Shouldn't Obama Bomb a Domestic Terrorist Outfit Allegedly More Dangerous than Islamist Jihadis?
The West Virginia state police recently arrested a 21-year-old with explosives in his SUV, reports the Charleston Gazette. And why is this the least bit interesting besides the fact that he apparently had live chicken right next to AK 47-style guns in his trunk?
Because he belongs to the sovereign citizen movement (not to be confused with Sovereign Society, a publishing company that offers investment advise) that state and local enforcement officials around the country polled by University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism rate as the Number One terrorist threat in the United States today, ranking above Islamic terrorists and

jihadis. (A 2007 version of the same study, cite the group as the seventh greatest potential threat.)
So what makes this group so dangerous?
One reason is that it lacks organization, one official told the Gazette. "There's not one ultimate organization that represents all of these groups. In the United States, most of them are small groups, so they're not really organized," he said. "Most groups have a leader you can go to and sit down and talk things out."
If this doesn't make it Al Qaeda's American doppelganger then I don't know what does!
Another reason is that it has 100,000 hardcore and 300,000 total members, which, not only makes it the largest "domestic terrorist movement," as per the FBI, but also many times bigger than the 20- to 30,000-strong ISIS.
But what makes the group really dangerous is not that it is based on the Al Qaeda cell model and is bigger than ISIS, but that it is an "anti-government" extremist outfit that considers all forms of government taxation and regulation illegitimate. Its members don't pay taxes, carry a driver's license or hold a Social Security card.
A few of them have gone "postal" in encounters with authorities. But by and large the group's main form of resistance, according to the FBI, is that it impersonates judges "police officers and diplomats" and tries to extort money from the U.S. Treasury Department. How? Sayeth FBI:
"It files legitimate IRS and Uniform Commercial Code forms for illegitimate purposes, believing that doing so correctly will compel the U.S. Treasury to fulfill its debts, such as credit card debts, taxes, and mortgages…These activities create a voluminous influx of documents that clog the courts and other government agencies."
Expect Obama to launch an aerial bombing campaign any moment now. If ever a group was asking for one, this is it!
H/T Bruce Majors
Correction and Caveat: It would be more appropriate to call sovereign citizens a movement rather than a group, as previously written. Also, this piece is supposed to mock the law enforcement tendency — with the assistance of a credulous media — to inflate security threats and then over-react to these inflated threats!
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wtf?
this. stupid, incompetent article.
If this doesn't make it Al Qaeda's American doppelganger then I don't know what does!
Yeah, just look at the trail of dead, decapitated bodies!
this piece is supposed to mock the law enforcement tendency ? with the assistance of a credulous media ? to inflate security threats and then over-react to these inflated threats!
Well, doesn't that make my comment stupid.
My apologies, Shikha, I apparently allowed my sarcasm meter to miss it's 50,000 post recommended factory refurbishing.
I will whip a couple of my prize orphans and go two whole days without a freshly polished monocle in penance.
*Tips Top Hat*
"Its an Organization(not an Organization?) against which our War(not a War?) against Terrorism is finely-tailored."
Speaking of self-invented problems for which we have pre-existing, politically expedient solutions...
This whole modern-day, internet-enabled, "things to freak out about"-society is getting tiresome.
basically ALL of the news items of the day are effectively "isolated incidents elevated to 'MOVEMENTS' and/or TRENDS or COMMUNITIES..." via the magnifying glass of 'teh intertubes'.
Nothing is new, nothing is changing - its just because we have this wonderful medium for instantly making any isolated news item universally known and 'discussion-worthy' that anything at all can rise to a level of Cultural Significance heretofore unheard of.
Concurrent with the 'blowing shit ridiculously out of proportion' trend, seems to be a complete absence of awareness of cause-effect = When you create a Police-State predicated on the idea of omnipresent 'terrorist' threats, you are going to turn every citizen claiming to have 'inviolable rights' into a scary-terrorist. Hammers, meet nails. Duh.
This. Would be nice if people could recognize that trends do not last indefinitely -- or in lieu of this, that one or two incidents do not comprise a "trend".
that one or two incidents do not comprise a "trend".
How about "in a country of almost a third of a Billion people, several hundreds of anything does not compromise a trend".
I'm starting small.
"Because he belongs to an outfit called Sovereign Citizen "
Sovereign Citizen isn't an 'outfit'. It's a general description. From the first line of the linked Wiki article:
"The sovereign citizen movement is a loose grouping of American litigants, commentators, tax protesters and financial scheme promoters. "
You might as well have just used the phrase, he was an armed anti-tax redneck.
Also, the 100K to 300K apparently comes from this:
"In 2010 the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) estimated that approximately 100,000 Americans were "hard-core sovereign believers" with another 200,000 "just starting out by testing sovereign techniques for resisting everything from speeding tickets to drug charges.""
The SPLC is infamous for making up whatever numbers suit their purposes. So, I'm inclined to treat this all with a grain of salt.
