Sovereign Citizens: The Strawman Conspiracy

What if you could simply declare yourself immune to the law?
No driver’s license.
No taxes.
No court jurisdiction.
No government authority over you.
That’s the promise of the Sovereign Citizen movement that claims modern governments are illegitimate corporations, that courts secretly operate under admiralty law, and that there’s a hidden version of you  (a corporate “strawman”) being traded on financial markets without your consent.  It sounds like satire.  But it isn’t.  Across the United States and beyond, people have attempted to use Sovereign Citizen arguments in courtrooms, traffic stops, foreclosure cases, and even criminal trials.  Today, we’re unpacking the origins, the mythology, the courtroom chaos, and the very real-world impact of the Sovereign Citizen conspiracy theory.  

Disclaimer: This episode includes discussion of claims and viewpoints that are not endorsed by the hosts. Our goal is to analyze and contextualize them, not to promote them.

Transcript

Hey guys, welcome.

Hey.

You've just got the 2SchemeQueens, but also we have a celebrity guest.

You may know him as Birdman.

You may know him as Mermaid Girl's Husband.

You may know him as our source for things we don't want to Google.

Can I get a drum roll, please, Megan?

Introducing to the podcast, Drew, also known as O'Drugal.

Welcome to the show, Drew, and his Bride Mermaid Girl. Hello.

Welcome both.

Hey, everybody.

So, Drew, you know, is our fact checker.

A roll I take very seriously.

So, if I have the 10%, Drew has the 98. That adds up.

Math is hard.

If you have questions about, I don't know, airplanes, automobiles, birds.

History.

History, the government. This is your man. So, before we get into his conspiracy theory, is it time for our...

Drink check.

Drink check.

I like that. Drogal, what you drinking over there?

I'm drinking some girl's Steener sparkling water from Germany with some lime because I am sober and catch the fever sobriety.

We love it. We love that.

We love it. We love it.

Mermaid Girl and I, oh wait, wait.

All of us.

All of us besides Drogal are drinking a girly drink.

Cherry Diet Coke.

A CDC, you will.

There you go.

Diet Coke sponsor us. What do you girls think about the cherry diet Coke? I like it.

This is my first one.

I'm like really more of a diet Coke girl.

I don't think like diet cherry Coke. I'm not going to cry when it's off the market. It's not my new replacement, but it's a nice mix up.

This would taste so good with like a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

A float.

Picture this.

Come home from farming all bed, and your wife gives you a cherry diet Coke float.

Colleen was asking, yes, if anyone's ever seen a tumbleweed in real life. And all I could think about was the dust bowl.

Yes, that was an invasive species from Russia. There's some droogle for you.

My God. How did the tumbleweeds get to the Midwest?

They think either in like hay shipments or grain shipments.

From Russia.

This is a side quest we're going to have to go down later.

It's a plant?

It's one plant, and the way it distributes its seeds is by tumbling around once it's done its life cycle.

Oh my gosh. He's already earning his pay over here.

I was unaware of pay.

We're monetized.

Okay. Well, we're just going to let Drew get into his story. We'll turn it over to him and let's hear it.

Go ahead, Drew.

3:41

Sovereign Citizen Beliefs

All right, guys.

Most of you have probably heard of sovereign citizens or loosely aware of them or-

No one's heard of that. Most of you?

All right. I got to read the room. All right.

Do you guys not like paying taxes?

I mess my taxes up literally every year.

Yeah, I loathe taxes.

All right. Do you like to do what you want to do and not have the government telling you what to do?

Oh my God. Are you going to tell me that I want to be a sovereign citizen?

Yeah, I mean, I am 100 percent for less government.

All right. Well, that may appeal to you in the sovereign citizen movement. Now, what if I told you the government is actually a post office that's controlled by a small branch of the United Nations Postal Service?

The United States is a post office?

Yes, the United States government is post office.

I mean, it makes perfect sense.

Like government capital G.

Yeah, they believe our real government was taken over and turned into a post office and is under commercial law and not common law. That is one of some groups of this beliefs.

Okay. Tell me more.

All right. Do you guys know what common law is?

When I can be like, arrest him at random.

Swing and a miss.

I know.

Citizens arrest.

Anyways, 10 percent.

I know about common law marriages.

Not what we're talking about here.

Okay. That's what I know.

All right. Time for-

Mermaid Girl, do you know what common law is?

I do not, but I know citizens arrest. I wanted to do a couple on the people who wouldn't shovel their sidewalks.

Very true. Clear the walks.

I would point out- I have explained it to Mermaid Girl several times, but it is rather bullshit.

Well, I didn't want to spoil the podcast, so I didn't listen.

Right.

Time for Droogles, not actual legal advice, legal corner. All right. Common law-

Do you say Drew's legal corner?

But he said not actually legal advice.

Yes.

Don't sue us. We have an LLC. You can't take our money.

Common law started in like medieval England, like 11th century.

And basically, it's the idea that like judges and everything interpret the law and that law builds on itself. So, you know, there's statutory law, which is what politicians write and put into law.

And then there's common law, which is judges interpreting it and applying it. And it builds on itself, like hence Supreme Court ruling saying, this is how we interpret this law. That's common law.

It exists in America, England, Australia, Canada, et cetera. Except in Louisiana, because they're weird and they have, their legal history is French, so it's not common law. Okay.

Common law is just someone interpreting the laws that are already written.

A judge and that interpretation has legal standing and jurisprudence, which I'm not gonna explain.

No, I know.

And then down the line, they're like, well, a decade ago, someone ruled this way. So that-

Yeah.

6:38

Core Theories Explained

All right. That's important for this because sovereign citizens believe that the American Common Law was hijacked or taken over, and that we're actually under commercial law or Admiralty Naval Law. We'll get more into that later.

They all have their own opinion of how it got taken over and turned into corporate law. And the first one that just kind of went over is that soon after the founding of our great nation, our government got turned into a post office.

