Thread by @egavactip

I mentioned in another tweet that sovereign citizens have long had a history of creating bogus Native American tribes or of falsely claiming some other sort of indigenous status. There are a couple of reasons for this, but one reason is that throughout its history, the sovereign

citizen movement has been fascinated with alternative forms of authority/sovereignty. This is not surprising; if you believe the government is illegitimate and does not apply to you, you too might become interested in entities out there that seem to have some sort of sovereign

status of their own, or interested in creating entities of some sort that would ostensibly have some sort of authority or status.

The earliest type of authority/sovereignty that I can trace to the movement, going back to its origins in the tax protest movement, is the idea of

"independent grand juries" that could prosecute all wrongdoing officeholders. This quickly evolved into ideas such as "citizens grand juries," "jural societies," and "common law courts," all of which basically would ape certain aspects of the judicial system.

Privileging other levels of government and giving them power was another early idea. The Posse Comitatus claimed that the county level of government was the ultimate authority in the U.S. In the 1980s, Walt Mann preached the formation of independent "townships." This is also

around when the infatuation with the sovereignty of Indian tribes began. But sovereigns have also created bogus colonies, bogus countries or "nations," and many similar items. At the same time, they have also created their own alternative governments (they especially seem to

like to create bogus state governments), as well as their own governmental agencies, including various bogus post offices and numerous fictional law enforcement agencies. More recently, some sovereigns decided that a panel composed of a certain number of notary publics had

special powers, while other sovereigns have created bogus arbitration agencies. Many sovereigns claim some sort of bogus diplomatic immunity, while a few invoke religious sovereignty such as ecclesiastical courts. One declared himself pope, a nice job if you can get it.