[H/t Heather]
60 Minutes' Byron Pitt had a superb segment last night on the sovereign citizens movement, springboarding from the tragic case of Jerry and Joe Kane, two sovereign citizens who mowed down a couple of West Memphis, Arkansas, police officers before themselves being killed.
It was actually a well assembled and insightful piece of reporting, including the analysis provided by J.J. McNabb, who is unquestionably one of the leading experts on the movement from the outside. And while they let movement guru Alfred Adask run off at the mouth, in the end his own radicalism and complete lack of any connection to reality were made self-evident by his own words.
The only question is: Will Peter King finally listen and hold a congressional hearing on right-wing-extremist domestic terrorism, too?
The story particularly featured the work of Bob Paudert, the police chief in West Memphis father of one of the two slain officers. We've discussed Paudert's work previously (more here). He's been adamant that the information that could have saved his officers that day hadn't been disseminated to them because it was being bottled up.
Why is that happening? Well, as we noted then, we need look no further than the right-wing shriekosphere, which has done everything it can to demonize factual reportage of the actual threat of domestic terrorist activity from right-wing extremists:
,
The incident was yet another reminder that one of the most significant ongoing threats to law enforcement officers in this country comes from right-wing extremists of the Patriot/"sovereign citizen" variety -- people who take Republicans' government-bashing rhetoric to its illogical extreme and declare themselves free of federal laws and functionally laws unto themselves. There are constant reminders of this threat -- from the Hutaree Militia to the Richard Poplawskis out there.
Of course, we all were witness to the right-wing shrieking over that Department of Homeland Security bulletin warning police officers around the country about the nature of this resurgent threat. That's because conservatives are more concerned about whitewashing away these embarrassments than they are with the lives of police officers. They like to use dead cops as props to attack liberals while loudly arguing, as Glenn Beck did a couple years ago, that even paying attention to such right-wing threats is a smear of mainstream conservatives.
Ironically, Glenn Beck was nattering at length on his Fox News show this week claiming that left-wing extremists are about to start killing police officers en masse, which is why they need to destroy their unions. Right.
The unfortunate reality is that federal officials are almost certainly not sharing this vital intelligence with police officers because, whenever they do, they're viciously and loudly attacked by right-wing pundits for allegedly smearing mainstream conservatives. Amazingly, no one in the mainstream media seems to have yet cottoned to the fact that this really is a near-outright confession of complicity.
Indeed, domestic terrorism is sharply increasing in the past two years, as evidenced by the 22 incidents and counting we've documented involving right-wing extremists committing acts of violence against "liberals" and government targets.
But because right-wing talkers only want to discuss terrorism as a "Muslim" phenomenon, we're getting a badly skewed understanding of the nature of terrorism.
Here's that map -- and many of these indeed involve crimes committed by self-described "sovereign citizens":
Click on map to see interactive version.
these people are blatant criminals....isn't there some way we can curb them? They don't pay taxes, they don't get drivers' licenses, they don't obey the law....there must be some way we can keep them from killing more law enforcement officers.
“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,”
...pissing off our benevolent conservative overlords. These criminals make up a significant portion of their power base, don'tcha know.
Surely I can't be the only one who sees how alike they are...
‘The worst evils in the world are not done by evil people, but by good people who do not know they are not doing good’ – Reinhold Niebuhr
And both descend from the same progenitor - the John Birch Society and its contemporaries, to be specific, all the extreme right-reactionary groups that popped up in the 50s and 60s as a result of popular hysteria over the Evil Red Menace.
Maybe if King held hearings on this threat instead of an entire religion this police force would have heard about these folks and two cops would be alive.
is intended to be a factual statement
...terrorism is because they're not likely to be victims of it. That may be a matter of "odds" and not ideology but how many right wingers were successfully targeted out of those 22 acts? Right...
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
'sovereign citizen libertarians'......?....just asking.
....the fools do not realize,a population that can ,..... not paticipate .............in the 'economy'...,can not keep it viable!..........."we are listening,.......and we're not blind.,......this is your life....this is your time."
So, one thing comes to mind.
When a guy like Mumia Abu Jamal kills a cop, the right wing is frothing at the mouth. The right wing outrage over the anti-police violence from these guys, however, seems comparatively muted.
These people are insane. When you hear them talk, it becomes clear that they border on being outright delusional, and some surely have crossed that border long ago.
On a slightly more amusing note....did I see the mugshots Three Stooges at one point in that video? Sure, their hair was a bit unkempt, but those three guys that got arrested were like paranoid militia nutcase versions of Larry, Curly, and Moe.
