing government of the United States of America and replace it with the United States. Okay. So no of America by design, because I noticed you left that part out. Uh-huh. That's right. The country of the United States of America became the United States, the corporate entity. I'm guessing this supposed change was a bad thing. somehow? Yes, definitely a bad thing because the United States, the corporation, went bankrupt at some point according to sovereigns. So as collateral to foreign debtors, the corporation

promised every single American citizen. Sovereigns described this several ways. The non-sovereigns are wards of the state and the chattel property of the U.S. federal government. That is, until you declare your independence. Okay, so we're all secretly slaves, other than them, of course. they do that? Are sovereigns writing their own personal declarations of independence? Because I've seen the tri-cornered hats and stuff like that. And I've heard, I've seen some of the rants, usually when they get pulled over. Yeah. Is this linked to the hats or something? What's going on there? In truth, you're on to something there. And we're going to get into this. It is a kind of fantasy roleplay. That's part of the appeal. Sovereigns see themselves as patriots of the real

America, or at least some of them do. And the rest of us are just useful idiots. Wait, so if we're all collateral to America's debtors, what is the debt? Unclear. And by the way, how big was this debt that it's still not paid off? Also unclear. I mean, if Abraham Lincoln started this in 1863, how big was this debt? It's not paid off yet with every American. It's mind-boggling. All right. We're going to take a minute to hear from some actual corporations who sponsor the show. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for listening to and supporting the show. Your support of our sponsors does keep the lights on around here. All deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals, and you can search for any sponsor using the AI chatbot on the

website as well. Please consider supporting those who support us. Now, back to Skeptical Sunday. Where is the money that's also paying it off? Is it coming from the Treasury? I mean, we can account for that, theoretically. Oh, get ready. Let me guess. That's a secret. There's a secret bank that we don't know about. That has to be it. Oh, they know about it. Sovereign citizens. attest that there is a secret bank account set up in your name that the government controls. Okay, so I was close. Not necessarily a secret bank, just another duplicate account at Chase or whatever. Okay, that sounds like identity theft at its worst. Three hundred plus million stolen identities and duplicate. What a paperwork nightmare that must have been, huh? I mean, you thought Wells Fargo was up to no good.

Imagine having a secret bank account for every single person in the United States. Okay, continue. All right, look, to understand this, you need to understand. You need to realize you are not the person on your birth certificate. The birth certificate in sovereign thinking is its own entity. So does my birth certificate have different rights than I do? Your birth certificate is the corporate entity. Get ready, because this is big with that. Of Jordan Harbinger, all caps.

Okay. But you are the separate flesh and blood person named Jordan Harbinger. Okay. And that's different. Well, all right. What's the rationale for this? I want it to make sense somehow, just like a little bit. Why are there two? Why is there two? Come on. You are Jordan Harbinger, spelled with a capital J followed by lowercase letters and a capital H followed by lowercase letters. Your birth certificate is all caps. The all caps, Jordan Harbinger, is a separate entity. Okay. So caps lock isn't just for yelling at people through text messages. Got it. This is one of those places that. that sovereign citizens get oddly specific. They insist that the corporation, that is the U.S. government, uses section 308 of the Uniform Commercial Code to justify using U.S. citizens as collateral to the Federal Reserve.

Legal scholars respond to this by saying, wait, what? I second that. Wait, what? Also, a professor that I had a class with at Michigan law, he basically authored the UCC. And we had a class with them, like I said, and he forgot to mention that we were all property of the government. I mean, he left that out somehow. He was mostly discussing contracts and transactions. So it seems like quite the oversight that he forgot to mention that this also dictates the fact that there's a corporate entity for me and each one of us and that it's paying off a secret bank debt and that we're

all slaves. It seems like we should have covered that at some point during that course. Sounds like he's in on it. Yeah, obviously he's in on it. He wrote the fake laws that maybe don't apply to whatever. He's a corporate overlord. Clearly. The uniform commercial code is big with some sovereign citizens. This is part of their right to travel philosophy. These sovereigns believe that as long as they don't travel for commerce or cross state lines, they don't need a license or registration. They'll paint private use on their vehicle and issue themselves license plates. That's right. I have seen these guys say, like, sir, do you know how fast you were going? I'm traveling. Yeah. Okay. Sir, do you, you don't have a

