Theories
Sovereign-citizen leader Richard McDonald has established State Citizen Service Centers around the United States. Writing in American Scientific Affiliation, Dennis L. Feucht describes McDonald's theory, which claims that there are two classes of citizens in America: the "original citizens of the states" (or "States citizens") and "U.S. citizens." McDonald asserts that U.S. citizens or "Fourteenth Amendment citizens" have civil rights,
legislated to give the freed black slaves after the Civil War rights comparable to the unalienable constitutional rights of white state citizens. The benefits of U.S. citizenship are received by consent in exchange for freedom. State citizens consequently take steps to revoke and rescind their U.S. citizenship and reassert their de jure common-law state citizen status. This involves removing one's self from federal jurisdiction and relinquishing any evidence of consent to U.S. citizenship, such as a Social Security number, driver's license, car registration, use of ZIP codes, marriage license, voter registration, and birth certificate. Also included is refusal to pay state and federal income taxes because citizens not under U.S. jurisdiction are not required to pay them. Only residents (resident aliens) of the states, not its citizens, are income-taxable, state citizens argue. And as a state citizen land owner, one can bring forward the original land patent and file it with the county for absolute or allodial property rights. Such allodial ownership is held "without recognizing any superior to whom any duty is due on account thereof" (Black's Law Dictionary). Superiors include those who levy property taxes or who hold mortgages or liens against the property.
Critics of sovereign citizen theory assert that sovereign citizens fail to sufficiently examine the context of the case laws from which they cite, and ignore adverse evidence, such as Federalist No. 15, where Alexander Hamilton expressed the view that the Constitution placed everyone personally under federal authority.
Read more about this topic: Sovereign Citizen Movement
Famous quotes containing the word theories:
“Philosophers of science constantly discuss theories and representation of reality, but say almost nothing about experiment, technology, or the use of knowledge to alter the world. This is odd, because ‘experimental method’ used to be just another name for scientific method.... I hope [to] initiate a Back-to-Bacon movement, in which we attend more seriously to experimental science. Experimentation has a life of its own.”
—Ian Hacking (b. 1936)
“The egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Our books of science, as they improve in accuracy, are in danger of losing the freshness and vigor and readiness to appreciate the real laws of Nature, which is a marked merit in the ofttimes false theories of the ancients.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)