• AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    SovCits are all like this: they want the benefits of living in our society but they don’t want to pay any of the costs. They want to drive on the roads, but not pay taxes or vehicle registration. They want utilities like electricity and water, but not pay the bills. They think they’re entitled to stuff without cost. They don’t even want to pay their child support.

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      SovCits think words have an inherent magical power and knowing the right words gives them more power than if some other rando person. Their entitlement is from them thinking they have outsmarted the system. They are what dumb people think smart people act like.

    • VelvetStorm@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I mean, to be fair, I don’t want to pay any of that either. If I could get away with not paying anything while getting all the benefits of paying, then I would, but im not an absolute moron so I pay my taxes and bills.

      • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I don’t know, maybe I’m a weirdo, but I don’t actually want stuff for nothing. If I’m getting something from you, I want you to get something in return that makes it worth your while. I don’t want you to rip me off, but I want you to be able to live off of what you provide me and others. Of course, I also want to be able to earn enough doing what I do to be able to afford to pay you for what you do.

        • drmeanfeel@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          This is about utilities, if someone doesn’t think the often privatized, often monopoly utilities aren’t spending every penny and second trying to squeeze you I don’t know what to tell em

          This isn’t about a fair barter for fresh cow milk and the associated labor at the community market

          • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            I’m using my utilities and though not cheap, the costs don’t seem outlandish to me. I have no basis for saying I should be able to use my utilities without paying for them.

    • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      9 months ago

      they want the benefits of living in our society but they don’t want to pay any of the costs

      Same tbh, at least in the sense of wanting to be allowed to exist by default.

      • Signtist@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        The difference is that we understand that real change needs to be ushered in for that to happen, while they just bury their heads in the sand and pretend it already did.

        • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          9 months ago

          Yeah. To me it’s more sad than funny though, I feel like they probably just want to feel like they have a little control over their lives and like they don’t exist in the oppressive circumstances we objectively do, and there just isn’t much hope that isn’t fake.

      • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Except they want much more than that. For instance they want every single benefit that you pay taxes for, but they don’t want to pay the taxes. It’s not that they all want to go live off grid and be their own person, they want to do everything you do and have everything you have, but they don’t feel like they should have to pay for it.

        • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          9 months ago

          You could be right, I don’t actually know any of these people or frequent their discussion spaces, but the memes I’m seeing here including this one seem to reflect anxiety about the sorts of things poor people have to stress about. Like why would someone be begging for the internet to tell them how to make the electric company give them free electricity, unless they are really going through it?

          • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            I’ve watched a few trials of these guys because they’re often entertaining. Most don’t strike me as people struggling to make ends meet. They seem like self-entitled people who think they’ve discovered a loophole that gets them out of paying for things or suffering repercussions for their actions. Like they’ll be fighting a ticket for driving without a license or registration and their argument is that they aren’t constrained by those laws, and oh by the way, the flag behind the judge has a fringe that means it’s a naval court and doesn’t have jurisdiction over their case.

            Look up the trial of Darrell Brooks, the guy who drove through a crowd of people at a parade (I want to say Wisconsin?). He was a SovCit and he had all sorts arguments about why the court didn’t have jurisdiction over him.

      • Ross_audio@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Libertarians are sovereign citizens who have the money to pay for real lawyers and the sense to listen to them.

        • 𝕯𝖎𝖕𝖘𝖍𝖎𝖙@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          You’re not wrong. In fairness, this is why we like to discuss the laws of the land, ones that have been written and such. Sovereign citizen has been always following the social contract - his. He just hasn’t been following the social contract - yours.

      • Crack0n7uesday@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        No, the Amish actually knows how to live without modern technology and are generally a self sustaining folk. Try to take a sovcit’s phone away and see what happens.

  • IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    These sovereign citizens are really thinking they found some sort of glitch in the system. “I dOnt rEcoGnize tHe goVERmEnT anD sOcieTY, I dIdnT siGn No soCiaL cOnTrAct buT I dO like yaLls LEctriCiTY”

    • pHr34kY@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      And a good battery. Get it running on island mode and you’re all good.

      …or just do a meter bypass like dodgy people do with “grow rooms”.

  • AlexisFR@jlai.lu
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    9 months ago

    SovCits are a symptom of the breakdown of the social contract, not one of the causes.

    • UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      It’s more a symptom of village idiots finding each other on the web and convincing themselves that they are not idiots. Its a feature of an interconnected world.

      • fkn@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It makes sense when you realize they are truly stupid and have been taken in by a con. They get into situations they don’t understand, people say magic words they don’t understand and they get put in jail. Someone comes along and explains it in such a way only an idiot would believe about magic words and they want to get out. They don’t actually understand the words they are using or the context/concepts thar the words that are being used against them represent… And suddenly here we are.

    • Hamartia@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      They have the morality of an atomized corporation. Always trying to externalise costs to the rest of the planet. All that matters is their own short term needs.

      It’s like a cargo cult of late stage capitalism.

      • mob@sopuli.xyz
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        9 months ago

        Feels like people just say “It’s rooted in white supremacy and anti-Semitism” about anything now.

    • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Definitely not a cause. For a while they were a pain in the ass. Courts and lawyers didn’t know how to deal with them and they would keep coming back and back with appeals and collateral actions. Now there’s a whole playbook for disposing of their bullshit, doesn’t jam things up anymore.

      It was originally a mail order scam targeting poor, uneducated people who were charged with crimes, desperate to believe any promise of help.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I know a lawyer about a decade ago who worked for a country government dealing with one. He told me that if the guy had 6 friend he could probably fully demolish the entire government of the county. They would be bankrupt from lawsuits, everyone would be afraid to do anything for fear of getting dragged in, nothing could get approved.