valid license plate on your vehicle. I'm traveling. And it's like, what are you talking? Now it all makes sense. I'm like, why would you, who cares if you're traveling? Everybody's traveling when they're in a vehicle. Google traveling. Now I understand why they're so insistent on the terms. It sounds, well, anyway, what are their license plates read? I am in my own state. Yeah. Like, what is on there? Or is it Arabic? Because they're from Morocco now. No, no. That's only some that are from Morocco. Okay. These are, again, this is a diverse group. And by the way, I mean, this one crossed my mind, too. like, for one, if you're issuing your own license plate, what does it matter what state you're in? Yeah, why bother with that at all?

Again, kooky. Yeah, like, yeah, I'm following the law. Wait, the law that doesn't apply to me. Well, I'm following part of it because I have a paper license plate. Just drive a car with no plate at that point. Yeah. Why? Who cares about that then at that point?

It's not like they had license plates in Morocco in 1700 or whatever the fake treaty got signed. Beats me, man. Look, another scheme they use is about writing. They're confident that if they use red ink, and write diagonally. They will make legal documents invalid, so they never use black or blue ink. Again, they say section 308 of the Uniform Commercial Code reserves your rights if you're signing something. And how do they justify these interpretations that nobody else has? Well, how do you justify any conspiracy theory? The sovereign citizen movement can be traced back

to the 1960s in a magazine called Omni Publications. It was like the InfoWars of its time. It peddled conspiracy. Fans of Alex Jones would recognize the tenor and mine. mindset of Omni publications. Just to give you a little flavor, one 1971 article they published titled the Federal Reserve Conspiracy said that enemy aliens infiltrated the banking system and their biographies could be found in the who's who of American Jewry. The word jury isn't used nearly enough. Am I right, folks? Yeah, there's not anything subtle about that. I don't think you can even use the word jury now without really obviously sounding like you believe that Jews are lizard people,

Illuminati controlling the world? Yeah. There's no more use case for that one. I would agree. And the fact of the matter is the sovereign citizen movement has its roots in anti-Semitism. And just like today, the driver of conspiracy theories is the money that is made pushing them. In order to understand the rise of the ideology of sovereign citizens, one must understand those who sell the ideology, the gurus. Oh, please tell me they call themselves gurus because that's really rich. They absolutely do. And they appeal to desperate people like people in foreclosure or debt. The gurus do more to explain the expansion of the movement than any logic in the arguments.

That is good because there is no logic in the arguments at all, none so far anyway. But I understand the desperation thing. Now it all starts to make sense. Who believes you could just walk into someone's house because they got vaccinated and they're going to die and then you get the house. And it's the answer is somebody who believes rightfully or not that they will never be able to afford a house and is possibly already homeless or whatever. Yeah. And let's start with the first guru of the movement. His name was William Potter Gale. This dude served in the military, became an Episcopalian minister, and eventually started his own church. It's reported Gail was a founding member of many Christian identity groups. One was described by the Anti-Defamation League as a

paramilitary tax resistance group. This propelled him to be a founding member of the posse comitatis. I don't know if you've heard of them. That does sound from it. What is that? Posse Comitatis, which became the sovereign citizen movement, was an anti-government, anti-Semitic, white nationalist Christian movement. Those words all in a row just make it sound worse and worse. Like you start off Posse Comitatis and then you go, you just slide down. Yeah.

You just keep sliding. Yikes. By the way, this episode, we are just going to keep sliding. Posse Comitatis came to be when William Potter Gale met a group of tax. protesters who believe that paying taxes was a form of slavery. Posse Cometatis is known for extreme right-wing beliefs and warfare by paperwork. Interesting combination. When you say warfare by paperwork, are you talking about lawsuits, you know, just like frivolous crap left and right? I mean, pointless lawsuits and frivolous paperwork. This is referred to as paper terrorism. It's the core

