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this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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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.
I believe that's called counterfeiting, technically speaking.
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. :)
So like crypto?
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.