Government Continues to Hype Non-Existent Threat of “Sovereign Citizens”

February 7, 2012

BlacklistedNews.com
By Madison Ruppert

Today the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) once again dredged up the non-existent threat of so-called “anti-government extremists” often referred to as “sovereign citizens,” which in fact encompasses a wildly diverse and eclectic group of people with divergent points of view.

However, the FBI and others like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) love to lump anyone and everyone who questions government authority and supports a strictly constitutional government in with the crazies who just happen to identify themselves as “sovereign citizens.”

The FBI characterizes these supposed extremists as people who believe they can live outside of any government authority whatsoever and may refuse to pay taxes, defy government environmental regulations and say that the United States has been bankrupt since going off the gold standard, according to a Reuters report.

The deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, Stuart McArthur claimed that otherwise routine police encounters can turn violent “at the drop of a hat” with these individuals, something which is hardly borne out by facts.

Reflecting the tiny sample of cases the government can turn to in order to demonize anyone and everyone who might question the constitutionality of a federal income tax, restrictive building codes and invasive inspections (which is likely what they mean by “government environmental regulations” as countless pseudo-conservatives in government constantly speak ill of legitimate environmental regulations) or the solvency of the government of the United States of America, they constantly turn to a few choice cases.

One is a case which took place in 2010 in West Memphis, Arkansas, when police officers were murdered by someone who was supposedly a sovereign citizen.

The traffic stop resulted in the death of both the father, Jerry Kane and his 16-year-old son Joseph Kane along with two police officers.

While the establishment media constantly emphasized that these individuals identified themselves as sovereign citizens, in reality they were criminals, scam artists and as later became brutally clear, murderers.

In June of last year I broke down just how corrupt and illegitimate the SPLC actually is, while making it clear that the supposed sovereign citizen movement was going to be the next boogeyman the government would lord over the American people.

Unfortunately it appears that I was correct as the effort to demonize anyone and everyone who questions the government’s authority has not relented in the slightest, as the latest Department of Homeland Security “lexicon” revealed.

This document defines “militia extremists” as, “Groups or individuals who facilitate or engage in acts of violence directed at federal, state, or local government officials or infrastructure in response to their belief that the government deliberately is stripping Americans of their freedoms and is attempting to establish a totalitarian regime.

These individuals consequently oppose many federal and state authorities’ laws and regulations, (particularly those related to firearms ownership), and often belong to armed paramilitary groups. They often conduct paramilitary training designed to violently resist perceived government oppression or to violently overthrow the US Government.”

This is clearly intended to blur the line between violent extremists and anyone who knows that the American government is, in fact, deliberately stripping us of our most essential freedoms and indeed establishing a totalitarian regime.

They make it seem as though knowing these things immediately makes you likely to be a member of an armed paramilitary group or someone who wants to participate in violent acts against individuals who work for the government.

Obviously this couldn’t be further from the truth given that I abhor any and all violence and reject its use in all circumstances except the most dire self-defense situations.

Meanwhile, I am well aware of the fact that our government is making a concerted effort to strip us of our rights and turn the United States into a totalitarian regime which would make the world’s bloodiest dictators jealous.

Does this somehow mean that I want to participate in violent acts against the government? No, in fact it would completely nullify my moral position and my ethical opposition to what individuals in our government and corporate sectors are doing.

In my mind, it doesn’t matter what someone identifies themselves as when they are engaging in criminal activity and are insane enough to actually murder someone. I see it as essentially the same as anyone who claims to be Christian while supporting executions, war, usury etc.

I refer back to the classic Latin phrase, facta non verba, meaning essentially, “deeds not words.”

The words of these individuals, or anyone else for that matter, mean nothing when it comes down to it. It is their actions which will show you who they really are.

Thus, if the sovereign citizen movement really was a dangerous extremist movement, we would likely see a lot more actual violent extremist activity from people identifying themselves as sovereign citizens but it is clear this is not the case when one looks at the ludicrously small sampling of cases the government and media can point to when trying to demonize this movement.

Reuters also cites an incident last year in which an alleged extremist in Texas fired upon a police officer, again during a traffic stop, although this time the police officer was not injured.

The FBI proves just how scared we should be of these dangerous extremists by citing the legal convictions of these individuals, mostly for white-collar crimes like fraud, which number 10 in 2009, 18 in 2010, and 18 in 2011.

Hardly a number which would indicate a growing trend which is a threat to the American people, yet this is exactly what the FBI is pretending is the case.

They attempt to reinforce this by claiming that local law enforcement agencies are clamoring for training on how to deal with these supposed extremists. All this indicates is that police are quick to jump on a bandwagon, which is hardly surprising given that they are people who are specifically chosen for their ability to blindly follow orders.

A great example of this herd mentality of police departments across the nation is the absurd conversion of old armored trucks into mobile surveillance platforms which are used to intimidate and harass individuals without the need for probable cause or a search warrant.

“We are being inundated right now with requests for training from state and local law enforcement on sovereign-related matters,” Casey Carty, a supervisory special agent for the FBI, said.

It seems that Carty is attempting to imply that the large number of requests from local law enforcement somehow makes the threat greater than it actually is.

This fallacious logic would imply that if local law enforcement from around the nation started requesting training to combat kittens armed with lasers, suddenly kittens with lasers would become a real threat about which we should all be concerned.

Obviously this is ridiculous. Law enforcement is a business which has to have a demand and if there isn’t one, it will be created, as we have seen time and time again in the homeland security industry.

While the FBI says they do not have a figure on how many people consider themselves to be sovereign citizens, Reuters turns to J. J. MacNab who has written for the Southern Poverty Law Center on the subject of sovereign citizens and is currently writing a book about the movement.

Obviously this is far from an impartial expert resource as she is seeking to profit off of this movement and the fear she is attempting to instill in the American people.

She claims that the sovereign citizen movement boasts around 100,000 members, although her method of deriving this figure is unknown and absolutely no sources are cited and it is not substantiated in any way.

I guess I should be surprised, after all even Fusion Centers have been warned against relying on the SPLC’s wildly inaccurate and highly politicized “reports,” which says quite a bit about how legitimate their analysis really is.

Reuters also claims that Internal Revenue Service employees are especially at risk since some sovereign citizens are particularly upset about collection of federal taxes.

Yet, of course, they can’t actually point to a trend of sovereign citizens attacking or killing tax collectors, instead they hope that the uninformed and mentally lazy reader will just take their word for it.

Hopefully all of my readers are astute enough to never take anyone’s word for it and instead rely on their own research and conclusions. If you actually look into these cases and the broader trend, you might walk away with an impression radically different from that the FBI and establishment media would like you to have.

This article originally appeared on End the Lie