sovereign citizen
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English
Noun
sovereign citizen (plural sovereign citizens)
- A member of a loose movement of Americans, Canadians and Australians who consider themselves answerable only to their own particular interpretation of the common law, and not subject to any government statutes or proceedings.
- Synonyms: sovereign, (informal) SovCit
- Alternative form: Sovereign Citizen
- 2015 June 16, Charles Kurzman, David Schanzer, “The Growing Right-Wing Terror Threat”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
- An officer from a large metropolitan area said that “militias, neo-Nazis and sovereign citizens” are the biggest threat we face in regard to extremism.
- 2021 September 26, Sarah Maslin Nir, “She Bought Her Dream Home. Then a ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Changed the Locks.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
- That subgroup, known as Rise of the Moors, engaged in a standoff with the police for more than nine hours, claiming that as sovereign citizens, law enforcement had no authority to stop them. No one was injured; 11 people were arrested and charged with unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition, among other offenses.
- (in the plural) The body politic of a nation.
- 1924, Oscar Newfang, The Road to World Peace, page 332:
- The supreme authority remains with the sovereign citizens, and the uncurbed authority of the various branches of government, local, national and federal, extends only to the specific and limited functions which have been conferred upon each by the free consent of hte citizens for their better government.
- 1989 June, William Greider, “What Oliver North's Trial Means to US”, in Rolling Stone, archived from the original on 11 December 2017:
- In response, the prosecutor made the simple but valuable point that a government of representative democracy cannot function in an atmosphere of deceit – when one branch is lying to another and lying to the sovereign citizens as well.
- 2013 January 25, Jim Sleeper, Daniel J. H. Greenwood, “To Stop Gun Violence, We Need to Remember We Can Regulate Corporate Speech and Advertising”, in The Atlantic:
- These spectacles aren't calls for a Hobbesian war of all against all by some insurgent movement that, however dangerous, would have First Amendment protection. They're driven primarily by institutions that we as sovereign citizens created to serve our purposes.