This is what definitely happens when racist Reslugs and the Faux Noise buffoons spew hatred, violence and habitual lies to their uneducated, ignorant watchers.
Of course it is , absolutely . Fox and the Republican party are traitors and saboteurs who are out to destroy this country as we have known it , they are trying to create all of the chaos and trouble they can .
So personal responsibility means nothing? We have to blame someone else because these people are too stupid to act like decent human beings?
"The greatest threat to freedom of thought is intellectual cowardice." -George Orwell, 1946
http://christianfearinggodman.blogspot.com
Personal responsibility, yes... the perps are individually responsible for their acts, but there's a lot of unfocused rage and anger out there, and it is being exploited by the bombastic right-wing media.
Personal responsibility, yes, but why is there advertising if not to influence peoples' behavior? And when the steady drumbeat of rage comes from the right-wing, it's proven to be quite effective advertising... at some point, it will finally sink in to folks that these are not isolated incidents.
In the marketplace of ideas, too many people shop in the bargain basement.
-- Thunder BlueRose
Why, yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU
http://saxman.bravepages.com
That might be true, but these people are nut jobs. Say what you want about the majority of Republicans, that they're stupid or have looney ideas, but most Republicans are not like these guys.
These psychoes are not indicative of the huge majority of the party. They might be morons, but few of them are murderous radicals.
The media might foment unrest and frustration, and it might encourage ignorance, but they're not making or even urging people to turn violent.
We can only blame the media so much. There are way too many idiots who watch Fox News and gobble it up like gospel who DON'T go committing hate crimes or murder. The individuals who do this are sick to begin with, and likely would have done what they did regardless of anything that you perceive as coercion from the media.
"The greatest threat to freedom of thought is intellectual cowardice." -George Orwell, 1946
http://christianfearinggodman.blogspot.com
Come on jack , we are talking about human beings , easily manipulated and deceived by evil people who have evil intentions , we've been witnessing it big time for the last thirteen years .
I know people are stupid and easily manipulated, but they're not so easily persuaded to actually kill a human being.
I have a low opinion of human nature, but I still have some hope left.
"The greatest threat to freedom of thought is intellectual cowardice." -George Orwell, 1946
http://christianfearinggodman.blogspot.com
Our military kill innocents all the time and mind you they are not drafted but are volunteers , recruitment not much of a problem . I'm sure you've read a history book or two , Stalin and the purges , murdering millions of their own , Hitler / the Nazi party and the atrocities , they had the majority of their people behind them , their own people carried these things out and did so willingly . Look at the changes in people in this country just over the last 13 years or so , half the country seems to have completely lost their minds , unknowingly they've been totally brainwashed and are like rabid cult members , brains all but useless . All it took was Limbaugh , Murdoch , Fox propaganda and a relative handful of neocon . Look how easily it was done ! Our country's history is relatively short , we think we are morally and ethically superior , that could not happen here , we would never do that ! We are just fooling ourselves .
1. The Washington, DC Holocaust Museum shooting in June 2009 was committed by a white supremacist and Holocaust denier.
2. The Crestview, Florida shootings in April 2009 were committed by a man who was upset by the election of Barack Obama.
http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/cartwright-1...
Edit: I see these two are on the list of attacks but have not been added to the map
They're just hiding behind other tabs, unfortunately. It's a bug in Google maps. If you zoom in on those locales you can click on the tabs more readily.
Got it. Carry on :)
The only question is: Will Peter King finally listen and hold a congressional hearing on right-wing-extremist domestic terrorism, too?
What's the point? Congressional hearings are just for show. They'd do a lot of harrumphing and maybe bang on the table a little, but in the end they'll pick two or three low-level schmoes, blame them for everything, and then pretend they've accomplished something.
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
It worked so well in the cases of the Abu Ghraib & Guantanimo deaths.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
...investigation into gas pricing and prices.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
of being a supporter and fund raiser for foreign terrorists.
His past language is the same as the Sovereign Citizen types.
Substitute American for British, and Smalltownville-midwest for Belfast and Derry, whats the damn difference !?
And he is doing the usual GOP thing of chasing mostly phantom Islamic domestic terrorism, White supremacist patriot/militia terrorism does not exist for Rep. Peter King (R)
Worked for Cheney with Scooter.
Anybody who is 60 years old and is still called Scooter, should be in jail - regardless.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
Sarah palin husband belonged to the Alaska Independence party. Remember when she lied during the election and said he didn't and then said it was a mistake?
They have ties to these kinds of people. So does Don Young, Senator of Alaska.
Diane
There's a photo of Palin in the AK Gov's office and on her desk is the John Birch Society newsletter!
Don Young is the *representative* for Alaska, not a Senator.