I mean, I don't know how you can't understand that. It's pretty simple.

Do they also believe in lizard reptilian humanoids?

I'm sure some of them do.

I have a question.

That's not part of it.

I have a question. My question is, if they think we're a post office, what is the currency stamps?

The currency is a very, very controversial thing to them. But they do believe the stamps on legal documents prove that we're actually a post office.

Okay, I'm following.

Let them cook.

So we've been a post office since the 1700s, the 1800s.

I want to say it was like 1789.

Oh, very close after we did it.

Yeah, it was 1789.

This sect of sovereign citizens believe that our country was reorganized into a post office in 1789. I mean, who couldn't believe that?

Okay.

If you can't wrap your head around how our country could be a post office, good. You're a sane person. And they believe the Universal Post Union, a tiny little organization under the UN, has power over all of us.

So there's other times they think our common law was replaced with their made up law. Commercial law is a real law of universal commercial code, the UCC, that is real and governs business stuff.

Another time they think it was during the Civil War, probably because a lot of these people are white supremists, or because the 14th Amendment stating citizenship for everyone.

They believe that's when the government was replaced and made up one of their core concepts of the straw man and your flesh and blood self. So what they believe is there's two versions of you.

There's you who's born, your flesh and blood, the real you, and then a straw man you that is in a contract with the government.

A straw man me.

Yeah, meaning like when you get your birth certificate, when you get your social security numbers, all of that, you're entering into a contract with the government, but they view it, that's a separate legal entity from themselves.

So they view like contracts and laws and back taxes and all that. That's the straw man them. That's the government tricking you into this contract so they don't have to follow in you that.

OK, so when you say that the white supremacists are believing this, is that just because of the time or is there?

It is, it is.

The movement has taken a bit of a DEI initiative and now includes African-American groups, groups in other countries, all sorts of stuff.

Woke in the 2020s.

Wait, so everyone can be stubborn?

Dumb as they want to be, yep.

So the straw man, it's kind of you have your scarecrow self and then your human self.

What was the straw man?

We'll say it's Wizard of Oz, a brain?

Yeah. Saying something, that's saying something.

I think you're on to something.

Hold on. Who wrote Wizard of Oz? They knew.

They were one of them.

They were probably some of the citizens.

I believe that's more about factory workers and unions and the economic plight of America, but whatever.

Colleen, you have ruined the Wizard of Oz for me.

But it sounds like not a literal scarecrow self. It's like who you are on paper, right? Yeah.

It's also not a literal anything because this is all made up.

It's just like the person that is like paying the taxes and has a social security number and is, am I right?

You're paper person.

You're paper person.

Person on paper.

Because the government doesn't care about us.

We're just paper. Numbers, names, income.

Another time they think our government and our common law was replaced with commercial law was the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871, and let's rep hard the capital of the free world that we are currently in.

This act made it so Georgetown and Washington became part of a federal district and-

Not part of Virginia and Maryland.

Yeah.

So DC is not a post office.

DC is a corporation. And if you've ever lived here for a moment, it's not a corporation. It's possibly terribly run.

Possibly.

I can confirm it is.

They could find my stolen car. All right. Appreciate it.

So what they think happens is they made DC into a corporation governed under commercial law, and that United States Corporation to govern DC, then spread out to all of America.

So America government is actually governed by the United States Corporation.

Okay.

I'm intrigued.

All right. Another time is when they went off the gold standard. Most all sovereign citizens really care about us going off the gold standard.

What was that?

That was our mail.

See? They're on to us. They're on to us.

The post office.

The mailman just-

The mail is here because they heard that we're talking about this.

We are a post office.

Yeah. So when we went off the gold standard, that's another time they thought America was taken over by corporate law and they're really against us going off the gold standard because they're dumb donkeys.

I've heard of the gold standard before, but I can't remember.

For the listeners at home, Colleen says, I am really good at history.

Listen here folks, the value of the dollar reflected in the value of gold, but like minerals and stone fluctuates based on like demand and need. So it's not always consistent.

Yeah.

So you can't standardize them.

No, it was standardized to an amount of gold. So each dollar was worth X amount of gold. Gold is not good to do that because of what you said.

It fluctuates wildly.

So what I'm hearing is that I didn't know more than 10% of that was, would you say more than 10%? Yeah, yeah.

I think it was 12%.

So you could have hypothetically taken your money and exchanged it for gold. There was a convention thing that all the countries with big money, you know, England, Europe, America, tied it to gold and we all went off.

It gives the government a lot more control over the money dealing with inflation and other stuff and doesn't tire entire economy to the price of gold. It's a good thing, but a lot of people don't like it.

Other common law nations like Australia, Canada, etc. have their own theories about when their government was taken over and turned into commercial law. This is America centric.

Well, you would be shocked.

No, how many non-American listeners we have.

Well, shout out to them.

Yeah, we are the number 23 podcast in Russia. And what does that mean? I don't know.

So it's not just America.

But it's all these commonwealth nations that all stem from England and apparently there's wackos in every country who don't like to pay taxes or be bound to laws.

An example of a sovereign citizen, was that not the guy who the book Into the Wild is based on who died of mushrooms in the woods?

No, that's just some idiot.

I don't think it was sovereign citizen. He was just very free and didn't want to have money or earthly possessions and then he went and lived in that mess in Alaska.

How's that come for you?

And he ate, it was berries. He ate the wrong berry because there was berries that looked very similar. And he ate the wrong one and then died and starved to death.

And it's crazy. I read that book.

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Okay.

Okay. So also, am I allowed to curse on this? Yes.

Okay, good. Because if you said I couldn't curse, I would say I'm not in the jurisdiction of your podcasts made up Admiralty Court. So they don't view court as real or legitimate.

