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.
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. :)
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.
The idea that gold should be valuable or the standard for trade simply because it’s rare always seemed silly to me, as that standard was set before the time when people knew most of the valuable physical properties of gold for scientific/technological use. To think that countless conflicts and deaths have occurred simply because of that is madness. We really can be fickle beings.
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).
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.
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.
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The idea that gold should be valuable or the standard for trade simply because it’s rare always seemed silly to me, as that standard was set before the time when people knew most of the valuable physical properties of gold for scientific/technological use. To think that countless conflicts and deaths have occurred simply because of that is madness. We really can be fickle beings.
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).
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.
Look at me, doing alchemy with my philosophers stone :)