Is there a left-wing equivalent of the sovereign citizen movement?

[bluestateguy]

If so, what is it? What would it look like?

[Cayenne]

1. Anarchists?

[HereSince1628]

12. Anarchism is quite literally the domain of Koch's Libertarianism

The Koch brothers, sometimes individually and sometimes collectively, have repeatedly written and sponsored extreme political writers to promote anarchism which is the end point of ending ALL taxation.

[Comrade Grumpy]

22. Conflating anarchism and right libertarianism is wrong-headed.

[HereSince1628]

24. Not doing that...Kochs want to eliminate taxes

and they have written and sponsored others to write about it and they have campaigned for office on it under the Libertarian banner

Logically the result of no revenue to run a government can only be collapse of government into anarchy = absence of government

[ZombieHorde]

28. Wow. An amazing fail.

There is a new type of anarchism, called an-cap or anarcho-capitalism, which embraces some of those principles, but most anarchists don't consider them anarchists because they embrace capitalism.

[HereSince1628]

30. I suppose for fundamentalists

from the definition of anarchism...

"Anarchism holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, or harmful"

And that is exactly what the Koch's are pushing.

[ZombieHorde]

31. That is not what the Koch brothers are pushing.

The Koch brothers love private property, which is a government institution. They love corporate subsidies, which is a government institution. They love currency, which is a government institution. They love cops, which is a government institution.

The Koch brothers and the Tea Party are not against government, they are against a government that helps people who are not them.

Additionally, anarchism is at least as diverse as government, so a simple, one sentence definition isn't going to explain anarchism to those who have not studied the concept.

[HereSince1628]

34. Yes, I'd say that anarchism is a concept with multiple definitions

people with a desire to hold fast to definitions in textbooks not withstanding.

The Kochs certainly take advantage of corporate welfare. They aren't opposed to taking what they can get, or even violating the law so that they can get a bit more...so long as they aren't paying the taxes that generate the checks.

They pretty openly desire to kill federal government as manifest in their positions o zero regulation, zero tax and it is long standing...at least as far back as the Clark-Koch Libertarian ticket that pushed ending Social Security, the Federal Reserve Board, welfare, minimum-wage laws, corporate taxes, all price supports and subsidies for agriculture and business, and U.S. Federal agencies including the SEC, EPA, ICC, FTC, OSHA, FBI, CIA, and DOE.

[YoungDemCA]

36. "The Koch brothers and the Tea Party are not against government"

"they are against a government that helps people who are not them."

Well said.

[daredtowork]

32. When I used to go to Drinking Liberally

Left-wing anarchists used to show up regularly to explain their point of view. Some quite persuasive.

They couldn't sell me on the lack of need for public collaboration on infrastructure and certain social safety nets, though.

[CJCRANE]

2. Not exactly the same, but the Greens are left-libertarian.

The Green Party of the United States is a moderate left-libertarian party.[3] It is founded on the Four Pillars of the Green Party: Ecological Wisdom, Social and Economic Justice, Grassroots Democracy, and Nonviolence and Peace. It emphasizes environmentalism, non-hierarchical participatory democracy, social justice, respect for diversity. peace, and nonviolence. Their "Ten Key Values,"[4] which are described as non-authoritarian guiding principles, are as follows:

Grassroots democracy
Social justice and equal opportunity
Ecological wisdom
Nonviolence
Decentralization
Community-based economics
Gender equality
Respect for diversity
Personal and global responsibility
Future focus and sustainability

The Green Party does not accept donations from corporations, political action committees (PACs), 527(c) organizations or soft money. The party's platforms and rhetoric harshly criticize any corporate influence and control over government, media, and society at large.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_the_United_States#Ideology

[daredtowork]

33. Too bad their rise splits the Democats

The Democratic platform really needs a strong infusion of all of that, and rapid off-load of all the third-way muddle.

[JJMacNab]

3. yes there are several leftwing sov groups

Morris Sovereigns, for example.

Canadian freeman upon the land movement is another.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. What is left wing about the 'Freemen On the Land' movement in Canada?

It started as an ordinary row. The tenant, Andreas Pirelli, refused to pay his rent. But then, said his landlady, he declared that he was a “Freeman-on-the-Land”; that the house was now the First Nations Sovran Embassy of Earth; and that she no longer had any rights to it. Reporters were told they could interview Mr Pirelli if they produced C$5m ($4.8m) in gold. In the end he was arrested and she got her property back.
...
One member of the Church of the Ecumenical Redemption International argued that her car was not subject to motor-vehicle laws because it was “an ecclesiastical pursuit chariot”. A Freeman wanted to pay his child support by tapping into a secret government account kept by the Bank of Canada, the central bank. Some put a trademark symbol after their name and then demand payment—C$1m in one case—if it appears in legal documents. Others seek ludicrous damages in civil suits. Alberta’s justice minister was sued for C$108 quadrillion (case dismissed).