I think you missed the tone of the article - she's not seriously suggesting that these people are a real *danger*, only that law enforcement agencies and statists are over-hyping them as a huge domestic threat, similar to what is occuring with ISIS.
Yeah, I'm all for piling on Dalmia when she (regularly) earns it, but this is just poking fun at the government.
The Disposition Matrix says. . ."Reply hazy, try again."
OK, how much of this has any relationship to reality? I mean, I'm ready to tremble in my boots, but I want some assurances that this isn't another case of a federal agency getting ahold of a (pen and paper) role playing game and suffering from a complete common sense failure.
Don't know what I'm talking about? Check this out; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.....et_Service
God that's a horribly written article - at no point in it does it say what the damn investigation and trial were *about*.
The feds found references to a Hackers book on the net. They raided Steve Jackson games thinking they were something closer to Paladin Press than what they were (a games company). The feds the. Doubled down on stupid by denying the obvious; that a role playing game about hacking in a dystopian future is no more an instruction manual for hacking than Halo is a training tool for snipers.
So they illegitimately file a lot of paperwork? TERRORISTS.
Right now, I don't think doing anything in violation of the Internal Revenue Code could be called a crime. Or even a violation. I mean, that ship has sailed.
But my sister-n-law says she's honored to pay her share of taxes. You two should talk.
You laugh, but 3 months ago some news outlet was actually using the term "Paper terrorism" about this very group, and not realizing what complete idiocy the term is.
You laugh about 'paper terrorism', not realizing what a complete hell it is finding out some arsehole has filed liens against all your property and now you have to fight that shit in court (the same court that allowed this to happen, so imagine how excited they'll be to admit error).
So 90s...
I'm sorry, how many unbelievers has the sovereign citizens movement murdered?
I would be surprised if their body count exceeds 30 people.
That's like what? 15 hours of ISIS's operations right?
Could someone please cancel Shikha Dalmia's account?
My uncle went to jail for this sort of thing.
Are people seriously not seeing this article is sarcastic?
Apparently - given her previous writing and the tone of the article I would have thought it obvious.
But, from what I've seen from the commenters here - anything that looks like it might, possibly, in some slight way, downplay the threat Islamic terrorism (and the need to bomb some more BSP's in the ME) sets off a frenzy.
Really, I see worse commenting behavior on threads about droning Pakistanis than even immigration threads.
Humor is hard.
I got the (not very funny) sarcasm.
My comment was more to the point that the WV-news-source saw zero irony in talking about "US Citizens" like we live in a Borg-Like thought-police state, and that these 'anti-tax' people need to be treated/described as a danger on the level of Hydra/Spectre/Cobra
It ridiculous to begin with, which i suppose prompted Shikha's sarcastic piece
why people didn't 'get it', i don't know.
Ya know, she left out the anti-GMO and anti-animal-testing groups.
I never thought about it liek that. WOw.
http://www.CryptAnon.tk
See, it even fooled anonybot!
Apparently, filing a bad tax return is now an act of terrorism.
Also, this piece is supposed to mock the law enforcement tendency ? with the assistance of a credulous media ? to inflate security threats and then over-react to these inflated threats!
If you have to explain the joke, it's not funny.
I approve of most of the positions of the Sovereign Citizens crowd, but they really need to internalise FYTW. It's like that tricornered hat guy from a few months back that got busted for fishing without a license. The "all capital letters name" and the "admiralty flag" stuff is just a bunch of hooey. (I mean, OK, that stuff is exceptionally nonsensical, but the whole set of ideas is the same.) The thought that if you do things a certain way, or file the right paperwork, or utter the correct magical legalese incantation, the government will suddenly feel compelled to stop fucking with you... it's just not going to happen. Because Fuck You, That's Why.
Sure, taxes are illegitimate, and driver's licenses, ans violations of the second amendment. But if you get caught acting against the wishes of our masters, you will get beaten down for it, because FYTW.
*shrug* Ah well. In some ways I envy their optimism.
It didn't say anything about him hating cats.
Herc never mentioned CHICKens.
I miss him more than any other troll. Heck, "troll" seems the wrong word for him.
He was a hero that saved the town then moved on.
I realized the other day that I'd never seen Joe Kidd. How did that happen?
You've never actually seen that movie then?
I will. I'd have sworn before this that I'd seen all of his westerns.
That Mauser is certainly in the top five All-Time Coolest Handguns. I'd still prefer having a Luger, though.
Who, me? I've seen it. I've seen them all but Joe Kidd.
NO, From the Tundra - Clint does not 'save the town and move on' in HPD. He returns from the grave to deal bloody vengeance on the town who done wronged him.
I'm trying to decide which is my favorite. Probably The Outlaw Josey Wales, though others are up there, too.
So - he ha to destroy the village to save it?
Yeah, he's a big part of the reason that movie was so good.
Yup. Love this line:
Yep, awesome. He was also fantastic in Little Big Man.