Sometimes they make up their own fantasy court and declare the execution of some judge. Not cool. So they believe our court system is not based in common law, but it's based in commercial law.

But actually, because there's fringe on the flags, it's an Admiralty Court. There are some dots there that no sane person can connect. I've taken a couple legal courses.

I've dealt with contract law my whole career, but I've seen no evidence of any jurisprudence or any thing like that that says the fringe of a flag has some legal standing.

The literal fringe of a flag.

Yeah. Yeah.

Are you saying like a flag that's like old and fringe?

Yeah. The gold fringe on a flag in a courtroom does not have legal power because it doesn't.

You keep saying fringe, and I'm thinking of like...

I'm literally the tramp.

But you are, you literally mean a fringe. I know you're talking about like the sprayed gold that goes around the outside of me. It's not an old flag.

It's like a design. Yeah. Gotcha.

You don't need to know.

It's not fake.

A fringe on the flag is indicating that this is an admiralty court.

Yes, in their minds.

Okay.

Okay.

I'd point out naval flags don't have that fringe, but logic and sense is nothing that ever holds them back. So a little aside there. So yeah, they all believe our government's been taken over by post offices or other things.

I mean, there's even more wild ideas and is now governed by commercial code because they're crazy. And they believe, yeah, the straw man thing where the part of them that's tied to the government and legal stuff isn't really part of them.

They believe that government is constantly trying to trick us into being part of this made up contract by social security numbers, licenses, permits, taxes, all that stuff. So they will not do driver's license. They will not do social security.

They will not do any of that, because that's just the government tricking them into this legally binding contract.

Well, by not doing social security, they just, their parents have to be in on this, right? I mean, most people are, by the time you're old enough to understand this.

Yeah, that's how the government tricks you from birth.

I don't know how people keep cracking that little piece of paper.

I've never seen mine in my life.

Mine's in my wallet.

Mine's all frayed, like in a sandwich bag under my bed.

Yeah, as I've said previously today, you are ADD.

I guess I'm trying to understand how you could be like, oh, I am a sovereign citizen, so I'm going to choose not to have a social security number. But you don't really get to make that choice. Someone has to have made that choice for you.

No, you definitively don't, and you got to pay it.

When I think about how your social security, like the numbers of your social security can help pinpoint where you were born, we are strong back.

Where?

I think it would be-

The points when?

The first three letters are the state. There's no letters in a social security number.

Okay, you know what?

Colleen, why don't you share your number on the pod?

One, two, three, yeah.

The first three numbers are the state you were born in.

Well, I learned that.

And those numbers are-

That's quite interesting. But let's not discuss our social security numbers on a podcast.

I was born in Maryland.

Okay, yeah, you're a carpetbagger from Maryland. I was born in the great state of Virginia. I have to ask my sister, she was born in the land of the crazy drivers.

Drogol, but what about some real life examples of these people?

Do you have any stories?

I got stories on stories, and if you ever want to have some fun on YouTube, Google Sovereign Citizens.

We are on different sides of YouTube, I would say, pretty much. I found the real life baby dolls.

Hard to pass on real life baby dolls.

Drew is definitely on the history side of YouTube.

Back to what they do before I get into the stories.

So they believe that they're citizens of their own little thing, or American state national, and they believe that through a specific procedure, they can renounce their federal citizenship, making them immune to jurisdiction, arrests, taxes, voting,

marriages, birth certificates, the law, all that. marriages, birth certificates, the law, all that.

19:21

Actions and Legal Conflicts

So one story is, in March 2023, a man who subscribed to this notion used a false passport and a legal license plate, and he was shot dead by the police at a traffic stop in Utah since he refused to show an identification document and was rather

hostile to the police. And I think there's probably more to that story. The point is, this is the constant problem, is they travel on our roads. And I use the word travel because that's the word they use.

They think they shouldn't need a license because they're only traveling, exercising their constitutional right, which, fun fact, is not a constitutional right. And that only commercial people should have it.

So when they get pulled over, these are the people that you see fake license plates on their car. It'll say sovereign citizen or private citizen or not for...

I'm not sure I've ever seen that before, but now I'm going to look for it.

Yeah, there was one on 495, the Great Beltway, or like a week or two ago. When I talk about the police's opinions on this, I'll get more into that.

So they get put in handcuffs, they get taken to jail and what they're just like, but this is not real.

Yeah, so one example or a combination of a few. So a guy gets pulled over for recklessly driving his truck, not having a real license plate and a broken taillight, and he tells the cop, I'm traveling, I don't need to show you my license.

Also, they're very big on not consenting or talking to the police. They believe if you do that, you got tricked into that government contract. So they'll a lot of times say some certain phrase of like, I'm not consenting or I'm not involved.

This feels like something we would have seen on Instagram at some point.

Or people who have the signs they put up in the window or whatever. I don't consent to this interaction or whatever.

No solicitations?

No. We're not on the same page.

So yeah, I told the cop I don't need to have a license plate because I'm not using my truck commercially, and was a jerk to the cops. And they're really big jerks. And the cop was like, that's not how any of this works.

You need those things. You know, step out of the car, and he was all yelly fighting the cop. And it ended with the cop saying, well, great, your truck is going to travel to the impound lot.

And he went to court. And then at court, they presented their made up sovereign citizen stuff. And there's people who are sovereign citizens who sell books that are like secret loopholes in the court system, like how to get away with anything.

Because I mean, what crazy idea? Somebody not going to monetize. And these of course don't work.

And they're just hucksters. And so they present this argument that they're not under the jurisdiction of the court saying, you know, I didn't consent to this. I'm not under the jurisdiction.

I'm a free man. I'm a sovereign citizen. I'm not part of this.

I'm trying to think how someone could even have bought a car without a driver's license.

Yeah, I guess you'd have to find somebody.

Yeah, you got to have a title that's through the government.

And you're definitely not getting your car back after it's been impounded.