        I don’t know if he was exaggerating or not but I think there is some truth to it. Things do seem to work only because no one has decided to stop it from working.

    • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      I think they’re more a symptom of some people wanting to feel special. Everywhere has selfish people indignant that they have to pay for goods and/or services they use.

      • Ross_audio@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        What exactly is the constitution, or any law, if not a social contract.

        If you don’t like the social contracts we have, vote for someone to make them better.

        Especially when it comes to the social contracts around elections.

        • 𝕯𝖎𝖕𝖘𝖍𝖎𝖙@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          What exactly is the constitution, or any law, if not a social contract.

          What exactly is a BDSM dungeon, if not a social contract?

          What exactly is a thanksgiving dinner with the family, if not a social contract?

          What exactly is a lemmy shitpost and a dipshit commenting on it, if not a social contract?

          What exactly is a terms and conditions, if not a social contract?

          What exactly is a terms of service, if not a social contract?

          What exactly is a “please, harder daddy” if not a social contract?

          My issue with “social contract” is how vague the concept is. I get that it’s an agreement we accept to have certain conditions met. But that definition itself is so vague why are we even discussing it?

          • maynarkh
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            9 months ago

            You are right in that people seem to be misusing the term “social contract”. The actual definition is not vague, but broad. The point is that a person who wants to live in a society accepts its fundamental tenets as they exist in exchange for society at large letting it live amongst itself.

            So one example of a social contract might be the one that the USSR and aligned countries’ societies had, which had the fundamental law of “things will continue to improve for you, but in exchange you must support our politics”. When things stopped improving, people stopped staying out of politics and the society collapsed and reformed.

            As far as I understand, the US “social contract” is at least on the level of ideology that if you “pull yourself up by the bootstraps”, you get to “live the American Dream”. When they talk about people “rejecting the social contract”, what they mean is that they don’t think that they are getting what they want out of society at large. If it’s few people that do this, you get criminals and sovcits.

            This theory is just to explain why people at large behave differently if they perceive their society as good, just, liveable, honourable and all manner of positive things.

            Consider the sentiment of “If you saw someone steal from Walmart, you didn’t, but don’t steal from mom-and-pop shops, they need the money”.

            People say this is because since Walmart is perceived as not adhering to the social contract by stealing wages, killing off small businesses and mooching off public money. That means that, unlike mom-and-pop shops, they are fair game and not dishonourable to steal from. Formal law still applies to them, you will go to jail if they catch you all the same, but society will not shun you. In a way if you break the “unwritten law”, then it does not protect you either.

            • 𝕯𝖎𝖕𝖘𝖍𝖎𝖙@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              As far as I understand, the US “social contract” is at least on the level of ideology that if you “pull yourself up by the bootstraps”, you get to “live the American Dream”. When they talk about people “rejecting the social contract”, what they mean is that they don’t think that they are getting what they want out of society at large. If it’s few people that do this, you get criminals and sovcits.

              You’re probably right, emphasis on “probably” because the term is so vague we don’t really know what anyone who uses it really means. By the terms you’ve put forth, I too “reject the social contract” of “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps” allowing you to “live the american dream” on account of those words not having any real meaning. As an american, I can draw my own meaning from those words, but it will differ from the meaning others put on those words.

              This theory is just to explain why people at large behave differently if they perceive their society as good, just, liveable, honourable and all manner of positive things.

              And that’s the thing, because it’s different to each person, we’re all talking about different contracts, that we don’t understand but we assume about each other, causing difficulties in communication.

              I’m happy to discuss law, constitution, policy, morality, etc… but discussing a “social contract” to me sounds like we’re just discussing the unspoken assumptions of others.

              As for my social contracts, those who know, know, you know?

          • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            social contract noun

            A usually implicit agreement among the members of an organized society or between the governed and the government defining and limiting the rights and duties of each. 
            
              • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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                9 months ago

                Laws are explicit, not implicit. You said you didn’t understand what a social contract was and I answered you. Now you’re just being intentionally obtuse.

                • 𝕯𝖎𝖕𝖘𝖍𝖎𝖙@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  I never said anything of the sort. I said I didn’t understand the wording of the social contract. Please just link this one contract to me, since everyone’s always discussing it.

                  I can’t have a conversation unless I know the topic.

                  Topic like “agreement” is bit too vauge but hey, I’ll try: “Isn’t it great when everyone? I know, right?!”

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It is an implied thing not a tangible written down thing. Which is common in life. For example you are sitting on a bus with your headphones on, it is understood that I don’t sit next to you and try to talk to you, unless something out of the ordinary happens and this is critical. In the grocery store you know that your cart goes on the same side of the aisle as you drive on.

        All this stuff adds up and it becomes a basket of little rules. Follow them and things will go smoothly, don’t and they will go less smoothly. It doesn’t mean that your life is going to be even good it doesn’t mean nothing bad will happen to you it doesn’t mean everyone who breaks it will be punished. It is not even aspirational it is empirical. It is is how human civilization works.

  • A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I’m noticing a common theme with the “sovereign citizens” where they can’t for the life of them look at what they’re typing or use the backspace key

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    9 months ago

    It’s easy. Strip the wires before and after your electric meter, and attach jumper cables to either side.

    It’s safe to do this with no protective equipment, just be sure to shout “I do not understand your intent” at the electricity first. That way it will be unable to fry you.

  • JaneTheMotherfucker@leminal.space
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    9 months ago

    Sovereign citizens are hilariously entertaining. I love it when they post videos of themselves in court and decide on their own that they “won” because the judge got pissed off and walked away after dismissing everyone.