operating principle of many litigious organizations. It's still a popular tactic with sovereigns who will use false liens and frivolous legal action to harass their opponents. If it sounds more like it's kind of culty, right? You hear about certain cults just being super litigious and trying to sue everybody and saying, we're going to out you as a pedophile and defame you. And you're like, oh, God, I can't fight 17 lawyers who are working for free because they believe in aliens. So they file false liens. That's so ironic somehow. Yeah. Right? Because a lien is kind of by almost definition. It's rooted in law and debt. And the Texas and things like, I mean, there's a whole idea of lien is really, yeah, for people who don't

believe in laws. Yeah. It's a legal construct only. And I don't know if it sometimes works, but it sometimes works on the short scale. And we'll see a lot of that with this episode. There are cases of sovereign citizens taking over property and someone's home through bogus, quick claim deeds. You would know what that is. Yeah, a quick claim deed. I learned about this a really long time ago in property, and so my definition is going to be way off and oversimplified. But basically, it's a fast way to transfer property to some, somebody who's buying that property, but there's no protections for the buyer. I vaguely remember that kind of thing. It's not, I don't know if they're even used anymore. Jeez, it's been a

zillion years. Some call them like revenge liens. This is particularly popular with the Moorish sovereign citizens who claim they have Native American roots, as well as Moroccan roots. As well as Moroccan rules. Make up your mind. I thought they were Moroccan five minutes ago. Okay. So you're saying sovereign citizens also use the courts they don't believe in and don't believe apply to anybody to harass their opponents. Sovereignty at all is fair game. They try to use litigation to fight what they perceive as government oppression, forcing them into slavery. Slavery, meaning paying taxes or obtaining a license for fishing or whatever. I do cringe and recoil when people start redefining slavery as anything other than, you know, slavery. Yeah. I like to call white sovereign

citizens Sauvblonks, but... That's pretty good. But whatever you call them, this guy, Gail, profited off the movement just like sovereign gurus do today. They sell everything from how-to books to sovereign citizens starter packs. And the biggest item they all sell is diplomatic immunity cards. Oh, show me a guru, and I'm going to show you some merch slash a scam artist. So what is the selling point of a diplomatic immunity card?

I mean, it does sound great if it were more than what I assume is expensive and useless plastic laminated word vomit. And you got that exactly right. These gurus convince people if they create their own country and issue themselves cards that say diplomatic community, they'll have diplomatic immunity.

But of course, the average Joe doesn't know the magic words to put on it or the correct font or whatever, but the guru does, this is huge money and people are getting ripped off. I'm so curious

who they think is appointing them as a diplomat when they order a card online in a specific font. I am now a diplomat. Okay, but you still can't just break laws. You get deported when you do that as a diplomat. You can't just run around doing whatever the hell you want. Not that logic ever constrained these people. Okay, so they don't believe in money, but they're fine grifting to make money. Right. Like, they don't believe in the government backing of the money, but they're fine with the

things it buys. Ah, the hypocrisy. Love it. Bingo. And the sovereign gurus offer so much more. Yes, they sell you how-to books and membership cards, but what they're really selling is hope. I'm talking about the good news of the sovereign movement. The good news. That sounds even more like a cult, or at least a religion that sends oddly dressed people to your door or the airport to stand around all day. Well, when you buy into the sovereign citizen theory, there's a tangible upside. Not only are you out of debt because your birth certificate is actually the one who owes the debt, not you, you, but there is a bunch of money waiting for you somewhere. Oh, well, I will admit secret money for me, that is indeed good news. And a common belief is that the corporations

masquerading as our country owes you money. I'm sure you're familiar with what we know in philosophy as the strawman argument. Of course. It's when a debate opponent creates a false argument accuses you of then holding that belief and then attacks that belief. That's right. Now, forget it. Because sovereign citizens have their own definition of a straw man. Okay. The straw man account is the bank account attached to the corporate entity, Jordan Harbinger, all caps, and this bank account is overflowing with cash. It's known in sovereign circles as redemption. According to the sovereigns, the government set up secret accounts in our names. Ah, as one does. Right. So there's a secret bank account with my name on it, and that's full of money, and that's my money, but the government

won't tell me that because then they would have to give it to me. Close. Let's get this straight now. there's a secret bank account with your birth certificate's name on it. Ah, so my birth certificate has been making money. Man, that's one talented birth certificate. That birth cert takes no days off. That's amazing. And sovereigns believe with the right magic words, forms, and handshakes, you can access it. I know this is a dumb question, but here we go.