Yeah, once again, logic and truth is not their specialty. They are bending reality to their whims. So, yeah, they present this argument that they're not under the jurisdiction.

And the judge is like, no, you are. You committed a crime in this county. This is the county's court.

I don't care about your nonsense. You did this. And then they go on saying how, you know, the cops aren't real and, you know, that laws don't apply to us.

We're in an admiralty court and it's all nonsense. So in the end, the judge is like, big shocker, you're guilty. And you came here and just wasted all our time with your nonsense.

You could have presented an actual argument, you know, saying that getting pulled over was for an illegal cause or, you know, any sort of legal stuff. Instead, you just decided to waste everyone's time. And now you win the fun prize of jail.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like going to court and telling a judge like, this is all fake, is probably not going to go your way.

Yeah, and police and judges really hate them.

And they're also, they conduct what is called paper terrorism. They love filing lawsuits, any sort of legal things. They'll file made up liens against the government.

They love filing lawsuits, yet they don't believe in all of that paperwork stuff, but yet they are using the courts to do that.

That's interesting.

Yeah, that is a good point of their instinct.

Because to file a lawsuit, you would need documents.

Yes, and you'd be filing it in a US civil court. I hope we all know the difference between criminal and civil court.

I'll be.

Yeah.

We don't want to revisit Drew Will's legal corner.

Like going to jail versus like writing a check.

Yes. Like being sued or getting arrested.

Easier to win in civil court than it.

Civil is like Judge Judy.

Judge Judy is not sending people to jail. Judge Judy is like, you owe him $100.

That's the small claims court.

Small claims court is a civil court.

Part of civil court.

Yeah.

Boom.

So yeah, they file litigious lawsuits, they dig up dirt on people, they do all that kind of crazy stuff, and they'll target the actual cop that pulls them over.

Would an example of a sovereign citizen be that guy that was representing himself in court? Do you know who I'm talking about?

How would I possibly?

Oh my god, he was going viral, because all he did was drag it out, because he was his own lawyer, and he was just...

Are you talking about Ted Bundy?

No.

He is sovereign citizen-tastic.

Ted Bundy is?

No, not Ted Bundy. I'm thinking of the Unabomber.

Okay.

Yeah, there's some examples of sovereigns.

Ted Kaczynski.

Famous sovereign citizens are like, the Ruby Ridge people. I'm just going to wildly guess some of you don't know about.

The Bundy family, not Ted Bundy, who got an illegal dispute over grazing lands that were federal that they were supposed to be paying for.

That doesn't make any sense to me because you did enter into a contract with the government because you used to pay those fees and it's government land, and that somehow led to an armed standoff.

And yeah, I think some survivalist in Montana who doesn't like anything.

That makes sense now. You could have started with that with, think about Ruby Ridge, think about Ted Kaczynski, and I'm tracking now who the people are.

I am mildly afraid that people don't know about Ruby Ridge, though.

I think is that the shootout with where the, it was like the cult.

No, no, that's Waco.

Buck Close, it was around the same time as Waco. And it was like a smaller scale.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was family.

It sounds very familiar.

I just wanted everybody to know that the guy I was talking about was Darrell Brooks, and he is a famous Sovereign Citizen.

All right, there we go.

Buena, Buena, put it all together.

Wackadoo in the pile. So yeah, they're very litigious. They love going to court even though they don't believe in them, which is a fun thing.

And gunking up the whole court system, spouting their crazy nonsense, and they go after individual people and judges a lot.

Okay, so say you go to civil court.

Yeah.

You sue, you win.

They're not winning, but yep, they are solid.

They aren't going to be able to collect any money because they have no social security number or identification or anything like that, right?

Yeah. Well, they can't be paying taxes on that winning, of course.

Do they believe in bank accounts?

No. Hence, some of their anger about switching off the gold standard.

These are like guys who keep their cash in their mattresses.

Oh, yeah. And probably gold.

26:18

Diverse Sovereign Groups

Sovereign citizens of the Moorish community. Actually, I should just explain that.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Are these?

Are you going to talk about the people in Scotland?

What? No.

The Moors?

Do you know what I'm talking about?

Do you know what Moors are, historically?

Okay. With Spain?

Yes.

Yeah. Which is why most Spanish is actually like, their language has a lot of Moorish words and Arabic words because of the Moors, right?

Arabic people conquered Spain, and they brought with them their, quote unquote, Moorish slaves who were from Africa.

So for a lot of Europeans, they refer to back in the day, all black people was Moors, and that brought the culture of Northern Africa, Arabic, and English has plenty of Arabic words, alcohol, algebra, etc.

So back to the Moorish Sovereign Citizen Movement, they mainly hold the teachings of the Moorish Science Temple of America, which I'm sure we're all familiar with. You're not, we're not, no one is.

So they believe African Americans are descendants of the Mobites and are Moorish by nationality and Islamic by faith. And they believe that the Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship in 1786, I'm sure we're all familiar with that famous treaty.

The Treaty of Friendship?

Yes. They believe that grants them sovereignty and they're legally immune from the US law. I'll note this treaty was a trade agreement and didn't say any of this.

They also, some of them believe that black Americans are indigenous to the United States, a really hot take there. Under that, they believe a lot of the land we have should be theirs.

So, in one case, in Montgomery County, at a giant house, like 32,000 square feet, monstrosity, bunch of kitchens, they decided that that land and that house should belong to them as the Aborigines of America. It was their land, so they broke in.

And fun fact, it's not their land. So, they got arrested, sent to jail, all that fun stuff, and were constantly arguing the whole time that they're not part of this whole legal system. Shockingly, they lost their case.

Breaking into homes is illegal. In another case, a police officer pulled a bus of them over and they were very combative and got very litigious against that individual police officer. It's very unfortunate for him.

