There are nuances there. On one hand, we are each sovereign citizens, endowed with inalienable rights, and if I read the Constitution and supporting documentation authored by the founders correctly, my rights are mine, and government may not infringe upon them without substantial due process, and it is the government's burden to prove that such infringements against a specific individual's rights are necessary and/or deserved. Furthermore, it is unconstitutional for government to infringe upon enumerated rights wholesale against The People. That is why we cannot take someone's liberty without a trial, and the burden of proof is upon the prosecution, not the defense; and that is why we cannot round up democrats wholesale and throw them in prison for treason. That same Constitution also gives certain powers and authority to the federal government, but it seems to make it clear that the job of government is to uphold and protect my rights, not to infringe upon them without those significant burdens of due process.
ON THE SIDE OF A CITIZEN'S SOVEREIGNTY:
- I am fairly certain that, if the founders were alive to day, they would recommend imprisonment or execution for treason for any member of Congress, the Courts, or any President who had ever used the Commerce Clause to violate the 10th Amendment in any regard whatsoever, or to contravene the rights of an individual, PARTICULARLY for the purposes of violating that individual's right to travel freely in the absence of any evidence of his having possibly committed a crime. We talk a lot here in Texas about legislative intent when it comes to gun rights (this was at issue just last night in the debate between Huffines and Huffman over Huffines's amendment 9 to HB 910, with someone moving to make sure that the legislative intent was formally entered into the record). In Texas, we hold that legislative intent, wherever it has been recorded, to be the actual meaning of the law in question. In the case of the founders, we HAVE their "intent" on record already (Federalist Papers, etc.), and from that record, we already know what their intent was with regard to the Commerce Clause..... in no small part because they deliberately used easy to understand linguistic forms so as to avoid any confusion about that intent. So, anyone who interprets any part of the Constitution any differently than that clear record is, in my book, guilty of treason for subverting the Constitution.........in violation, I might add, of any oath they might have taken to preserve and protect it, from ALL enemies. They deserve death for that treason. Those who escaped that execution by living to a ripe old age and dying in their beds are surely roasting in hades for their abuses of liberty. It's not to late for the currently living offenders to face justice. But, they won't face justice because, for the most part, their prosecutors and judges agree with their abuse of the Commerce Clause. So, I view it almost as a duty of citizenship to force anyone in authority to make their case before they can lay hands on me, detain me, see my identification, etc.
BALANCED AGAINST THAT:
- An emotionally mature individual recognizes that he exists within the context of a society in which the rights and needs (in that order of importance) of different individuals may come into conflict sometimes, and as a sop to that reality, the mature individual must agree to certain compromises which best recognize the rights and needs of both parties to that social transaction. On the macro-level, this is called "society" — a human construct made up of individuals within which these compromises add up to an accepted code of behavior in the aggregate — and the obligations on either side of that construct between the macro rights and needs of society and the rights and needs of the individual is called the "social contract".
An example of a social contract would be: I recognize that an orderly and just society is beneficial to the individual who lives within it. In that light, I realize that good policing is necessary to that orderliness. I also recognize that there is a tension between the need of police to impose order, and the need of the people to have their rights respected; AND I recognize that, for that policing to be effective, there must be trust between the police and the people. For there to be trust, it is necessary to strike the best balance at that point of tension, where police can do their jobs in good faith, with the trust of the people, and where citizens will have the maximum amount of respect accorded their individual rights while still giving police the benefit of the doubt. That amounts to a "social contract", and both the police
and the individual have rights/needs/responsibilities in order to fulfill that social contract equitably. if
either party violates the terms of that contract, then the other party is no longer bound by its terms. The social contract is THAT fragile, and because it is THAT fragile, both parties to it must approach it in good faith.
The Christian Bible (and this is where, as a Christian, I tend to set aside my devotion to Ayn Rand's ideals) tells ME or anyone else who claims to believe its precepts to put the interests of the other individual (but not necessarily all other individuals collectively) ahead of my own in any social transaction. This is amply documented in the entire life, work, and death of Jesus Christ, and backed up by the balance of New Testament scripture. In application, I have to trust that the other party to the transaction is also similarly motivated, AND/OR trust that God is in control of the final disposition of the other's soul, and He will do justice and have vengeance for any injustice done to me and to others. I realize that this is slippery territory, and it is meaningless to anyone who does not share my beliefs.....so I am saying that this is for ME. What this means for ME in the above example of a social transaction of the law enforcement kind is that my
starting point is an assumption that the individual officer is someone who A) recognizes the social contract and HIS obligations under it to respect my rights, and B) will use the minimum amount of intrusion into my liberty to accomplish his task, and C) is acting in good faith on A and B. Against that assumption, I agree to be cooperative
up to the point where his task begins to
unjustly intrude on my liberty. The
tension between the two needs I described above interfaces at the point at which the officer's assumptions bump up against my own.
I choose to believe that, unless otherwise demonstrated, the officer is a person of good will who is just trying to do his job in good faith. If it costs me nothing to show an ID if asked, or to state my destination if asked, then I will happily comply. On the other hand, if the
manner in which it is asked is too aggressive, or compliance will expose me to a liability that isn't rightfully mine, then I will make him work for it.
An awful lot of Texas law seems to hold to the standard of "reasonableness", and this often works to our advantage as CHLs in terms of self-defense law. In the case of a simple request from an officer to see my ID, is officer's request reasonable within the context of what is happening? If I am one of several witnesses to a traffic accident or a crime, and the officer is asking each witness for ID so that he may be contacted at a later date and time for details of what was witnessed, then that is a reasonable request. As a member of society, I have a vested interest in seeing that justice is done, and if my testimony is possibly important to that end, then I have a vested interest in showing him my ID when asked for it. On the other hand, if I am walking down the street on my block, minding my own business, and nothing untoward is happening, and a squad car pulls up abreast of me and the officer demands that I stop and show him my ID, I'm likely to ask him what for; and if he can't articulate a clearly legitimate reason and I don't like the answer, then I'm likely to point to my house, and say "I live in that house. These are my keys (holding them up for display), and that is my car parked out in front. I'm going home now. Anything you need to know about me you can get by running my license plate. Have a nice day." I've been a good citizen. I have no outstanding warrants or unpaid parking tickets. In fact, I've never had a warrant at all, and until I create a reason to become know to police, they don't need to know about me. I've never been charged with anything more serious than speeding (in California). I've never been charged or convicted of
any crime, of any level, class, or degree, in
any state. I've been clean and sober regarding any youthful recreational indiscretions for many decades.
In other words, the degree to which a LEO would find my behavior worthy of further intrusion into my liberty is EXACTLY determined by his willingness to violate the social contract, and to such an officer, I owe nothing. To the officer who honors the contract, I owe everything for helping to keep me and mine and my neighborhood safe and orderly.
That is what I personally mean by being a sovereign citizen. That's me.
Unfortunately, the way I perceive the "sovereign citizen" movement at large is as a bunch of socially immature and inept individuals who do not recognize the existence of any social contract that isn't completely one-sided in their favor. They talk lofty ideals about Constitutionality, without acknowledging that those very same founders whom they worship actually created
a society of liberties AND obligations, the recognition of which is the preserver of liberty. Without that recognition, they are ACTUALLY walking on the darker side of anarchy, outside of the (allegedly) enlightened kind of the anarchy proposed by anarchic idealists. In other words, they've never gotten beyond adolescent teen-aged rebellion, and they basically need a good spanking.......and I don't mean that figuratively. I mean that they need to be turned over someone's knee and spanked, literally, until the humiliation of being spanked teaches them a lesson in humility for its own sake.
