My landlord is a sovereign citizen.

I guess he went down that rabbit hole and now he, and his wife, thinks that he's not bound by US laws. I think I need to move. But damn it's so cheap here.

So your rent is being paid with gold or sex or something?

I was wondering that too. He thinks money is worthless since the gold standard ended. But has no issue cashing my rent checks. His biggest thing was that he doesn't have to pay federal taxes anymore. So I'm guessing that's his entry point.

He's also changing his address to ensure his voter registration is removed because being registered to vote makes you a British subject.

Time to go!

Probably time to start looking for a new place, especially if he lives on the premises or nearby. There's a non-zero chance that his journey into pseudolaw ends in some kind of violent confrontation with the cops, which you definitely don't want to get caught in the middle of.

If he's an absentee landlord, it might be worth sticking around if the low rent is too good to give up. His property will eventually be seized for back taxes. Depending on the renter's rights in your jurisdiction, you might be allowed to continue to live there while the government auctions off the property, but given that a new landlord is unlikely to continue to offer below-market rent, it's only a matter of time.

One of the YouTube channels I subscribe to; mostly SovShit traffic stops. The narration is hilarious.

m.youtube.com/@VanBalion

If your landlord isn’t paying income taxes, he’s probably skipping property tax too.

He doesn't live in the duplex but was talking of moving in, which led to the purpose of his address change, which led to non-stop talking about all his special powers now that he's free of the system. Like the usual claim that the police have no ability to arrest him.

I am starting to look for a new place.

I read this yesterday, having not really heard about this kind of thing. Then today I read about another idiot claiming this. So two days in a row, and I don't like this trend.

This nonsense has been around for a long time. Probably 25 years ago, I worked in-house at an IT consulting company. One day we had a candidate come in to interview for one of our open consulting positions, and the guy refused to give us his social security number. The recruiter patiently explained that we need his SSN to fill out the payroll paperwork so we could pay him. He said he wanted to be paid in cash only, and he doesn't pay income taxes because they're "optional," and he chooses notes to. He quoted all kinds of legal cases in an attempt to explain why this wasn't illegal.

Well, at this point, the recruiter (who was normally a pretty laid back guy), just WENT OFF on this guy. He asked him, "How did you get to our office today? Did you drive on a road? I paid for that road! And if you don't pay your taxes, then you're just a damned mooch, enjoying the services that the rest of us provide!" And so on and so forth. Needless to say, we did not hire that guy for the consulting job, and he was quickly shown the door.

Calling it a trend may be too strong of a word. I think AWARENESS of sovereign citizens has increased, if due to nothing else the rise of dashcam/bodycam footage being posted by law enforcement. I don’t get the sense they are increasing in numbers though. A small subset are violent to be sure; most are just…fucking idiots .

Right. It's just an outgrowth of the idiotic Libertarian trend in American politics that isn't an actual political ethos so much as a bunch of selfish assholes claiming "freedom" by not actually contributing to the public weal like all people do through static things like taxes. These are the people that will claim that they're independent of society so why should they be asked to pay for it, but when something unfortunate happens to them are the ones screaming loudest about how other people didn't help them fast enough and/or in the way they wanted. The "sovereign citizens" are the adult equivalent of a three-year-old throwing a tantrum in frustration that the world isn't working exactly the way they think it should. Life is rough that way.

www.irs.gov/compliance/whistleblower-off...ower's%20information .

Shellhead wrote: www.irs.gov/compliance/whistleblower-off...ower's%20information .

Unfortunately, it wants document proof. Also, I don't wish any ill-will on the guy. I pity him. Just don't want him as my landlord, or neighbor, or in any kind of authority role.

One of my friends (many years ago) had his mom get sucked into it. She was radicalized by Waco and Ruby Ridge, which (to be fair) were not handled great by the government. I remember driving around with them listening to a cassette tape of some right-wing folk singer lamenting the deaths of the children in the fire at Waco.

I find it psychologically fascinating although it results in violence or ruined lives too often to be really amusing. SovCits have this unshakeable belief in the magic power of words; if they just say the right thing in the right way (possibly using the right color of ink, or right form of nonstandard punctuation, grammar, and capitalization) then the government will be forced to play by their interpretation of the law.

Ryan Bundy (of the Bundy family of ranchers that had the standoff vs. the government a few years ago) filed a bunch of sovcit documents in his case that are pretty hilarious:

www.opb.org/pdf/bundy_sovereign_citizen_...2u_1527709142280.pdf

Even more fascinating, it's started to bleed into the rest of the Anglosphere. Always amazing reading about Canadian citizens in Canadian courts assert their first amendment rights.

dysjunct wrote: I find it psychologically fascinating although it results in violence or ruined lives too often to be really amusing. SovCits have this unshakeable belief in the magic power of words; if they just say the right thing in the right way (possibly using the right color of ink, or right form of nonstandard punctuation, grammar, and capitalization) then the government will be forced to play by their interpretation of the law.

Exactly. It's super comforting to think that the meaning of rules isn't a complex blend of mutual expectations, interpretation of the written rule, interest in enforcement, etc. I'm guessing that's a big part of the appeal.