John Rooke, associate chief justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta, became so tired of sorting through the gibberish to see if there was a real case to be heard that last year he wrote a 183-page opinion detailing these ruses and the legal arguments against them. It has since been cited in 23 decisions from courts across Canada.

Why this obscurantist surge? Stephen Kent of the University of Alberta says some of it is spillover from the United States, but some is rooted in disorientation cause by the global financial crisis. The internet has made it easier for gurus to spread their views and sell DVDs, often to badly educated and unemployed young men in rural areas. Similar movements have popped up in Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21587804-american-style-anti-government-eccentrics-take-root-canada-freeloaders-land

Rooke's opinion (written because a 'freeman' was trying to get out of paying child support in a divorce): http://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012abqb571.html

Members of the Freemen-on-the-Land movement believe statute law is a contract of which people can opt out. According to Clifford’s website, he doesn’t pay income or property taxes, and doesn’t drive with a license, insurance or government plates.

His beliefs are based on his assertion that “95 per cent of what government is doing is absolute rubbish” and he “does not consent to be governed by any of their bureaucrats,” Clifford's website reads.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/dean-clifford-freemen-guru-arrested-on-canada-wide-warrant-1.2439237

John James MacLean, 55, claimed Canadian law did not apply to him when he caused a highway vehicle collision, fled the scene and led police on a high-speed chase that eventually resulted in his arrest.

According to the Guardian, MacLean refused to identify himself with the name on the charge sheet, claiming it was just a title issued to him on government documents. He eventually left the court, stating his business was done there, and was later found guilty of dangerous driving, failing to stop at the scene of an accident and evading police.

Here is the how the incident is described by the Guardian:

...MacLean came off an off-ramp the wrong way and struck another vehicle, causing $5,000 to $6,000 in damages. He did not stop to see if the driver of the other vehicle was hurt or offer his name and insurance documentation.

Instead he continued on, refusing to stop for police who responded to the accident. Several vehicles pursued MacLean but they stopped the pursuit after MacLean accelerated to speeds that officers believed could pose a danger to the public.

But MacLean's court appearance was itself an oddity, as he embarked on a convoluted debate over the question of identity. MacLean called the trial a fraud because the court identified him by his name, which wasn't really his name as much as it was a government-issued means of identification. And since, his argument seemed to suggest, the government had no authority over him, neither did his name.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/freeman-land-walks-own-trial-claims-isn-t-160751775.html

[Warpy]

4. There was a movement in the early 70s to go off the grid

buy some land, build a shack, and farm sustainably but not for profit, following the Nearings. Unfortunately, they found out that farming even at a subsistence level was 1000X harder than they thought it would be. Most sold off part or most of the land and all the animals and took crappy jobs, supplementing crap wages with what they could can every year out of a kitchen garden.

They all wanted to be the Helen and Scott Nearing. Unfortunately most of them lacked the cachet of a former quasi Marxist professor and none had troops of scruffy college kids spending the summer in teepees helping with the grunt work for their daily bread and vegetable soup. What they ended up with is a patchwork of rural jobs that paid rural wages and a massive sense of failure. It was too bad, they were some of the best movement people out there, and at least they didn't all repeat Jim Jones and his bunch's mistakes. They ended up alive but crushed.

[cali]

7. I still know someone who has troops of college kids spending

the summer in tents working on her farm. It cracks me up that she still gets these kids to do the grunt work.

[jwirr]

16. This is what I was thinking. I and my daughter's family tried this for a while. Unfortunately it was

not the hard work that ended our attempts. It was the fact that you need money to start something like that up. We left and moved into a small community and got jobs. Today most of us still have jobs, some good, some not so good. But we have never given up totally as the small farm we live on today has much of what we would have put on the other farm. Food barring plants, small animals, alternative energy projects and conservation ideas.

Back then the idea was to refuse to support a government that was at war by paying as little taxes as we could. Today the idea is more one of survival in a harsh world. Help with the grocery bill, careful use of natural resources and more modern needs. The work is still hard. But we consider it worth the while. Especially when we can our excess garden produce and see the energy bill go down.

I don't think we consider ourselves a bundy type protester.

[Warpy]

17. Even people with successful mini farms

depended on at least one income from a job and relied on dairy goats instead of cows, keeping things small and doable.

The left wing off the grid people didn't want to owe anything to the war machine.

The right wingers owe millions and simply refuse to pay up. That's the difference.

[jwirr]

18. Exactly. Plus we have found it is fun. Our family came by it naturally. My father who was a

depression baby failed at farming in the Eisenhower years. But he did not give up. He became a jack of all trades working for extra money while he kept 5 acres to do the little farm thing of today. In the 60s when the movement started he was already there.

He raised 4 of us children on that little farm and helped many neighbors who did not have gardens. So we had what most did not have a good example to follow.

[JDPriestly]

5. How do you define left-wing?

I think of left-wing as those of us who believe in democratic government and respect for each person within a society that works together to form government by the people, for the people and of the people. In my view, that is utterly incompatible with the idea of a sovereign citizen movement. So I would have to say that as I personally define "left-wing," no there can be no sovereign citizen or anti-democratic government movement within the left wing.