It was a big case. They all use this legalese that's made up of this, these books from gurus that say how are courts all fake, and none of it has any legal weight whatsoever. And it greatly angers the judges.

But yeah, something that started with white supremists now has a African-American group because that's the world we're living in.

And they're all sovereign citizens.

Yeah. And then it also, as most bad American culture does, spreads to other countries. We have Canadians, Americans.

And also now it's getting popular in Germany and Austria, which is known for their great fringe political movements. Nothing bad ever happened there.

No.

So.

If we, that was World War II, World War I, Joe. Yeah.

You have to answer. Christ.

You're just talking about the Nazis.

Yeah. That's good for me.

That would be World War II. Yes, the Nazis.

Yeah.

Well, now we're going to get de-monitized in Germany for saying that.

We've talked a lot about Nazis.

We have talked a lot about Nazis.

I don't know if you want to phrase it that way.

In a bad way, we don't like Nazis.

Yes. We are anti-Nazi.

And we're anti them stealing the art.

In the gold.

I would like to say the holocaust is my biggest beef with them.

I mean, you're not wrong.

Right. I was hoped.

I meant that.

I meant that. Obviously, we are all anti-holocausts.

I don't mean to be too jovial.

We're not trying to laugh. It's very serious. The holocaust was terrible.

We are anti the holocaust. Also give the people back their art.

And gold.

Moving on. Like any good crazy conspiracy theory, of course, the Jews are supposedly involved.

Oh, no.

They believe that the Jewish people took over America and through their control of the media, uses the American government and our banking system and all to control people and all the normal crazy people, anti-Semitic things.

So, I mean, this was once again founded by white Christian supremacists who-

So obviously.

You know, they're anti-Jewish. One of the first biggest groups was the Posse Comiteus. I don't speak Latin, but it means for force of the country.

And these are all wackadoo, Christian far-right extremists, very anti-government, anti-Semitic. Did the whole survivalist thing.

Later, they formed, I think in the 90s, armed militias, like the people we talked about, people in Idaho and Montana trying to live on their own.

They, yeah, they stated that, the Jews seek to help Satan destroy civilization and undermine white citizens. Rights through the Federal Reserve and the IRS. That's what they used to do this.

And they believe that there is no legitimate form of government above the county level and no higher law authority than the county sheriff. They love county sheriffs because they're elected by people.

But they might want to live, like, the Wawa West.

Yes, they, the sheriff. Yeah, they believe if the sheriff refuses to carry out the will of the county citizens, that he shall be removed by the posse and hung in the most populated intersection by the neck until dead.

Okay.

The body remaining until sundown is an example for those who subvert the law.

Okay, so no impeachment, just go take them out.

Hang them. Yeah, yeah.

By mob rule, not a good idea.

I mean, I hate to say it, but everything you're saying is out there, it's crazy. But in present day, when, like, the government being so corrupt, I feel like, well, I'm, not me, no.

But I'm like, I can see how people would, how this could build, like, I'm concerned that we could have, if you take away the hate part of it, an increase in, like, the sovereign citizen population.

It increases drastically during times of hardship. Yeah. 2008, the crash, big time, also because people don't want to file bankruptcy.

Right.

They want to do, you know, poof, reset and get out all that.

And during COVID, it increased. So yeah, I mean, I'd argue the corruption of the government shows it's not a corporation. But once again, logic is not their strong suit.

I mean, they started out of the bat calling the government like the postal office.

So like, I still don't, I mean, that makes perfect sense.

It's not a stretch.

Yeah, I don't get it.

And I'd point out the postal service is not part of the government anymore in real life. Ronald Reagan made them a corporation. The US government still has a lot of power over them and stuff.

Okay.

But they have been privatized.

In the worst possible case where it is a corporation, but the government has oversight over it, we can do a podcast on the post office later.

I would love that.

Well, learning about the stamp process. What's going on with my opening?

Since I worked for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, I know a lot about that. So yeah, back to how cops deal with them a little bit. So yeah, they really hate them.

They're incredibly rude to cops. They won't roll down their windows because that'd be giving consent. They won't answer any questions.

I mean, the cops had a long day. I don't know this for a fact, but sometimes they won't pull them over because it's such a headache. Some cops also love to pull them over because they're dumb donkeys.

I like that.

I'm going to use that.

My friend who's a police officer said if he ever saw one when he was in his cruiser, he'd immediately turn the lights on and while pulling them over, would be calling for the tow truck and other units, and he would be giddy to do it.

And he would identify them because they had a fake license plate.

Yeah.

I'm just like, have I been driving around and there have been fake license plates and I'd definitely-

It's not very common. Also because you're going to get pulled over immediately. Like, you're so stupid.

Why would you do this?

I don't think they're in the middle of nowhere.

No, it seems like that's why maybe a lot of people live on the land. Like you said, the last people you listed are not, like Ted Kaczynski was not out bopping around.

No, no, he's very self-sufficient. That sounded pro him. I'm very anti him.

Yeah.

Just for clarification.

Also just don't put any license plate on there.

You don't believe you need a license plate. Put nothing on there.

Yeah, why even put a license plate on there?

It would arguably be better than this big flashing sign that says, pull me over to see my not license. Also, they like to make up their own licenses and license plates, but they're made up license states.

They're a traveler and a sovereign citizen and all this mumbo jumbo. They're big on trying to make their own court system and legal system, and they'll hold mock, well, not to them but to us mock trials and judges to execution.

That's ironic. You seem kind of anarchist, but you're like, but also we're going to create our own law and order.

Yeah.

But you don't really believe in law and order.

They believe in the law and order of the sheriff and the people.

The elected man.

Yeah.

And if you do me wrong, I'll take you out and we're going to shoot you in the intersection. Hung in the intersection.

I mean, if you got to shoot them, I guess you got to shoot them. But they also love guns, not big on any sort of gun controller or bang it.

A lot of sawed-off shotguns and would predict that.