How much is in the account? Again, this is one of those places where some sovereigns get oddly specific and believe There's $630,000 in that account. Why, I don't know. Some say more. Right. That doesn't make any sense. I've seen as much as $6 million.

I said it doesn't make any sense, but that's a stupid observation because, of course, it doesn't make any sense. So a three-year-old has the same amount as an 83-year-old because whatever. So this is the same money that sovereign citizens don't actually believe in in the first place. Right. And I'm guessing that accessing this money is another thing. The guru is the only person who can help you with, right? They can get it for you.

Now you're on the non-governmental grifter trolley. Okay, but it's all fake. There's no such account. Surely this theory has fallen flat on its face by virtue of the fact that nobody has ever gotten this money. Well, here's the thing. The IRS is underfunded and overworked. Investigators refer only about two dozen sovereign scams cases for prosecution each year. The fact of the matter is, the agency sometimes misses returns that should raise a red flag or two.

For example, in 2016, the IRS discovered a sizable redemption or straw man. scheme, but only after issuing more than 43 million to sneaky sovereigns. That's another reason these strange theories persist. Sometimes, at least for a little while, they work. Oh, that's so irritating, right? So, gosh, don't even get me started. Okay, so that might work, but for how long? I mean, eventually the IRS is going to go, oh, wait, he wrote off this and this and we got a huge tax refund, but the line on here says you owe it to me because the flag on the building has a gold fringe. Like, that's not going to hold water. They're going to come looking for the money.

Right. But just like all fantastical beliefs, sovereigns record only the hits and ignore the misses. Again, I can't stress enough how much these gurus play a role. The New York Times ran a heartbreaking story of an older couple that found themselves in debt and turned to the sovereign guru, Sean David Morton. Morton describes himself as a psychic, euphologist, and America's profit.

What's a euphologist? UFOologist. Ah, okay. I was like, well, that sounds like a real, no, no, okay. How does a person go from such prestigious work as a psychic scammer to a sovereign citizen guru? Well, the article in the New York Times chronicles how many people put their trust in Mr. Morton's promises.

He offered a workshop called The Revolution Starts with You. His advertisement read, do you realize you are all considered incompetent, wards of the state, residents, and the chattled property of the U.S. federal government, until you declare your emancipation. Learn all the secrets about how to get the government off your back and out of your life once and for all. Wow. Well, he might have been on to something with the incompetent part. That is a catchy ad. Okay. What were his secrets to sovereign success? One of his secrets was called the bond process. Mr. Morton said that by submitting the right set of papers, you could wipe out your mortgage, tax bills, and student loans. Again, this message lands with

desperate people. Many find their way into the sovereign movement through financial desperation. In the end, lots of people were ripped off, lots of people off their money, and this dude went to prison. All right. We're going to be right back. In the meantime, how about using some of that fake, illegitimate U.S. government currency to support one of the sponsors that supports this show. We'll be right back. Thanks so much for listening to and supporting the show. Once again, all the deals are at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. I'm glad he went to prison.

I feel bad for the victims. Even though it's really dumb to fall for something like that, desperation makes people do dumb stuff. I mean, if you make $30,000 a year and you just got laid off and you have $100,000 or $500,000 left on your house and student loans, I mean, it's a hole that you can't imagine crawling out of. So this message lands with people that aren't thinking straight. So these scam artists and paperwork terrorists,

do they eventually face consequences? I mean, that guy went to prison, but I'm guessing most of these guys are just small fry jagoffs. Yeah. And this is just a sad fact of the matter, but the IRS can spend twice as much money tracking down the stolen money, so it's often just not worth them to go after it. Right. So they don't get the money back. We, as taxpayers, don't get the money back. But then this person drives their pretend license plate car around and gets pulled over and they find out they've got a bench warrant. Then they get arrested for that kind of. That's so dumb. What a dumb way to go to jail. So if these desperate people talk to a bankruptcy lawyer instead of a guru, they'd probably be

better off. How many people are sovereign citizens? This is a popular thing. Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that there are between 200,000 and 300,000 people that consider themselves sovereign citizens, just under 1% of the U.S. population. That is way more than I thought. That's way, way more than I thought. I thought you were going to knock a zero off those numbers, and then even that was going to be kind of high. That is a lot. Okay, anyone of note that we've, is it a part of this crap? You know, like, Scientology has Tom Cruise, John Travolta.

