They hate the US government, and they're multiplying: the terrifying rise of 'sovereign citizens'

[billh58]

While US counter-terrorism efforts remain locked on Islamist extremism, the growing threat from homegrown, rightwing extremists is even more pressing.

On 20 May 2010, a police officer pulled over a white Ohio minivan on Interstate 40, near West Memphis, Arkansas. Unbeknown to officer Bill Evans, the occupants of the car, Jerry Kane Jr, and his teenage son, Joseph Kane, were self-described “sovereign citizens”: members of a growing domestic extremist movement whose adherents reject the authority of federal, state and local law.

- Snip -

Suddenly, Jerry Kane turned and tackled Evans, knocking him down into a ditch. The younger Kane vaulted from the passenger side of the minivan and opened fire with an AK-47. Evans, an experienced officer who also served on the Swat team, was fatally wounded before he even drew his weapon. Paudert was struck down moments later while returning fire.

- Snip -

Although the Trump administration is reportedly planning to restructure the Department of Homeland Security’s countering violent extremism (CVE) program to focus exclusively on radical Islam, a 2014 national survey of 175 law enforcement agencies ranked sovereign citizens, not Islamic terrorists, as the most pressing terrorist threat. The survey ranked Islamic terrorists a close second, with the following top three threats all domestic in origin and sometimes overlapping: the militia movement, racist skinheads, and the neo-Nazi movement.

- Snip -

“Many of [the people attracted to such movements] are guys my age, middle-aged white guys. They’re seeing profound change and seeing that they have been left behind by the economic success of others and they want to return to a never-existent idyllic age when everyone was happy and everyone was white and everyone was self-sufficient.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/15/sovereign-citizens-rightwing-terrorism-hate-us-government

Interestingly, "middle-aged white guys" from Red states are the predominant demographic for gun owners:

"Notably, while Republican party identification is associated with higher rates of gun ownership -- 38% versus 22% for Democrats -- the statistical model shows party is a weaker predictor of gun ownership, once other factors are taken into account. In other words, higher rates of Republican gun ownership likely result more from the fact that men, Southerners, and married people tend to identify as Republicans than from something about being a Republican drawing one to owning a gun."

http://www.gallup.com/poll/160223/men-married-southerners-likely-gun-owners.aspx

Trump's right-wing militant supporters are enthusiastically supportive of his bigoted, racist war against Islam because it distracts attention from their bigoted, racist, anti-American acts of domestic terror. To Trump and his supporters, the Constitution is a white, Christian manifesto written by rich slave-holders for the betterment of the white race.

[luvMIdog]

1. no words for this lunacy I always find it shocking and repulsive

[billh58]

2. I believe that most

Americans share your sentiments, and we have, for the most part, the right-wing gun lobby to thank for these home-grown terrorists. Without their precious guns, they would be nothing more than the loud-mouthed bullies and cowards that they are at their core.

[luvMIdog]

3. yes & when unarmed they tend to go after women first because they're such tough guys ;)

[Thomas Hurt]

4. The whack jobs have been around for decades...

Back in the 80s they called themselves constitutionalists.... maybe some of them still do.

Far right extremists, conspiracy theorists, racists and many of them scam artists.

They would file false liens and sue people in frivolous law suits they ginned up using their twisted ideology.

Near as I can tell they are kind of political cult spreading their ideology through meetings and indoctrinating their kids in the hate and entitlement.

Bundy's are part of these nutjobs. Militias, patriot movement, all going to back to their grand daddy the John Birch Society.

I am guessing many of them may be connected to KKK or maybe neo nazi groups as well.

They don't pay their taxes, they are squatters like the Bundy's. Think they are feudal lords and don't answer to the law.

There was a little knot of them in my hometown. One of the guys owned a junkyard, did not pay his taxes until the IRS came seized it all.

Another one of them was our neighbor a house down. He owned a body shop, southern, strict protestant christian, racist. He kept his nose clean though.

His son was two, three years younger than me. He grew up in strict christian conservative home.

I was home for Christmas several years later and went to local bar with my sister. Here he is, this kid who used by the neighbor kid, hanging out in the bar, drinking and telling me who amongst local ladies in the bar he had had and their pubic grooming habits.

They would be people you just shake head at and might find amusing but every now and then one of these fanatics snaps and they blow up a federal building.

Fortunately, most of them realize that despite the "oppressive" feds trying to take all their freedoms (usually the freedom to con people) and the other bullshit they spout, they have a good life and they know enough not to go too far.

[billh58]

6. I agree that the Birchers

are the parents of this mindset, but somehow I get the impression that today's right-wing terrorists are just that: dangerously armed terrorists. The "Sovereignty" terrorists and the Second Amendment "Solution" terrorists have much in common, and are blending with encouragement from the anti-American Trump right-wingers.

[annabanana]

5. THESE are the terrorists that scare me most!. . . n/t

[billh58]

7. And the Trump worshipers

want us to "pay no attention to the monster behind the curtain."

[SunSeeker]

8. They're multiplying because they are not being convicted for the crimes they are committing.

[billh58]

9. Of course they're not

being convicted, nor in many case even arrested, because their membership includes several so-called police officers and sheriffs.

[SunSeeker]

10. Yep. nt

[KT2000]

11. republican politicians

are afraid of them too. They will protect trump and never say a work against them because they are afraid of physical harm. The crazies are in charge now.

[billh58]

13. Some Republican politicians

are card-carrying members of the NRA, and proud of it (or rich because of it).

[Binkie The Clown]

12. 'sovereign citizens' should be allowed to do anything they want.

As long as they do it in their own, separate country outside the U.S. Maybe they could colonize the great Pacific garbage patch and declare it their own country.

[billh58]

14. You just gave me a whole new

perspective of Waterworld.

[flamin lib]

15. My younger brother is a Sovereign Citizen.

Not a Trump supporter. Distrusts government of all kinds. Does not think he owns his house because of the way he interprets the deed. His daughter talked him into 'selling' the house to her so she can pay taxes on it and he won't be evicted.

Doesn't think he has to obey traffic laws because he isn't a commercial license holder. Believes that police officers require you to hand them your driver's license is to 'gain dominion over you'. When stopped he will leave the driver's window rolled up and place his DL flat against it. Texas driver's licenses have information on both sides and need to be touched to verify it hasn't been de-laminated and security devices meddled with. I can't convince him otherwise.

Last time we talked he went off with conspiracy theories of Clinton murders, Trump Russia ties and asked me to help build and stock a bunker in the country where our families could ride out the coming nuclear war. I tried to reason with him but finally had to just hang up the phone. Last contact was a text telling me to 'choke on my own shit'.

I don't know if he's meeting with others like himself, but I doubt it. He's been radicalized by the internet. Gets all his information from a YouTube channel, Logic before Authority. Everything else is fake news conspiracy.

I think and hope that he is a harmless crank that hasn't enough money to hoard guns though he has his fair share of them.

[billh58]

16. Sorry to hear about your

brother, and I sincerely hope that he can find the strength to listen to reason. I still maintain that the reason we're seeing so much distrust of the government is the right-wing's racist disinformation campaign for the past 8-years in an effort to demonize President Obama just because of the color of his skin.

To me, the right-wing extremists and tighty-whitey Republicans in general are pure evil, and a menace to world peace and civility.

[Hoyt]

17. The government didn't even go after Bundy Ranch white wing militia types who drew down

on law enforcement. White wingers have been arming up and preparing to make America great again, or some such crud. We just sit here like crabs in yet to boil water.