12h ago

Why Do Sovereign Citizens Keep Pursuing Unsuccessful Legal Defenses?

The phenomenon of sovereign citizens persistently trying to win court cases with their principles, despite a lack of success, is indeed puzzling. On YouTube alone, there are around 5,000 videos showing sovereign citizens facing defeat in the courtroom. These individuals often make claims that have yet to prove successful and frequently end up incarcerated.

Why do people continue to adopt this seemingly futile approach? It's akin to watching 5,000 parachutists attempt a failed jump from the Eiffel Tower, only for newcomers to keep trying despite knowing, or perhaps ignoring, the inevitable outcome. Despite the growing pile of mangled bodies at the base of the tower, every day people decide to climb up and try for themselves.

The dedication of these individuals is noteworthy; they invest a great deal of time mastering the intricacies of their "sovereign" defense. Yet, it seems that they dedicate little time to researching previous legal outcomes or understanding why their arguments haven't held up in court historically.

What drives this persistence? Is it a deep-seated belief system that overrides rational analysis, or is there another factor at play that encourages them to keep going despite overwhelming evidence of failure?

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I think it’s low level mental illness or some yet to be diagnosed mental condition. I don’t think it manifests itself strictly in Sov Cit folks. Think of those people who go full Don Quixote over some perceived wrong wrought onto them. They dig themselves in to fight something ridiculous and impossible to win -for they have no case- and spend their lives dedicated to it, never giving up or letting it go. The Sov Cit dudes at least have each other to commiserate.

They believe that the right amount of good spells recited in the correct order will grant them victory. Unfortunately they've studied a different magic book than most people, so their magic does not work on others.

It's funny because the EXACT SAME ARGUMENTS work for cops.
Speeding? You mean traveling in a conveyance.
Assault and battery? You mean protecting and serving.
Deprivation of rights, kidnapping, and false imprisonment? You see, your honor, I didn't know about any of that stuff so it shouldn't apply to me.
In conclusion, the only "sovereign citizens" in this country are the bitches in blue.
- Police have special powers according to the law, so no, the same arguments don’t work.
  
  They REALLY don't. They have very situational allowances that have become defacto "special powers" thanks to a combination of decades of copaganda and huckster "warrior programs" that teach wannabe bullies that they are the most important of gods special snowflakes whose only responsibility is saving their own ass.
  Check out the guy that got stabbed in the face repeatedly on an NY subway while cops watched from 10 feet away, behind a safety door meant to protect the train conductor. Took them to court because their motto was literally "protect and serve" and got a real live judge to say out loud that it wasn't literal and cops have no duty to actually protect or serve anyone, legally.
- Man you must have tried hard not to understand his point that you missed it this badly.

If they were reasonable or intelligent they wouldn't be what they are in the first place.

To be clear, there really is no such thing as a "Sovereign Citizen" except in their own brain.
They believe that there is some hidden loophole that only "smart" people understand that allows them to reap the benefits of being a part of a society without having to be subject to any of its rules; and that that cheat code is accessed via some combination of paperwork that the government keeps hidden from the public.
Essentially, to them, the social contract (ie. citizens voluntary give up certain rights like the right to speed through red lights, the right to murder, etc... and subject themselves to laws of the state in exchange for that state providing them with roads, infrastructure, stability, prosperity and the right certain inalienable freedoms) is just for suckers who don't know the correct forms to fill out.
It's absolute mind-numbing stupidity of the highest order.

The prerequisite for joining such hyperindividualistic ideologies is the belief that you're better/more important than others, that the work of others can't be depended on ("if you want it done right, you've got to to it yourself" fallacy mindset).
So:
Why do people continue to adopt this seemingly futile approach? It’s akin to watching 5,000 parachutists attempt a failed jump from the Eiffel Tower, only for newcomers to keep trying despite knowing, or perhaps ignoring, the inevitable outcome. Despite the growing pile of mangled bodies at the base of the tower, every day people decide to climb up and try for themselves.
"Well duh, those people failed because they weren't me!"
- While what you said is true, you're neglecting that it's not entirely based on selfish ideations.
  There are people selling courses and profiting heavily from tricking those people into thinking that these strategies work. They pretend they've won cases like this, that the loopholes are real, that many people are singing them praises. The failed attempts are just "the loud minority that screwed up the process".

Because people are idiots
- Sin is never a sufficient explanation for human behavior. Meaning anytime we think "it's because they are bad", we're missing something big.
  All behavior is an attempt to meet needs. Any correct explanation of behavior identifies the need and how the behavior is believed to meet it.
  They may not be smart, on average as a group. But that's not why they keep doing this.
  
  They keep doing this because there are scammers and grifters getting rich pushing this content to lots and lots and lots of people because of the view-based revenue they get from doing it and big tech's algorithms reward it with more views and more success. And sometimes they also get rich taking some of those people's money, specifically the dumb and desperate and paranoid delusional people who are terrified of "the man" and the government and think they have found the secret cheat code of avoiding government.
  People do it because they're dumb, but they're dumb because it gets shown and promoted specifically to them over and over again because Google et al have gotten really good at identifying people susceptible to nonsense and constantly shoving things like this down their throats until their brains literally rot. As the saying goes, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." And big tech keeps doing that, individually and specifically, to many people including children, possibly without even any particular intention to cause harm besides the idea that it will keep them watching even more videos and earning even more ad revenue. Even giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are not intentionally causing harm, their apathy and apologism for the harm they are causing is horrific and unforgivable and sovereign citizens are just one of many highly destructive content funnels that modern algorithms empirically promote.
  Content discovery is utterly toxic and it is literally, not exaggerating at all, destroying civilization.
  