Also, would it kill C&L to include the incident in Fairbanks in the picture? (It shows up on the interactive map, but I guess a little cut-and-paste for the static version is too much?)
The Reich wing / Republican party are the domestic terrorists we should most be worried about .
No.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Actually kill cops, not that big a story.
Edit: Should have probably wrote "Black man raps about cop killing: OUTRAGE. White dudes actually kill cops..."
I've seen some stuff, man. And some thangs...
I went to a 'Sovereign Citizen' training session in New York City. It was a six week course.
I paid my 1/2 oz gold coin (at the time it was ~$225) and attended the class. I learned about the whole history that they rely on to legitimize their beliefs. Basically they believe that the creation of the Federal Reserve was the moment when the legitimate government (which derived it's authority to govern from we individual sovereign citizens) was 'sold' to a private corporation (they wave around a document that claims to be the corporate papers of the Federal Reserve filed in Delaware in 1913), and since that time anything named 'State of XXX' is a fictional corporate entity and not the actual government started in 1789.
Our birth certificates are contracts the sell our bodies to the corporate entity that is the state we are born in, which precludes us from being free citizens. They say that the Declaration of Independence threw off the yoke of subjection to a monarch sovereign and that we are all our own 'sovereign' citizens. What they mean by this is that instead of being subjects to a sovereign entity, we are all each our own sovereign. The birth certificate is a contract, subject to contract law, that transfers our sovereignty over to the state, thus subjecting ourselves back to the status of a serf to the corporate sovereign of the illegitimate state entity.
The only authority they recognize is their own 24 member towns, where 24 like-minded 'sovereign' citizens agree to form a township. Why 24? Because you need 23 people to create a Grand Jury for criminal proceedings. According to these folks, this is the only authority they will recognize as legitimate. Their other 23 towns-folk have to meet, hear evidence and hand down an indictment against their 24th member.
Now these are the broad rules of this 'movement'. Each township has their own way of doing things. Many don't allow women to be on Grand Juries, since the original Constitution didn't provide for any rights for women. Many don't allow non-whites to be members of their townships, again because the original language of the US Constitution only allowed for black people to count for 3/5ths of a vote.
None of them recognize any state entity to have any authority, and all officers and agents of state entities are 'foreigners' attacking their god-given sovereignty. That is why they don't have state-issued license plates, or state-issued ID cards and driver's licenses and why they love to kill cops when they commit traffic infractions.
They also rely on ancient feudal law to declare their own family 'house'. Each family creates their own Coat of Arms, which acts as a demarcation between their 'sovereign' land and the State Of XXX land. The place a sign on their property or home saying "House of Yyyyy" with their Coat of Arms, to again demarcate the place at which state law stops and Constitutional 'Sovereignty' starts.
Another key aspect is that they believe that the IRS is NOT a branch of the Federal Government, but is actually another corporate entity. As such it has no legitimacy to levy taxes at all. This is the logic that the right-wing tax resisters rely on.
After our series of classes had concluded, we were expected to start forming our own township. I started asking all sorts of questions that the moderator clearly had no answer for: Would our town accept LGBT citizens? Would our town allow women, blacks, etc, to have full rights? And so on...
The one thing I found most interesting is how this ties into the Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to be considered citizens. Since (they believe that) humans are subjects to a corporate state and not full citizens under that subjugation, this is what (they claim) gives corporate entities more rights under state and federal law than human citizens.
Oh, I forgot to mention the whole 'gold fringe' thing.
According to Admiralty Law, any American flag that has a gold fringe round the edges and gold tassels hanging from the top means that the entity flying that flag is under military control. So all flags in state and town offices and the US Capitol and federal buildings are actually secret signals that prove that the state entity is actually a dictatorship ultimately under military law.
Then there was US Chief Justice Rhenquist who added gold strips to his robe. According to these Sovereign Citizens, that was a secret code to show that the US Supreme Court was under the direct control of the Pentagon (a very bad and illegitimate corporate entity whose sole job was to suppress the rights of sovereign citizens). Rhenquist claimed it was his love of 'HMS Pinafore' that moved him to add the gold piping to his robe, but again that goes to the Admiralty Law anyway...
The new Chief Justice, Roberts, does not sport the gold stripes of his predecessor. I guess we all can just read his rulings to confirm his allegiance to his corporate overlords and hatred for the individual citizen.
.
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
Thanks for sharing this info. It's fascinating and frightening.
We have not been scuffling in this waste-howling wildness for the right to be stupid.
Toni Cade Bambara
But holy crap they sound loony toons.
Spinny Liberal
Fascists make me itchy
Significantly.
