New Hampshire lawmaker wants to legitimize “sovereign citizens”

“Sovereign citizens” are people, almost exclusively fringe-Rightist, who believe laws don’t apply to them, especially when it comes to inconveniences like taxation and court orders, simply because they want it to be true. This gets exactly one reaction whenever they land in front of a judge, and that reaction is, “Um, no.”

But a New Hampshire politician – take a wild guess which party he’s from – wants to give these cranks formal recognition and penalize government agencies that refuse to exempt them from their laws.

Republican state Rep. Richard Marple is scheduled to introduce a bill that treats sovereign citizens as a recognized legal class, and proposes a $10,000 fine for state agencies that don’t buy into sovereigns’ legal make believe. Marple champions sovereign citizen talking points, which typically draw a far-right fanbase, and has earned him the praise of white supremacist Christopher Cantwell.

Sovereign citizens claim to be emancipated from the U.S. government. And often their own beliefs—which run conspiratorial, libertarian, and ludicrous—are often at odds with other members of their loose-affiliated movement. Some sovereign citizens might believe local sheriffs to be the highest valid form of government. Others argue that all court proceedings are frauds, or that they don’t have to pay their taxes because IRS forms spell their names in capital letters, or that the government secretly owes every citizen $630,000.

Usually, sovereign citizens are harmless frequenters of conspiracy websites. More rarely, they’re violent, anti-government extremists. But never do their theories hold up in court, and Marple’s previous attempts to introduce sovereign citizen-style legislation have been defeated in committee.

You know, I wonder how easy this would be to apply in practice. If a New Hampshirite doesn’t wanna pay taxes no more, do they just mail back an empty tax form with a big red ‘X’ scribbled on it? If they get pulled over for speeding, do they tell the cop that they don’t respect their authoritah and that it’s their sovereign right to blitz around at 100 MPH until they wrap themselves around a tree? Or is there – *shudders* – paperwork involved? Wait, sovereigns don’t believe in paperwork, do they?

Sadly, I don’t suppose we’ll find out, because the chances of this bill surviving for more than five minutes before being laughed out of committee are about the same as those of a sovereign citizen ever getting a judge to listen to them for more than five minutes before being laughed out of court.

(via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)