Things you'd normally need a class 3 permit for.

35:08

Conflicts and Consequences

And this leads them to getting into armed conflict with the ATF and FBI, hence Ruby Ridge, hence the Bundy's who are big celebrities in this town. That was in Montana that declared itself sovereign and independent from the American government.

Fun fact, no. And that led to an armed conflict.

That's a while that they could get enough of these people in one location to be like, where a town now? I mean, this feels like something like maybe there's one or two crazy people.

Well, I point out, I mean, like I said in the beginning of the podcast, the appeal of not paying taxes, being your own self and all has some appeal.

Yeah.

And like any called or crazy idea, you bury the crazy stuff until you already hooked them.

And also with the rise of the internet and all, all these crazy wackadoos can find each other and all these sites about how what they say is right and all that, and they can all meet up and form a town or a militia. You know, it's a problem.

Other examples of them are a lot of people with mortgages and liens and stuff. There's a court case where a woman came in who wasn't party to the case but basically got evicted from someone else's house and was using it like a bankruptcy case thing.

But then she announced how she's a sovereign citizen and isn't under the jurisdiction of this court. And the judge was like, cool, you don't have to be here. You're not named to this, go home.

And then she's like, never mind, I am under the jurisdiction. And yeah, a lot of people who just can't face eviction and-

I was just going to say, they seem like they would be the squatters.

Yeah.

Major squatter vets.

Yeah, they're big on that and all. And not paying taxes is their big thing. And the IRS don't play, so that leads to problems.

I mean, I could get behind no taxes, but you can't be driving on our streets if you're not paying the taxes for the interstate, right?

Yeah, and speaking of that, I'm going to talk about some of the contractual law point of this.

Don't fall asleep.

Oh, I'm in it.

I mean, you can be tricked into a contract, but that's not going to hold up in court. You have to have consent and agency to enter into a contract. So them saying the government's tricking you into a contract is nonsense.

One way outside of that, you can enter into a contract is by executing that contract. So if you're saying there's a contract for the roads, using those roads can be argued that you entered into that contract.

So I don't even know why they're using the roads.

Yes, side streets only for you. Unpaved dirt road on public land.

But with their whole legal argument of not getting into the contract by not doing so.

Yeah, you entered the contract.

Yeah.

Why they choose to use our roads is interesting. Well, it's obvious because you have to do it.

Also, do they have children? Like, do they believe in schooling?

Oh, I don't know, but I got to think they do have kids and no.

Like, homeschool only or something?

Yeah, I think it's a-

These are definitely homeschool people.

These are kids left behind, is what these kids-

Yeah, you can't be taking off the compound to get indoctrinated by the government.

Yeah.

Yeah, their whole hatred of any sort of commerce makes it very hard to live as them because everyone is dependent on other people in commerce, and rejecting all that makes life rather hard.

These people like to live life on somehow in hard, easy mode, I can't imagine.

Yeah, I'm just picturing Wild Wild West. All I can see is like them with-

I mean, I sometimes I'm like, I could be a homesteader and then I'm like, it's 60 degrees and cold and I'd like my heat, you know?

But anyway, I'm feeling these feel like a lot of homesteaders, people who have to be able to stop sufficient and not drive anywhere and interact and live like the Amish.

They're eating rats.

Yeah, they-

Do the Amish have a social security number?

Every American born has got one.

But are they?

Because if you don't notify, push out a kid at home.

What if you don't notify the government you've been born? Look it up.

That's going to be some good old-fashioned tax fraud.

Because if they do it in home births, how are they even finding them?

Most Amish do not have social security numbers.

Oh.

But that's because in 1965, there was an amendment to the Social Security Act allowing for exemption for religious sex. But this would be a religious sect.

Well, they're mostly probably Christian, or in the case of African Americans, Islamic.

Their religion is anti-government.

So, what if an Amish Christian wants a social security card?

I'm sure the government would be happy to oblige them.

They don't even get birth certificates.

It seems like the reason they turn it down is because they don't believe in collecting social security benefits or government benefits. So, they're like, we don't need to be registered because we're not going to get anything from our own people.

But it says if they create a business that has any non-Amish employees and they have to.

Yeah, the Amish are famously hard to do business with and cheap, and I could see them trying to get around taxes. I'm not saying they do.

So, in my real job in banking, they talk about, like in Pennsylvania, the way to get to the Amish to help them bank is they will send vans out to them. And it's like mobile banking.

Oh my God, they'll be like, give us the cash, we'll put it in the van.

I guess, I know we have successful businesses, they would probably want to use a bank. But yeah, so they'll spend vans out to help them do banking. It's like an ice cream truck, but with banking.

Hold on, I could get into that.

That is the topian thing I've ever heard of, an ice cream truck that's actually a bank.

And at the banks, they'll have to have the drive-throughs big enough for a horse and buggy to fit through.

And then sometimes the bank workers will have to go shovel up the poop. No horses.

Do they have like debit cards?

Because that feels like technology.

I will say I have done business with the Amish buying hay. Hay. The amazing United States government.

And they were such a pain. But we were paying them into a bank account. And I'd always have to call them and talk to someone else or have them call me back on a payphone like we were being listed.

I like that.

And they were terrible.

I mean, a bank account isn't necessarily technology.

I mean, flying credit exists in an ink and shot.

They probably take their horse and buggy to the bank.

They stand in the queue. They walk up with their little keep the paper, and they say, I need $100 cash. There's probably no ATM use happening.

But we digress. I'm sorry. The Amish are not necessarily-

They swear some beliefs, being white and Christian and not loving the government.

But they are different. Also, I'd like to say, in the eyes of a sovereign citizen, I'm the definition of the enemy. I am a professional federal employee who writes contracts for the government.

So I know a lot about this. And I am, to them, the absolute enemy.

Well, I'm intrigued that the Amish- I just jumped back to the Amish. But I'm intrigued that they want a contract.