Dangers real, but deaths increasingly rare for police officers
I looked for some numbers to get an idea about the trends of crime against "liberals" and law enforcement combined, but couldn't find any. There doesn't appear to be any historical, or even any rational, connection that is expressed by the extensive crime statistics kept in the United States.
I also looked for crime statistics kept by the political persuasion of either the perpetrator or victim, but similarly couldn't find any. However, there do appear to be plenty of anecdotal arguments demonizing whichever group the author wishes. But that's not surprising, using anecdotes cherry picked from a nation of over 350,000,000 people, you can make pretty much any group a terrifying bogeyman.
How many incidents of violent crime perpetrated by registered Democrats occurred in the past two and a half years? Does anyone think it's only 22 incidents?
But the ability to cherry pick anecdotes without statistical comparison and make any argument you want is only part of the problem in using such "methodology." It can also result in creating impressions that are diametrically opposed to reality.
We've seen plenty of this in the U.S., and it's not limited to the "epidemic" of abductions of attractive, young, white women that the media so love to cover. It has been done to successfully manipulate Americans' overall impressions of crime.
Despite statistical evidence of decreasing crime, increased media coverage of crime has resulted in a public believing that crime has dramatically increased. In only one example of many such studies:
In other words: media fearmongering resulted in widespread misapprehension of the facts. It's easy to see why an authoritarian media might wish to cause such misapprehension: fear works. Make someone afraid and they are far more easily manipulated.
And emphasizing cherry picked anecdotes given without any statistical context whatsoever has been an effective authoritarian media tactic.
Be afraid - always - be very afraid.
Is there really any other message here?
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Your stats are out of date. There was a big spike in 2010, and an even bigger spike to date this year.
2001-2010, there were over 1,600 officers killed in the line of duty. During the same period there was an average of almost 60,000 assaults per year on police officers.
That is outrageous and unacceptable.
http://www.nleomf.com/facts/officer-fatalitie...
I've recently talked to two individuals who were ostensibly liberal who believed it was important to own weapons as a counter-balance to government power.
But yeah, those two and their guns are going to be no match for the largest, most technically advanced fighting force in the history of the planet. They do know how much this country spends on "defense", right? But they're gonna even the odds with an assault rifle, heh heh heh. Truth is they won't even get a chance to fire off a round, or even see the "enemy", because a missle from outer-f**king-space will take them out first. Once these "freedom fighters" assemble their own space program maybe, maybe they'll be a counter-balance to government power. All of which I'm sure you tried in vain to explain :)
that I know someone like that, too. In fact, we were childhood sweethearts. Somewhere between his stint in the military and a couple of years ago, he became this weird mix of liberal beliefs and sovereign citizen ideology. He believes in gay marriage and anti-racism activism (He's half Japanese- and half Italian-American and loves dating black and Arab women) and is adamantly against Islamophobia, but he's also a wannabe survivalist preparing for what he believes is an imminent attack by an out of control American government that can only *maybe* be salvaged if Ron Paul was elected POTUS. I suspect that his beliefs about social issues don't *really* stem from a belief in equality. It's more that he doesn't care about what others do as long as he is allowed to do whatever he wants or sees as proper in his own eyes. I dunno...It's either that or he's just nucking futs.
We have not been scuffling in this waste-howling wildness for the right to be stupid.
Toni Cade Bambara
In Byron Pitts' coverage of the Sovereign Citizens he made reference to Jerry Kane's car being "registered to a bogus charity". What he didn't report or missed was the significance of that charities address. The address that Kane used on his registration is the address of the building the Aryan Nations used as their church, in New Vienna, Ohio, in the late 1990's. Pitts also didn't report that there are dozens of other car's registered to that same address.
In its hay day the members of the Arian Nations' "Church of Jesus Christ Christian" in New Vienna were among the most dangerous members of the organization. The group, headed by Pastor "Ray" Redfeairn - the heir apparent to Richard Butler, head of the national Aryan Nations - not only held Kane among its associates, it brought us the Kehoe brothers - known for their shootout with the Sheriffs in Wilmington, Ohio and for being an associate of Timothy McVeigh - as well as Kale Kelly - the convicted co-conspirator in the failed assignation attempt against Morris Dees (founder of the SPLC) and the failed attempt to bomb the Earle Cabell Federal Building. in Dallas.
The crazies remain the same - only the names of their groups change
because I'm sure that I'm not the only person who, despite being pretty diligent about keeping up with the news, didn't know about the connection between Kanes and the Aryan Nation.
We have not been scuffling in this waste-howling wildness for the right to be stupid.
