Black people already know that your rights are whatever the cop decides they are, and they’re probably not going to be deciding in your favour. They learn that if they don’t antagonize the cop, they might get close to the rights they should actually have.
These morons think that they can get away with antagonizing cops and demanding that the cops respect some secret set of rights that the cops have most likely never heard of.
I understand where this impulse comes from. If you’re not very smart, the things happening in court must seem like magic. Lawyers cite obscure precedents. There are rules about evidence. You can take the fifth and suddenly the lawyers have no power to make you talk. People with good lawyers get away with things when their crimes seem obvious. So, while you don’t understand any of this, there are people online who tell you the cheat codes you need to use in court. And, it’s not like it gets you out of real crimes, it just means that they have to give you the rights that you think you should have anyhow.
What’s interesting is that this must never work. Like, I can’t imagine a Sovereign Citizen ever getting away with anything using these “cheat codes”. But, somehow, that information doesn’t seem to be making it back to these groups. You’d think that after years of this with a 0% success rate, the movement would eventually start fading.
It can seem to work though. My brother-in-law tells stories about seeing his friends get out of tickets with their hand written IDs. To me those stories sound like cops stopping a car full of drunken probably armed rednecks in the middle of nowhere - cops who just want to go home alive.
Yeah, I’m sure there’s a lazy cop factor. But, if it actually makes it to a court, I think there’s a limit on how far it will go. I’m sure sometimes a judge will just give up because it’s not worth the hassle for something that’s a small dollar fine. But, other times the judge will probably get mad and throw the book at them for wasting his/her time.
Sovereign Citizenship is such a white thing.
Black people already know that your rights are whatever the cop decides they are, and they’re probably not going to be deciding in your favour. They learn that if they don’t antagonize the cop, they might get close to the rights they should actually have.
These morons think that they can get away with antagonizing cops and demanding that the cops respect some secret set of rights that the cops have most likely never heard of.
I understand where this impulse comes from. If you’re not very smart, the things happening in court must seem like magic. Lawyers cite obscure precedents. There are rules about evidence. You can take the fifth and suddenly the lawyers have no power to make you talk. People with good lawyers get away with things when their crimes seem obvious. So, while you don’t understand any of this, there are people online who tell you the cheat codes you need to use in court. And, it’s not like it gets you out of real crimes, it just means that they have to give you the rights that you think you should have anyhow.
What’s interesting is that this must never work. Like, I can’t imagine a Sovereign Citizen ever getting away with anything using these “cheat codes”. But, somehow, that information doesn’t seem to be making it back to these groups. You’d think that after years of this with a 0% success rate, the movement would eventually start fading.
Actually there’s a whole subgroup of sovereign citizens who are black, usually associated with the Moorish Science Temple. Three of the Facebook groups I’m in are run by black people. Here is a good article: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/moorish-sovereign-citizens.
Yeah, nah. I see a TON of black sovcits on YT. Stupid transcends all racial boundaries.
It can seem to work though. My brother-in-law tells stories about seeing his friends get out of tickets with their hand written IDs. To me those stories sound like cops stopping a car full of drunken probably armed rednecks in the middle of nowhere - cops who just want to go home alive.
Yeah, I’m sure there’s a lazy cop factor. But, if it actually makes it to a court, I think there’s a limit on how far it will go. I’m sure sometimes a judge will just give up because it’s not worth the hassle for something that’s a small dollar fine. But, other times the judge will probably get mad and throw the book at them for wasting his/her time.