• The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I can’t even tell what they’re thinking. It sounds like they’re trying to pay their bills with chaos magic

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      Sovereign citizens often get started by the siren song of magic money loopholes, which unfortunately people charge them money for as part of a pretty gnarly scam.

      The basic logic of the scam is that when we moved off the gold standard, money stopped being money because it wasn’t backed up by anything “real”.
      Since money isn’t actually real money, you can instead give a “coupon” or other named bit of paper that says it’s redeemable for the substance that backs the money, because that’s what money is.
      So instead of paying with hard to get paper that’s not backed by gold, you pay with easy to get paper that’s not backed by gold.

      The catch, of course, is that’s not what money is, how it works, someone is charging real money for this, and it’s a federal felony.

      So this person is, at best, in financial distress leaving them vulnerable to a cruel scam, and ignorant and gullible enough to believe some very odd things about the law involving YOUR NAME IN CAPITAL LETTERS being legally distinct from Your Name In Title Case.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          10 months ago

          It’s not counterfeiting because they’re not passing it off as US currency. It’s using a fictitious financial instrument, which is more when you’re pretending it has value, as opposed to pretending it’s something that has value.

          I think the distinction really only matters legally or if someone has specifically said they’re being technical. :)

            • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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              10 months ago

              Not quite. Cryptocurrency is property in the eyes of the law. It’s a “thing” you can transfer ownership of.
              What the sovereign citizens do is make up something that serves a purpose closer to that of a check, or money order: a thing that is redeemable for money, but doesn’t have value itself.

              If you find a Bitcoin (somehow just laying on a note card I guess?), it’s the same as finding an expensive watch. You now have a thing you own that you can exchange for legal tender. The previous owner has nothing.

              If you find a filled out check on the ground, it’s worthless to you because it’s not made out to you.
              You crumple it up and throw it away, and the owner hasn’t lost anything.

              It’s why the sovcits call them coupons, or promissory notes.

        • directive0@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I always thought the reason gold became so valuable to many human societies was that its really unreactive and doesnt corrode over time as easily so it seems ageless, and you can easily determine its quality without advanced tools (touchstones).

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          10 months ago

          In terms of actual value lead is now more valuable than gold. I always think that’s ironic.

          The other fantastic thing is you can turn lead into gold you just need to ton of radiation and the end result will be that you have less valuable product. And also it’s radioactive so you can’t use it anyway.

    • Hawke@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I think it’s something about how if you write your name in all caps that counts as a different legal entity because magic words. So business as usual for these folks.

      • breadsmasher@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        tldr - Birth certificates are actually “ownership documents” over a “corporation” or “entity” or “person” (which is also somehow different than the individual?), which is signed over to the government by the parents. These have names in ALL CAPS as does other documents.

        Sovcits believe the ALL CAPS name is the “entity” and Normal Case name is the “individual’s name”

        edit - this is the explanation im poorly recalling https://lemmy.world/post/11345648

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          It would blow these people’s minds if somebody pointed out to them that the ALL CAPS thing was due to nothing more than a technological limitation of really old computers.

          • TheEntity@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            This is some seriously weird shit. I can understand not willing to be a part of a country forced upon you. Not how it would work, but I get the idea in an abstract way. But the moment this boat bullshit gets brought up… oh boy.

          • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Yeah, they claim all courts operate improperly under maritime law, because the judges are actually agents of a foreign power, and that a gold fringed American flag signifies that. But it’s secret. So they put the flag up so everything is “proper” but they don’t actually have jurisdiction.

            It’s a clusterfuck of terrible theories based on outdated laws and treaties.

    • Omnificer@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      It’s kind of similar to numerology and cargo cults. They understand there is a cause and effect, but think that ritualistic actions are the cause to achieve their effect, instead of understanding that actual law is only superficially similar to ritual.