  You can be smart, but still be an idiot.

They DO see people claiming success.
These include scammers, and suckers who don't want to admit they're wrong.
Their sovcit actions DO occasionally lead to success.
The rare success isn't due to it being valid, but rather because the officials don't want to deal with a crazy person. For example police sometimes let sovcit people out of getting a ticket because sovcits can be dangerous wackos and the cop just doesn't want to deal with them. Another example is sometimes a government clerk will actually file an actually useful form to do a thing even when the sovcit tries to file some crazy nonsense form.
- Sovcits love to video every single interaction with the police. Certainly if they were having large amounts of tickets or infractions dismissed, they'd be #1 hits on YouTube. Yet, in every single video you can find, it's a big loss for the sovcits.
  They'd be the first one to advertise all these "wins" against "the system" but they have failed to appear... why is that?
  
  I've done a search on this before and there's plenty of stuff where cop organizations say sovcits can be armed and dangerous and it's not worth it for them to engage the person

Because our president shows that once in 248 years, someone who continuously flouts the law somehow makes it into power, then changes everything to be in their favor, permanently.

Yes, the argument failed in the past. But, on the other hand, I'm the main character, so when I do it things will be different.

Being a conspiracy theorist by default requires ignoring evidence that goes against your claims, so it's not that surprising really :3

Because stupidity is immortal.

I suspect you already know about Meads v Meads. Paragraph 73 of that provides some clues:
All this is a consequence of the fact gurus proclaim they know secret principles and law, hidden from the public, but binding on the state, courts, and individuals.
Many people like the thought that they know something no one else knows or that at least most people don't know. Including things about the law.

Delusion

Why does the US government pursue an unwinnable War on Drugs ?
Belief in what they are doing is important and right.
Of which they are not.

If I had to guess, i think most of it comes down to not wanting to understand how society works, and finding it easier to think everything should come for free to them. If I couldn't afford my car payments and someone told me that if you're a sovereign citizen, you don't have to pay, I could see how desperation could lead people to think they could get out of obligations. There's also probably a large group of influencers and scammers who are incentivized to spread this misinformation, which is how it spreads.
It's also likely that for minor infractions, they're let off with a warning from an officer who doesn't want to deal with them, and this emboldens them to think they're correct in how society functions, until they get an officer who won't put up with them, or do something so egregious, it can't be ignored.

Identities with more rigorous behavior requirements often persist longer. It seems counter-intuitive but the greater the buy-in required, the more appealing the identity seems to be.
In some weird and deeply human way, displaying your devotion to these doomed and unreasonable defenses probably increases the individual's status among their sovereign peers. That's the payoff that we don't see when we only look at the financial and legal costs.

They do it for the same reason people buy lottery tickets, despite the horrible odds: blind hope.
Plus, you never have to admit you were wrong.

They are not smart people.
That's it.

Isn't it one of the fundamentals that everybody has the same right to go to courts?
So, even the idiots must be allowed.
- I'm not saying keep them out of courts. I'm saying that the followers of "sovereign citizenry" seem to lose 100% of the court cases where they try this defense. Yet, there's a continuous stream of people willing to try it.

They just don't know better.

Because they see other people gaming the system or somehow otherwise being protected from the consequences of their actions. Ethan Couch, who drove drunk underage and killed four people and fled the scene, and who got probation. Brock Turner who raped an unconscious woman, and who got stuff months in county jail and was released after three months. Matthew Broderick, who drove into the wrong lane, hit a car head-on, killed two people, and was fined a hundred pounds. Hundreds of cases, some high-profile, some only known to the local community, where people get off - sometimes on technicalities, sometimes on connections, sometimes on good lawyering, sometimes on bribes.
Then people wonder why they can't get away with things. Millionaires and billionaires get their debts written off, so they should be able to do so as well. They should be able to claim that they're not subject to laws just like those other people. So they start looking for things that might exempt them, patterns of how to get away with things. Every time something goes wrong, it's not because they're poor or unconnected, it must be because that other guy's lawyer wrapped his case in a red ribbon, or capitalized the defendant's name, or something else esoteric that they didn't notice or didn't think of.
And they talk to each other, sharing their theories of his to get away with things. And there's also a rich ecosystem of fraudsters and conmen who are absolutely willing to take advantage of them, selling them false license plates and fake "passports", selling handbooks and online courses on how to get away with stuff. If they're caught (and haven't just changed over to some other URL), it's because the law changed or there was some nuance in their situation, and you just need this other thing that'll fix it, it's only $129.99, payable in four easy installments ....

I'm pretty sure at this point that most of them think that Legal jargon is the equivalent to a druidic incantation and they just need to find the right incantation for it all to work in their favor.
- Just as “magic spells” use special rhymes and archaic terms to signal their power, the convoluted language of legalese acts to convey a sense of authority, they conclude.
  In a study appearing in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers found that even non-lawyers use this type of language when asked to write laws.
  “People seem to understand that there’s an implicit rule that this is how laws should sound, and they write them that way,” says Edward Gibson, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences and the senior author of the study.
  https://news.mit.edu/2024/mit-study-explains-laws-incomprehensible-writing-style-0819

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