Militias and conspiracy culture

Eventually Gale created his own movement, which he named Posse Comitatus. Posse Comitatus is a Latin term for “power of the county” and refers to the right of the local community to enforce laws. It usually implies absolute resistance to all forms of federal and state authorities, which are viewed as being in breach of both the original US constitution traditional Anglo-American Common Law. The only authority recognized is the local sheriff, who has been elected by his peers among the sovereign citizens. Some readers might interpret this as a radical brand of libertarianism. But for Gale and other early sovereign citizens, resistance to the federal government was deeply connected to their racism and anti-Semitism, and a reaction to the struggle for Civil Rights for African Americans. According to Gale, both the growth of federal power and the forced desegregation of the South were secretly directed by Jews and their communist dupes who controlled the government through the Federal Reserve, the American central bank. Jewish international bankers were also said to be behind the abandonment of the gold standard.

A majority of early sovereign citizens also believed that being white should be a prerequisite for citizenship, and that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which had guaranteed citizenship to African Americans and everyone else born on US soil, had been an illegal move to make everyone permanent subject to federal and state governments.

In the 1970s the Posse Comitatus movement merged with parts of the growing tax-resistance movement and started taking a violent turn. Internal Revenue Service officers, judges and policemen were “arrested”, beaten or taken before imaginary “citizens’ grand juries”. The agricultural crisis which rocked the Midwest in the late 1970s provided a dangerous recruiting ground for Posse agitators who visited fairs, attempted to take over farmers’ organizations and sent out newsletters to farmers in which Jews and international bankers were blamed for the hard times. Some even organized “Endtime Overcomer Survival Training Schools”, which taught the use of firearms, first aid and natural birth assistance in preparation for a coming societal collapse or for resisting the government. Many of these schools also gave instruction in Christian Identity theology.

The movement gained national attention in June 1983 when a North Dakota farmer named Gordon Kahl was killed in a shootout in Arkansas. Kahl, a 63-year-old World War II veteran, had been attracted by William Potter Gale’s radio broadcasts and started to travel around the Midwest spreading the Posse “gospel“ while condemning what he called the ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government), including politicians, courts and law-enforcement officials. Kahl also refused to support the government by paying his taxes, leading to a two-year prison sentence in 1977. Released on parole, he went on to become active in the “township” movement, an attempt to make towns secede from the United States.

Kahl’s organized activities came to an end when police attempted to arrest him for breach of probation in Medina, North Dakota, using a roadblock. In the ensuing shootout two policemen were killed and Kahl escaped. Hunted by FBI, he went into hiding at a Smithville, Arkansas, farm belonging to a sympathetic family. Kahl was eventually turned in by the family’s oldest daughter, who appeared to have been scared of him as well as attracted by $25,000 in reward money. Another arrest attempt, this time with of a small army of policemen, led to another shootout. Both Kahl and Lawrence County Sheriff Gene Matthews were killed.

Despite the “martyrdom” of Gordon Kahl, the sovereign citizens movement petered out in the late 1980s. It did, however, experience a massive rebirth in the late 2000s. It is difficult to gauge the number of adherents, but by one rough estimate there are more than 500,000 tax protestors in today’s United States, of whom 300,000 are either full-blown sovereign citizens or in the process of testing out various pseudo-legal techniques for resisting anything from speeding tickets to drug charges. Sovereign ideas also seem to be spreading among prisoners and among the unemployed, and among those who are in financial trouble because of the economic crisis.

Like their predecessors, today’s sovereign citizens repudiate the duties and responsibilities usually associated with citizenship. A central claim is that no citizen is obliged to pay federal taxes or possess a driver’s license, vehicle license plate or birth certificate. Some even claim that their doctrine is divinely inspired, and that paying taxes is a sin. Unlike the sovereign citizens of the 1970s and 1980s, many of today’s sovereigns seem to be unaware of the racist origin of their ideas – indeed, many sovereigns are African American.

A common claim is that the original legal system set up by the founding fathers was at some point replaced by “Admiralty law” or “the law of the sea”, changing the legal status of citizens to that of slaves. The time of this supposed changeover varies, but a common claim is that it occurred during the Civil War or with the subsequent passing of the 14th amendment. Another is that the change happened in 1933, when the United States abandoned the gold standard replaced money backed by gold with the “full faith and credit” of the government. To sovereign citizens, this government move was tantamount to pledging the future earnings of US subjects as collateral, which could then be sold to foreign investors. Some even believe that a secret account in the name of every US resident is set up at birth and contains between $600,000 and $20 million. Through a complex legal process known as “redemption”, it is possible both to emancipate oneself from admiralty law and gain possession of these funds.

Most sovereigns do not go further than filing an endless succession of dubious complaints – a process somewhat incorrectly known as “Paper Terrorism”. But in several instances, cornered sovereigns have lashed out in anger against what they deem an unlawful government. One example involves Jerry and Joe Kane, a father and son who travelled around the country conducting redemption workshops. After being pulled over by police in West Memphis, Arkansas, in May 2010, the Kanes resisted and Joe Kane shot and killed two police officers. Four months later, in Odessa, Texas, Victor White – a Vietnam veteran, tax resister and hermit – opened fire on an oil company worker and two sheriff’s deputies who had “illegally” entered his property.

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