[Vision2020] This is Old News in Boundary County

Thu Aug 12 19:20:01 PDT 2010

This is getting traction in Arizona, too, which is rapidly becoming the most socially and politically loony of the 50 states.  

I would be very interested to see how many Sovereigns there are in Latah County, and how many are in some way affiliated with local "ministries" that see secession as a reasonable option for the Southern states, find sympathy for the Confederacy, believe secular government to be God's chastening of Christian males, and counsel their followers to avoid, even attack, public schooling, social welfare programs, and other "statist" institutions.

What I'd really like -- and what I won't get -- is a strong denunciation of this movement from this and other Christian organizations, which I think is not only reasonable but required, given that the overwhelming majority of Sovereign Citizens claim to be Christians, and Christian pastors and leaders are charged with protecting the witness of the faith.  Sadly, those pastors and leaders on the Palouse have largely been silent, and I imagine their brethren -- their male cohorts -- are just as silent in Boundary County.

Keely
www.keely-prevailingwinds.com

From: deco at moscow.com
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:35:12 -0700
Subject: [Vision2020] This is Old News in Boundary County

This has been going on in Boundary County since the late 
1970s.

____________________________

August 12, 2010

Sovereign citizens spin history, reject government
Southern Poverty Law says 300,000 belong to movement
Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Associated 
Press 

COLUMBUS, Ohio – They call themselves sovereign citizens, U.S. residents who 
declare themselves above state and federal laws. Many don’t register children’s 
births, carry driver’s licenses or recognize the court system.
Some peddle schemes that use fictional legal loopholes to eliminate debt and 
avoid foreclosures.
A few such believers are violent: Two police officers in Arkansas died in a 
shootout in May after stopping an Ohio sovereign citizen and his son.
As many as 300,000 people identify as sovereign citizens, the Southern 
Poverty Law Center found in a study to be published today that was obtained by 
the Associated Press. Hate group monitors say their numbers have increased 
thanks to the recession, the foreclosure crisis, the growth of the Internet and 
the election of Barack Obama in 2008.
Adherents expect the current American system of government to end one way 
or another.
“I’m the Patrick Henry of the 21st century. I’m here to regain our freedom,” 
James McBride said in a jailhouse interview. “I’m going to, or 
die trying.”
At the heart of their belief system: The government creates a secret identity 
for each citizen at birth, a “straw man,” that controls an account at the U.S. 
Treasury used as collateral for foreign debt. File enough documents at the right 
offices and the money in those accounts can be used to pay off debt or make 
purchases worth thousands of dollars.
The movement is based on a form of “legal fundamentalism,” said Michael 
Barkun, a retired Syracuse University political science professor who researches 
anti-government and hate groups.
“These people really seem to feel that filing certain kinds of legal papers 
that are connected to their theories will somehow also magically have the power 
to alter relationships and grant things that otherwise would be unobtainable,” 
he said.
Experts say sovereign citizens are the latest manifestation of 
anti-government activists going back to the Posse Comitatus movement of the 
1970s, which recognized only local governments and no law enforcement official 
with more jurisdiction than a sheriff. In the 1980s, government protesters 
exploited the farm crisis by selling fraudulent debt relief programs.
“In good times they focus on tax cheating, in bad times they focus on getting 
out of debt,” said JJ MacNab, an expert on tax and financial schemes and author 
of the SPLC report.
Martin Smith, of Carthage, Mo., lost $8,000 to a father-and-son company in 
Columbus called Liberty Resources that pitched a method to eliminate credit card 
debt based on a theory that national banks aren’t authorized to 
issue credit.
“We just became convinced that each of the parts of the puzzle that Liberty 
Resources … was telling us existed would work,” said Smith, 48, a 
civil engineer.
Dan Wickline and his son, Chad, pleaded guilty in 2008 to conspiracy to 
commit money laundering and are serving federal prison sentences.
In April, a group called the Guardians of the Free Republics sent letters to 
governors demanding they leave office or be removed. The group’s website calls 
for the restoration of lawful government and an end to tax forms, vehicle 
registrations and marriage licenses. An e-mail to the group was 
not returned.
Jim Jarvis is Ohio coordinator for the Restore America Plan, which shares 
similar beliefs with the Guardians group. He maintains the country has lacked a 
legitimate government since Congress failed to adjourn properly 
in 1861.
The people who are crazy, he says, are those who won’t do the research to 
find out what’s really going on in the country.
The sovereign citizen movement has grown to about 100,000 hard-core 
believers, the SPLC report estimates, and 200,000 people trying out the theories 
by “resisting everything from speeding tickets to drug charges.”
The report cites IRS figures that estimated as many as 250,000 tax protesters 
in the mid-1990s, though not all of those were part of the sovereign citizen 
movement. The 300,000 figure is the first calculation of the movement’s numbers 
separate from tax protesters.
McBride, the jailed sovereign citizen, came across anti-government beliefs 
while in federal prison in Michigan on a 1992 cocaine 
importing conviction.
Over the years he developed his own tenets, including a revised history of 
the United States that says the country was secretly organized as a general post 
office in 1789.
He dismisses any accusation that the programs he pitched were fraud, arguing 
he’s not subject to the laws of the U.S., which he calls a corporation along the 
lines of a car company.
“General Motors’ laws don’t affect me because I’m not an employee of them,” 
McBride said. “Same with the state of Ohio and the United States.”
Today, McBride is headed back to federal prison after prosecutors said he 
cashed bogus checks and refused to cooperate with his parole officers following 
a 2004 bankruptcy fraud conviction.
“I’m never going to have my grandchildren say, ‘Grandpa, why didn’t you do 
something to protect my rights?’ ” 
McBride said.Wayne A. Fox
1009 Karen 
Lane
PO Box 9421
Moscow, ID  83843

waf at moscow.com
208 
882-7975

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