Who's the John Travolta of sovereign citizen nonsense? Wesley Snipes was famously a sovereign citizen. Really? I remember he went to jail for tax problems. Is that what this is all about? Sounds like you bet it all on black after all and lost. Well, Snipes fell victim to this ideology and paid the price. He had fallen under the sway of a sovereign citizen guru. Sadly, he's not the only recognizable name affiliated with the movement. But to hear the other ones, you have to go over to the FBI's most wanted list.

Yeah, I don't have that list memorize. Forgive me. All right. Yeah, okay. Any winners? Let's start with the Bundys. And I don't mean Alan Pegg here. Ah, bummer. Good reference. The Bundys are the darlings of the sovereign citizen movement. They have twice made national headlines. I'm sure. you'll remember that in April 2014, Cliven Bundy, led hundreds of armed far-right militants in an effort to stop the feds from taking his cattle. Bundy owed a bunch of money for grazing on public lands, but because of his sovereign citizen mindset, he thought he didn't owe nothing to nobody. I do remember that. And weirdly, I remember kind of being like, hey, if it's public land and the cows aren't hurting anything, then who gives a crap? But there was obviously more to the story.

I didn't know he was a sovereign kook, though. I thought that might have actually been a little bit of a ridiculous government overreach, but maybe there's more to the story. I mean, there's a lot more to that story. And I actually remember at the time watching it that they were so obsessed with dealing with the sheriff. They would only deal with the sheriff. And this is another sign. Anytime you hear that, that is a sign of sovereign belief. Only the sheriff is a legitimate authority. Oh, interesting. So the FBI shows up with helicopters and a SWAT team, and they're like, let me talk to the sheriff. And the sheriff's like, what? I'm 68 years old. I'm way, I'm way over my head, man, on this.

Like, maybe talk to the hostage negotiator that's standing here with a bulletproof vest on. So do they see themselves as cowboys, too? I guess this guy literally was a cowboy with the cattle thing. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, the sheriff thing is weird, but fortunately the feds did not see themselves as cowboys and resolved this peacefully.

But the Bundys made the news again. I was expecting the FBI to go in there and kill everyone. Yeah. Because I saw the Waco thing happen, and I remember being like, That, was that the plan? And that had kids in the compound. This was a bunch of armed adults.

I thought they were going to get steamrolled. But didn't, the next thing he did, I vaguely remember, didn't his sons take over like a park or something or a national park? I can't remember it, but it was something like that. Yeah. In 2016, the son of Clive and Bundy, Amen Bundy, led an armed group of sovereign citizens. They took over the Mueller National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon and held it for over a month. The incident resulted in the death of Robert Levoy Finney.

A sovereign citizen who became the martyr of the sovereign citizen movement. First of all, all the names in this, sorry, I don't want to be a dick, but they all sound like characters from an Xbox game called Red Dead Redemption for your ex cowboy in 1899. I know I'm outing myself as a frigging dork here, but Robert LaVoy Finnecombe sounds like a guy who dies holding a rifle in being like, you ain't getting in my house. And he's standing in someone else's house at the time. All right. So what do you mean martyr, though?

I assume he died in a stupid way that was needless. You're absolutely right. But there was an HBO documentary series called Hate Thy Neighbor, and it was really telling for me. They did an episode about the sovereign citizens. And when the name Lavoie Finnequin came up, these sovereign dudes fell silent for a moment. They spoke of him with this deep reverence.

They admire him for dying for sovereign beliefs. Finneken died, reaching for a gun that he was presumably going to use on the police. And he's not the only one, though, right? I've read other stories of sovereign. in violent situations completely of their own making because of this stupid crap. Yeah, I mean, it's just going to get uglier from here. But aspiring sovereign guru, Jerry Kane and his son Joseph were pulled over in West Memphis, Arkansas for having a self-issued license plate. The traffic stop that followed ended with Joseph, the teenage son attacking and killing two police officers with an AK-47.