[HereSince1628]

15. Yes, on the left individuality exists but doesn't trump being 'in it together'

Collectives, moshavism, communes, kibbutz are all features of the far left, and are at least in principle the antithesis of the antisocialism of the right's radical notion of yeomanism.

[JDPriestly]

23. I would change your word "antisocialism" to downright antisocial.

There is a wise compromise between being antisocial and subjugating the individual to the group. In the US, just about the only groups that successfully subjugate individuals to the group are religious sects. And I don't know of any of them that are what you would call left-wing. They all veer toward the right in terms of attitudes toward public policies.

[HereSince1628]

25. This distinction guided my word choice

Antisocialism is a philosophy, antisocial is a character trait.

When I say antisocialism it includes antigovernment, anti-working for policies that lesson individual hardships by distributing costs of ameliorating hardship across society.

[lilaliu]

6. No

I don't think so.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Equivalent in what way?

With idiotic ideas of which laws do and don't apply to them? To believe in a half-baked notion of society from previous centuries which ignores huge swathes of reality, both from those centuries and from the present? With a tendency to arm themselves and plot, and sometimes carry out, murderous attacks on the police? Those are the defining characteristics of people who call themselves 'sovereign citizens' to me.

No, I can't really think of a left wing equivalent.

[Warpy]

10. Going off the grid and back to the land

and being purely subsistence farmers who used barter instead of cash was the hippie way of not paying taxes and defunding wars of corporate convenience.

The right wing wants to earn the big bucks and use the infrastructure without paying for any of it.

[Blue_Tires]

19. i thought the "sovereign citizens" were more about

making up their own constitution, stocking up on weapons and ammo before obama comes to personally take them, and eliminating the gays, jews, mexicans, and ivy league feminist intellectuals?

[Warpy]

27. They're also about not registering or insuring their cars

and not paying income taxes, although I suspect most do and lie about it later.

They caught McVeigh because his car was unregistered and was being driven without a tag.

[JaneyVee]

11. Join a commune.

[Wounded Bear]

13. Sounds like the Log Cabin Republicans...

a bit of an oxymoron.

[Lee-Lee]

14. The Moorish Nation

Is essentially an African-American sovereign citizen movement.

The members do the same foolish crap about forming thier own government, issuing their own drivers licenses, filing false legal paperwork, claiming laws don't apply to them, etc.

They often squat in vacant home claiming ownership and filing all sorts of false deeds and legal paperwork causing the real owners massive problems and expenses.

http://moorishamericangov.org

Edited to add an SPLC link that explains them well:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/fall/-sovereigns-in-black

[Bluenorthwest]

35. In what way would you say they are 'left wing'?

They strike me as odd ball conservatives.

[Lee-Lee]

37. Havibg dealt with them

They strike out quite often about mistreatment of minorities, white oppression, reparations and they see the way they defraud people as a form of taking social justice into their own hands.

It's a blend, but at its roots is based on fighting white priveledge in their own really oddball way. Essentially a combining of various black power/black liberation motives with soverign citizen methods.

[KingCharlemagne]

20. Not currentely. If there were one, it would probably resemble most closely

the original Black Panther Party (founded in 1966). J. Edgar Hoover called the BPP the most serious national security threat the nation faced.

The two founders, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. each espoused a version of Marxism-Leninism, so I'm not sure they are a close analogue to the crackpots in the sovereign citizen movement.

I dug up from the smoke rings of my mind this picture of the two founders of the BPP:

[Shankapotomus]

21. While not strictly left-wing

the tiny house/off grid movement is a less extreme and largely legal way to subvert or get around most corporate and some state government authority and influence.

[VanillaRhapsody]

26. Yep....Independents who piss and moan about how horrible the Democrats are and tell everyone

they know how horrible the Democrats are.....then on election day....they vote for them.

[ZombieHorde]

29. Yes, there are a bunch of left-wing groups like that.

Most of them different types of anarchists. Moorish Orthodox Church, Temple of Psychick Youth (TOPY), Some Discordian groups, etc.

[JJMacNab]

38. I dug up a couple of videos of American left-wing sovereigns

J.M. Sovereign Godsent (Berkeley, CA) formerly known as John Pugh (Ithaca, NY)

Xylie Eshleman (Jackson, TN) formerly of California
http://archive.jacksonsun.com/VideoNetwork/3625683705001/Xylie-Eshleman-interviews-with-The-Jackson-Sun

Noble Amir KC-El, a Moorish sovereign representing himself in court

Andre Barbosa aka "Loki Boy", a Brazilian rapper who moved into an empty multi-million dollar mansion in Florida using sovereign techniques. The video was filmed in the home he was trying to steal.

Doug LeGuin (Dallas, TX)
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Suspected-Gunman-Expressed-Desire-to-Secede-Police-270991791.html