Toni Cade Bambara
Will some bleached blonde Foxaganda harpie question the Sovereign Citizen's terrorist fist jab?
You got the world's greatest terrorist from abroad, time to work on the the domestic terrorists threats at home.
back when he was a county sheriff.
They're pretty big on their sovreign nation crap but they still cash their welfare checks.
Losers and hypocrites.
"Better." It's what we should ask of ourselves and of our leaders.
Nice!
these nuts get some mainstream press attention.
Not giving any dire warning or prompting conspiracy theory, but there are a lot of "Freeman" orgs and indies. There is almost always a "sovereign citizen" speaker/booth/seminar at any Libertarian meetup or convention. It's an attractive concept as it represents a seemingly "legal" escape from the recognized responsibilities of citizenship and the concept of a social contract. In my experience as a Ron Paul advocate and networker, I was quite astonished at the percentage of supporters that are not only sympathetic to sovereign citizens, but include the ideal as a goal for all citizens. The prevailing mindset is that it represents a "return" to our founding principles. But as I recognized eventually, it actually represents an alternate reality, a radical concept that has never been institutionalized. Most of us would recognize a nation of sovereign citizens as anarchy.
Fallout influences
King seems to relish the publicity; it also seems apparent that his ego is twisted and he lives in fear of the "other".
These "sovereign citizens" types are overwhelmingly wrapped up in fantasies of the superiority of "natural law" which has its basis in biblical law. They're all nut job autoritarians who all want to be the authority. Screw these people. If they don't want to obey the law, they should go find that mythical counrty where they can behave any way they want (Randistan?). Otherwise, round 'em up, charge 'em, prosecute 'em and lock 'em up, regardless of their stupid jursidiction arguments! Or just round 'em up and deport 'em -- they can be sovereign citizens in the middle of the ocean.
Religion will be the downfall of Humanity.
{These "sovereign citizens" types are overwhelmingly wrapped up in fantasies of the superiority of "natural law" which has its basis in biblical law.}
If "natural law" was not superior congress could repeal it.
{If they don't want to obey the law, they should go find that mythical counrty where they can behave any way they want (Randistan?).}
They think they are obeying law. Could it be that your law is nothing more than coded whims?
{They're all nut job autoritarians who all want to be the authority.}
How do you know?
{Otherwise, round 'em up, charge 'em, prosecute 'em and lock 'em up, regardless of their stupid jursidiction arguments! Or just round 'em up and deport 'em -- they can be sovereign citizens in the middle of the ocean.}
Go for it.
Yeah, I suppose you have to be a True Christian (TM) to believe in "natural law". Sorry, I don't subscribe.
Again, you have to have a strong belief in the dogma of the christian bible to believe you are obeying the law, while disobeying the written laws of the country in which you reside. Could it be their law (the bible) is nothing more than coded whims?
Granted, I don't know. I should have said: They all seem to behave as if they were authoritatrians who want to be the authority.
Oh, come on. You know what I meant. These sovereign types should be prosecuted for violations of the local laws just like anyone else who lives here. If they refuse? Shouldn't they be treated like everyone else here and charged? If they don't want to obey the laws because they have some philosophical disagreement with them, then they should work within the system to change those laws or go live somewhere more to their liking. No?
Otherwise, in my opinion, they're just plain delusional. That natural law bullshit comes from a book of lies anyway. Again, in my opinion.
Religion will be the downfall of Humanity.
To be clear, if congress could repeal "natural laws" they could repeal gravity.
I don't do religion and I don't feel the least bit threatened by those people. Of course I'm pretty tolerant of people who just want to be left alone. The "government" is always the initiator of violence (think taxes) so those who would take out their "officers" are always doing nothing more than defending themselves.
Or both?
TFR
...Navy Times: "Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano offered a sobering assessment of the terror threat facing the United States Wednesday, saying it was at perhaps the “most heightened state” since the Sept. 11 attacks nearly a decade ago."
I remember elsewhere it was noted that they recruited ex-military into their ranks.
Any connections to that? Are any of these 'sovereign citizens' ex-military people?
If you need funds to pay for essentials, you have a revenue problem
If you need funds to pay for frivolity, you have a spending problem
Those on the right wing of the political spectrum will never investigate these "soverign citizen"/militia movements, mostly out of the belief that these, too, are of us. They will never investigate out of their belief that to do such would be a "smear" in the eyes of their own.
This is why we must depend on the efforts of those - such as Morris Dees and Mark Potok at the Southern Poverty Law Center - to carry out the investigation, for the right has so infested our system of government to the point that they will never prosecute their own kind, believing that they themselves are "above the law".
Peter King...is silent. Shocker.
NOBODY 2012
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