http://www.equip.org/article/the-patriot-movement/
SOVEREIGN CITIZEN REBELLION
The vast majority of patriots suffer from an acute misunderstanding of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, which prohibits states from depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Patriots claim this amendment created a second type of citizenship called federal citizenship. To patriots, federal citizens are second-class citizens subject to all laws passed by the power that supposedly gave them their citizenship, meaning the federal (U.S.) government located in Washington, D.C. As citizens of that government, they must obey federal rules such as paying taxes.
The first type of citizenship, however, which patriots call “state citizenship,” is said to have existed prior to the 14th Amendment. It is considered a “natural” citizenship conferred on persons born in any America state. Such individuals, called “sovereign” citizens, are supposedly not bound by federal (U.S.) laws because they derive their freedoms from the Constitution rather than from the 14th Amendment.
Patriots assert that most Americans have been duped into rejecting their sovereign status by unknowingly placing themselves under federal (U.S.) jurisdiction through “illegal contracts” with the government, such as driver’s licenses, birth certificates, and social security cards. These documents allegedly make someone a U.S. citizen. This, in turn, causes unsuspecting individuals to come under federal authority, which means they must obey federal laws.
Such a notion leads to the belief that people can free themselves from federal subjugation by choosing to live as a state citizen rather than as a U.S. citizen. It is argued that one can obtain “sovereign” status by (1)breaking (i.e., physically destroying) all “contracts” with the government including birth certificates, social security cards, driver’s licenses, and so forth; (2)renouncing federal (14th Amendment) citizenship; and (3)claiming state citizenship.
Although this understanding of the Constitution may sound plausible, it is built on nothing more than legal acrobatics and misunderstanding. First, the 14thAmendment did not create federal citizens. The Constitution itself made colonists and their posterity federal citizens so that when traveling between different states they would have equal rights and protection under an umbrella union: the federal United States.8 Second, the 14th Amendment did not impart second-class citizenship. It merely guaranteed blacks equal footing with other Americans by recognizing them as citizens of the U.S. and each state. Unfortunately, most patriots remain ignorant of these facts and continue to cause trouble for themselves, as well as for others:
• In 1994 three California patriots were arrested for hiring a thug to assault Stanislaus County clerk-recorder Karen Matthews, who had refused to remove an IRS lien (claims against property for debts) on the home of a local tax protester.9
• A San Antonio tax protester was charged with attempting to “hire an assassin to kill the mayor in the belief that the Constitution gives citizens the right to remove public officials — if necessary, by execution.”10
• In March 1995, four members of the Minnesota Patriots Council — LeRoy Wheeler, Duane Baker, Dennis Henderson, and Richard Oelrich — were convicted under the U.S. Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorist Act for planning to kill law enforcement agents with ricin, a deadly toxin that they had manufactured. The four men possessed enough ricin to kill 1,400 people.11
Many Americans agree that the government has grown too big, that federal agencies often overstep their bounds, and that citizens pay too much in taxes. But not everyone trains with an AK-47 for a day when they will have to fight the feds. Nor do all Americans manufacture biological weapons or stockpile huge caches of weaponry. Why? Because the real motivation behind the patriot/militia movement is much more complex than all of the complaints discussed thus far.
Unlike most citizens, who are merely wearied by our government’s problems, patriots cling to a radical conspiracy theory that the ongoing economic and political difficulties in their country are part of a much larger plan to “enslave Americans by disarming the population and making the currency worthless. The eventual result…will be the New World Order — a one-world government administered by the United Nations.”12 This coming totalitarian establishment will reduce everyone to slaves whose sole purpose will be to serve the “international bankers, wealthy elite, socialists and liberals.”13