That is horrible. And clearly the group has a very dangerous side. also have been pulled over in Arkansas. This has nothing to do with sovereign citizens. I was going a little bit too fast. I guess I was lost as hell. I wasn't even supposed to be down there. I was 19.

No, maybe even younger than 19. I might have been like 17. And I got pulled over. And I'm like a kind of a punk, right? I'm wearing like bright colors. I had bleach blonde dyed hair. It was the 90s. Don't judge me.

And this cop pulls me over in the middle of rural Arkansas. And I unrolled the window and he says something to me. and I could not understand one thing that he said. And I knew at that time that I was going to have to handle this very delicately because, so I said, sir, I'm having trouble understanding. And he goes, something along the lines of why are you having trouble understanding me, but not that. And I said, I really, I'm not trying to be a smart ass.

I just don't understand what you're saying. And he's like, are you simple, boy? And I was like, I think it might be your accent. I've never heard an accent like that. And I had to very just slowly and calmly be like, I don't have a clue what you're saying because your accent is so strong. This wasn't just a Southern accent. This was a guy who probably had,

despite being a highway patrolman or whatever, had never been outside, at least when he was growing up, the like 10 square miles that he had lived. Because it sounded, it didn't even sound like English. It was so bizarre. And my friend was in the car and he's like,

you're going to get beat up by this cop. He wasn't mad, though. He was surprisingly chill, and he spoke really slowly, and I think he tried a northern accent, and I finally understood that he didn't believe I was the person in my photo because I looked so different

with different colored and short hair, which also was not promising for me getting out of a traffic ticket, and that was the only ticket I've ever gotten. Wow. Yeah. He just issued it and let us go and said something else that I don't understand, and he was perfectly professional.

But I think we both were like, wow, that was really lucky. I said, did you understand him? My friend was like, I had no idea what he was talking about. So funny. It's like another planet down there. Yeah. Rural Arkansas slash Alabama, whatever, like the accents, it's not what you hear on TV. It's completely different. Yeah, been there. Anyway, back to sovereign citizens shooting people with machine guns for no reason. Yeah. Because an AK-47, I think, counts as an automatic weapon.

I believe so. I mean, sovereign citizens are actually considered one of the most dangerous domestic groups in America, which brings us to Oklahoma's City. On April 19th, 1995, a bomb detonated at the Alfred P. Muro Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Oh, yeah. He killed 168 people, including 19 children. The carnage of the day is attributed to the sovereign citizen movement. Timothy McVeigh and his collaborator Terry Nichols, who described himself as a sovereign citizen, saw the attack as the opening battle in an armed revolt against the dictatorial and globalist federal government. So I remember this really well because I think McVeigh had either come from or been to

Michigan and had made contact with this militia in Michigan that was kind of like fat dorks larping military stuff. And also I remember he kind of later on when Eminem came to be popular, I was like, is that the guy who blew up the Oklahoma? And if you look at Timothy McVeigh, it looks a little bit like, Eminem. Wow. Come on. Take a look at him and tell me he doesn't look a little bit like Eminem. I'm agreeing, but I'm thinking that Eminem doesn't deserve that comparison. He doesn't. No, Eminem is by all accounts a very cool guy who's a good parent, so I don't want to besmirch. What I assume is

Slim Shadies slash Marshall Mathers's Sterling reputation as a non-terrorist. But yeah, this is a terrible incident. Homegrown extremism. Surprise, surprise. I remember there was a daycare center for kids of federal employees who worked in the building. And of course, all the kids were then murdered in that explosion is absolutely terrible. Yeah, as, you know, just as fate would have it, I was in Oklahoma City just last week and visited the memorial. My experience was very colored by this research. It's heartbreaking. Chairs lie in the area where the office building used to stand, large chairs for the adults killed, and small chairs for the children who died. The most powerful moment for me was standing under the ruins of the original federal building wall, wondering

if I was looking at America's past or an indicator of America's future, it's scary, yeah. It is scary. I hope it's not an indicator of America's future. It's very hard to comprehend that so much violence comes from theories with absolutely no merit. Do any of these theories have any legal statuses or anything that sort of touches on reality, but it's just misinterpreted? No. Every time they try to present their arguments, they fall on their face. Most of the arguments they make are so obviously frivolous that courts feel free to reject them without much explanation. On the occasion that courts have addressed these theories, they easily punch holes in every argument. No sovereign citizen has ever successfully argued their points in a court of law.