Do they offer the best?

I wasn't there for the award. I don't help the administration.

Like we have four companies who are offering us hay. And the best, the cheapest deal is the Amish. You're going to have to jump through the hoops to-

I would say that the Amish probably are good at hay.

Yeah, they got to know hay.

They got horses and they are cheap.

Also, I am on Amish TikTok, which is all the teenagers who have stolen phones. There's my favorite username. I can't remember his name, but he has like the classic.

I'm sorry, I'm too jovial. He has the classic bowl cut that Amish have, and he keeps his phone on a little hole on the side of the road that he rides up in his little horse and buggy and then TikToks.

What was the show that you got me on? The religion one where it was like extreme religions dating.

This has devolved into madness.

This is this.

There's a new show.

I have it. That's on my TV.

Yeah, I haven't watched yet. TVW.

I have to watch.

Is it Suddenly Amish?

Yes. But the show I'm thinking of is when the Amish man was roofing the older woman, by older woman, I mean like 32 and like 20. He was roofing her house.

They fell in love. They got married. She got him a phone and he became addicted to porn.

Yeah, that was hilarious.

That was called love, not love off the grid because that's my favorite.

I love that one.

It was love.

I thought Megan said, roofied her house.

No, he's roofing.

Yeah, very, very.

It was hiring.

Because that must be common in those type of areas where they have Amish people, they hire them.

They're pretty good at building barns.

They're a bit in love. Bit in love.

Back to Drew.

You have a list of famous ones that you know, because the ones that I just happened to know. He just gave us a list.

I can give more of a list. Some of the famous ones are obviously the Bundy family.

Right.

Do you want in the white supremacist community or the African-American?

Let me go through my files.

You don't know about the Montana Freeman? They're anti-government, Christian, patriot, militia. How can you be a patriot and anti-government?

But pro-militia, isn't that one of the amendments, the militia?

That would be the Second Amendment, that states have a right to organize militias.

We're not getting into the whole Second Amendment thing right now.

Now, I'm just impressed over here that Colleen has had more history facts in this one episode.

Yeah, she's holding it down.

That she's ever had in like the entire time I've known her.

People think I don't know things.

But that group is the group that did the Justus, J-U-S-T-U-S, township that declared they were independent from America, which once again, how can you be patriotically American and declaring yourself not part of America?

And that led to a nice armed standoff.

I mean, I say, live free or die.

Yeah, they're big on both parts of that.

Any of the Hampshire listeners out there?

And I, you know, live free or die is one of the best state mottos, second only to a Virginia's great motto.

Points for, oh, for lovers?

No.

That's not our motto.

Oh. We talked about Virginia's motto in our John Mulder's booth episode. Tyrannus.

Thick-sipper Tyrannus.

Yes.

Which, fun fact, tying it back.

The Oklahoma City bomber was wearing a T-shirt that said that when he was arrested. He's a sovereign citizen kind of person, and he did it in part because of how Ruby Ridge, which was definitively sovereign citizens, how that situation was handled.

Thus always the tyrants implying punishment. And we get that nice woman with her tit out and her stepping on a tyrant. The only state flag with a tit out.

We have a tit over here?

Sometimes they eliminate the tit because of woman erasure, but yes.

I'm getting a Virginia state flag in my room.

Hold on. No, because it's a woman stepping on the throat of a man with her yitty out. I am pro Free the Yitties can woman power.

This flag embodies that.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh my God, actually. How do you pronounce it in Latin?

Six-sember tyrannus.

Six-sember tyrannus.

You know, semper, like always.

Like semper fi?

Yes, exactly.

No, because like I'm kind of into this.

All right. So yeah, the Bundies, the Ruby Ridge people are very famous for the African American sex under the Moorish Science Temple of America.

They created the Watch It, literally Watch It AW Nation, which is they believe a Native American sovereign state.

This led to shocking, like some craziness, but it was headed by Theradice Hampton-Gaustin and some self-published books like Return of the Ancient Ones. Because once again, African Americans are actually Native Americans.

They ambushed six police officers and killed three of them in Baton Rouge. The police killed Long, shockingly, the resulting confrontation.

One of them was arrested, alleged his arrest was unlawful, filed a lawsuit, because of course, which was dismissed after he tried to pay the court fees with a silver coin, saying US currency was unconstitutional because it was not backed by anything

So he said, I'm suing you.

Yes, for unlawful arrest.

But I have no money because I don't believe in money.

Well, he has money.

He'd argue he has a silver coin. I don't know how-

No USD.

Could be exactly a silver coin, but once again, we're not letting logic get in the way of a good story. Well, not good for the guys who got shot.

A bunch of other incidents like on 95 in Massachusetts, a trooper was responding to a disabled vehicle and found a group carrying long guns, that means rifles and shotguns, sidearms and wearing body armor.

And they were traveling from Rhode Island to Maine for training on privately owned land.

Again, going back to these people being like, we don't believe in the government and taxation and yada, yada, yada, but we're going to drive up 95.

I mean, who doesn't love to travel on 95? A huge standoff lasted for several hours. Hundreds of rounds were fired between the Crazos and the police, by self-declared more sovereign citizen leading to that giant gunfight.

Also, I feel like I'm just, I feel so isolated that I didn't even know this exists.

I don't know what, all these things we talked about, I'm like, what, there are pedophiles, what there are, I know there are-

You were on the concept of pedophiles?

No, but like not on the scale that we're seeing, right? Or like- This is rough time.

I knew there were, I knew there was like, you know, a Ted Kaczynski out there, but did I know that there were like enough to mobilize and like do things? No.

Yeah, I once again blame the internet because it connects and reinforces Whackadoos and their Whackadoo beliefs. Do you, oh, first off, do you believe that our government is actually a corporation and or a post office?

It's so unorganized to even be considered that, I think.

