Good God. I had no idea.

Remember DG? Dreaded Guest? A former(?) Mudcatter, he talked of a lot of this.

"The redemption theory is an American conspiracy theory created by Roger Elvick and marketed as a tax evasion and fraud scheme. The theory claims that when the United States government abandoned the gold standard in 1933, it pledged its citizens as collateral so it could borrow money. According to Elvick, the government creates a fictitious person (straw man) corresponding to each newborn citizen with bank accounts initially holding $630,000. The theory further holds that through obscure procedures under the Uniform Commercial Code, a citizen can "reclaim" the straw man and write checks against its accounts.[1] Its adherents and various fellow travelers sometimes call themselves "Sovereign Citizens".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redemption_movement



"INDIANAPOLIS -- Fed up and fired up, an increasing number of Indiana residents who have lost confidence in the government are going to extreme measures to claim they are "sovereign citizens."
By doing so, residents contend that they no longer have to pay taxes, claiming their homes as embassies and using identification cards that show them as diplomats, 6News' Rafael Sanchez reported.
Indiana authorities call such proclamations both illegitimate and illegal. About 10 people every month ask the state to put a seal on a document so that they can claim freedom from taxes."
http://www.theindychannel.com/news/22729218/detail.html


"The "sovereign citizen" movement is a loosely organized collection of groups and individuals who have adopted a right-wing anarchist ideology originating in the theories of a group called the Posse Comitatus in the 1970s. Its adherents believe that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and they seek to "restore" an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed. To this end, sovereign citizens wage war against the government and other forms of authority using "paper terrorism" harassment and intimidation tactics, and occasionally resorting to violence."
http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/SCM.asp?xpicked=4