I'd be surprised if they could successfully argue their points in a bar at one o'clock in the morning. I mean, it's so dumb. I would ask if this is an America-specific problem, but I mentioned Canada before. Is it elsewhere? I mean, sadly, it's growing. There's a rise in Canada, the UK and Australia, Germany, Austria, and Italy have their own forms of sovereigns. Russia, France, and Belgium do too.

I don't know what all the philosophies are based on, and it would have been too exhausting to discover, but this ideology is on the rise. I got to wonder what a Russian sovereign citizen's argument is and who they are mouthing off to, because I don't know if you want to test the Russian police at all and justice system. Like, you think of the American judges throw your arguments out. Imagine when you're in Putin's courtroom. They don't throw your arguments out. They throw you out of a window.

Of a window. Yes, exactly. What can be done? It seems like aside from some tax violations, these people were mostly harmless until they started murdering cops and children. Like, no license plate, not great, but, you know, whatever. You're a kook. But then it's like, oh, I have weapons stockpiles in my basement.

To use the old cliche, it is a slippery slope. If you start with the assumption that the guns, government is illegitimate, things are likely to get ugly. And that's just the fact of the matter. Despite what sovereigns believe, we in America are free to hold any beliefs we like. So unfortunately, the only solution to their bad ideas is just to promote good ideas. And after studying sovereign citizens, for me right now, the best idea is to go get a drink. Okay. Me too, man. Thank you. And I say this in lowercase, Michael. Thank you, lowercase, Jordan.

Thanks so much for listening to the show. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday to Jordan at Jordan Harbinger.com. Show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com as well. Transcripts are in the show notes. Advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show, all at Jordan Harbinger. com slash deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.

You can find Michael at Michael Regelio on Instagram, Michael Rogelio Comedy.com. Tour dates up now as well. We'll spell that for you in the show notes and link to it. so you don't have to figure that one out on your own. This show is created an association with Podcast One. By the way, that is the actual Michael Regulio, not the birth certificate with the name of the corporate entity of Michael Regulio. You'll see the real deal on Instagram and his comedy tour.

Just to clarify, for those who are confused. This show is created an association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millio Campo, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. are maybe subject, not even subject to the laws of the United States or whatever, so you wouldn't want to hire me. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. Remember,

we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism we doled out today. I have a feeling people are going to be like, this is what crazy Uncle Frank is talking about and they're going to be forwarding it to their family. Like, I'm so confused why he says, I'm traveling all the time. I'm so confused why his paper license plates. This is going to a click for a lot of people who are not sovereigns. They're going to go, ah, that's the thing that's going on. Anyway, in the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger

show with Olympic speed skater Apollo Ono. To me, the power of belief is the real lesson. I could tap into this unknown reservoir of performance potential. I believe that there was a sixth gear that I had access to than everyone else only had five. I truly believed that. I was able to use my fear of failure in a way that was so powerful, it became a superpower. But over long enough durations of time, it also became toxic. We all live as if we have this infinite life, right? We take things for granted, we're grinding, and a very natural human experience. I do this too. Life is this incredible gift. And so do not waste it on shit that is just like not worthy. It doesn't serve you and who you want to truly become. If there's one message that I can leave to people is that your

choices to respond and react to the situations that you're meeting today are solely within your control. Solely, whether you are hyper successful and you decide what you want to do next, whether you are failing miserable and you're deeply unhappy, or you feel like you're just floating and you're just kind of like, everyone seems like they all have it around me. It's all noise. The person that actually creates momentum and progress is the one that doesn't listen to that voice unless it's using it for fuel to actually make progression

and positive movement. Everything that I dedicate myself towards today, my life mission is about how do we create a more open communication channel to create conversation that actually moves and inspires and reminds people of the superpowers that we actually really all have, within. For more with Apollo Ono, the most decorated winter athlete in Olympic history, check out episode 783 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. This episode is sponsored in part by Something

You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like something you should know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast, focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you, or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something

you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work itch, search for or something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.