Yes, it is very much not run like a corporation.

It is not run smoothly in any way. It's a bunch of men that are reptile humanoids.

I would like to point out, I am a normal humanoid.

I do not believe it's a bunch of reptile humanoids. But yeah, I think if it was a business, it would probably run a whole lot smoother.

So you believe that you are a govern under the laws of this land and not commercial law?

If I really want to believe that, I'm going to go back to your point that like, that's my right to believe that, I guess, but you can't use American land, American resources, you know, like govern...

You can't be driving and saying, this is my right, because you are then, as you said, entering into this agreement. So, no.

I'm getting confused as to what I'm supposed to believe.

What's the right answer?

I believe that government is the government. You believe that you are... Do you believe you have to follow the laws of the government?

Yes.

Pay your taxes?

Yes.

Now, I realize...

I'm not sure.

I pay your taxes.

When you got called to Jury Duty 18, you get called to the judges' chambers, he said, can you keep a secret?

She said, no. You were released from jury duty. Okay.

If you were a sovereign citizen, you wouldn't have shown up for jury duty.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You wouldn't have showed up, and you got up.

I was so afraid when I got my jury duty letter. I was like, I'm so afraid of the government. Of course, I showed up, so I'm not a sovereign.

They're going to take you away from-

Because you didn't want to get arrested.

You knew that you legally were obligated to show up for jury duty, yes?

Correct.

Yeah.

So you're not a sovereign citizen.

That's not getting much enforcement.

I'm just, I think now we're all like, I'm itching for jury duty. I celebrate when I get a letter and then I never get picked.

I am not itching for jury duty.

Mine was about a little old lady's house going up because her water heater exploded. They told me all that before telling me to keep it a secret. I was like, I went home every day this week, and I told everybody at the family dinner table.

And 10 years later, I told everyone on a podcast.

It's a public record now.

Yeah.

So we're not sovereign citizens, it sounds like.

No, no, we're not.

But I understand how somebody can be driven to want to be a sovereign. I would never, but I understand how in hard times, they would go.

We understand their motivation. I mean, who doesn't want to hit a reset button on life and get rid of all your debts, taxes, or even baby mama drama, whatever.

You know, now we're talking a lot about a lot of cities and states having, you know, tax hikes, it's after the election. And again, I could see how you could be like, you know what, F this.

I'd point out we are a nation found by people saying F this to a certain tax.

I feel like a sovereign citizen when I have to pay my property tax every year.

But you pay it.

I do pay it. I mess it up a little bit, but I pay it.

On your place?

My car. Oh, your car.

Suckoo.

But if you were a sovereign citizen, you would be paying your taxes.

No.

So you aren't a sovereign citizen, but you can understand how one could be pushed to do it.

Yeah, because god damn it. I emailed the county. I had the direct contact.

I told her my address moved. I said, will this impact my priority tax? She replied via email, no, you're all set.

That was determined to be a lie.

And yet I mess it up and pay like, yeah.

I have a fun thing that my old car that got stolen, they were demanding I pay property tax for it at my parents' house where my car was never registered to and I dealt with it 1,200 times, and they still send me letters saying I owe taxes on it.

I paid actual property tax in a different county for it at the time.

When these people go and they're like, because we're going to live off the grid because we're sovereign citizens and we don't believe in the government, do they buy this land? They just plopped it.

They're big on owning property, but they also plopped down on land a lot too.

And like the case of the Bundy family, that land that they were grazing their cattle on was owned by the government, and others have their own little compounds and others are squatters.

I guess you have to find someone who's going to take your silver for the land, but you don't have a social security number, so you can't really register a deed for this.

Enter into a contract and yeah, deeds and all that fun stuff.

So I feel like they're probably just going to be like, here's some land plop, but that probably belongs to someone.

Well, in the case of that house in Montgomery County, they were like, this is on our Aboriginal land, it's there, it's ours now, goodbye.

Okay. Well, this is crazy that there's so many people like this.

I don't know a number of how many. I know it's growing, it grows during hard times. And I'm just really proud of American culture to push this terrible idea to other nations.

I highly recommend if you want to learn more, watching YouTube's on it and reading more about Ruby Ridge and the Bundys and all that fun stuff. And don't believe in this crap.

Well, this was interesting, Drugal.

Well, that's a diss.

No, I learned a lot and I was so impressed by, I'm always impressed by Drew's knowledge, but I was impressed by Colleen's random facts. Because usually she's 10 percent and she was a solid like 80 percent, I would say.

Let me just say to the people, don't forget to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages at 3SchemeQueens. That's the number 3SchemeQueens, all one word. We're also on Reddit, same username.

If you want to check out our website, go to 3schemequeens.com and you can find links to our social media accounts, our Buzzsprout page, all of our episodes, additional content, and our contact page where you can engage with us and share any updates

on the topics that we have discussed. Let us know how we're doing and what you want to hear next. There are also opportunities to financially support us with links to buy us a cup of coffee and links to our merch store.

As always, if you choose not to financially support us, we appreciate the follows, the downloads, the listens, the likes. Colleen, what should the people do?

Pause right now.

Open your phone.

Is your phone connected to Wi-Fi? You're probably paying something to the government for that. So therefore, you're not a sovereign citizen.

But send this via mail, okay, to 3Scheme.

Via mail, because we are living in a post office.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Anyways, take out your phone, throw on down.

Leave us a five-star review, a comment, a reaction, a gif, if you will. Let us know how you thought.

And let me know if you want to hear a podcast of Drew's Legal Corner or a podcast of government sham contracts.

Drew's Legal Corner could be a new Patreon.

Someday we'll have a Patreon.

Well, thank you. Thank you, Drew. We were-

the people are definitely going to hear from Drew again in the future. And otherwise, I guess we'll see you next Tuesday.

See you next Tuesday.

See you next Tuesday.

Bye.