‘Sovereign citizen’ story was propoganda

The Gazette recently carried the first salvo in the U.S. government's latest demonization campaign. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a pro-government entity, is worried by Americans who consider themselves “sovereign citizens.” These are “U.S. residents who declare themselves above state and federal laws. Many don't register children's births, carry driver's licenses, or recognize the court system.”

Geez, sounds more Amish than ominous.

The pattern is obvious and timeworn. Governments have long used hidden propaganda organs like the SPLC to purge or marginalize threats to their existence. Last year, the SPLC focus was Bible-believers, gun owners, constitutionalists and home-schoolers - all deemed enemies of the State.

Remember the Branch Davidians, former Iowan Randy Weaver, state militias and vocal white Christians of the '90s? Burned out, murdered, imprisoned or spied upon until they were too fearful to speak. All with popular support whipped up by the national press that all-too-often uncritically reprints government news releases.

This “sovereign citizen” article is based on allegations by professional dissident-haters. As one reader posted, “But whatever happened to tolerance and diversity? The sovereign citizens are hardly wrong in wanting to be free … these people are - like the vast majority of us - victims of the regime, its Fed, its wars, its corporatism, its spying. It is the state we should scorn, and all those who shill for it, not those crushed under its treads.”

Ed Dolan

Central City