Sovereign citizen and self-ownership

What is a sovereign citizen?

It is a citizen who is against the law and who does not want to accept to rules stablished by the state in which he lives. The concept of sovereign citizen emerged on the United States of America because of a law, the ''Posse Comitatus Act''.

The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law signed on june 18, 1878 by President Rutherford B.Hayes. The purpose of the act - in concert with the Insurrection Act of 1807 - is to limit the powers of the federal government in using federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the United States. It was passed as an amendment to an army appropriation bill following the end of Reconstruction, and was subsequently updated in 1956 and 1981.

Some notable people were identified as sovereign citizens:

- John Joe Gray claims to be a sovereign citizen and was a fugitive from the law. He currently lives on his 50-acre, wooded ranch in Trinidad, Texas. He was involved in the longest-running law enforcement standoff in American history, lasting a few days short of 15 years, before the district attorney dropped the charges.

- Edward Lewis Brown (born 1942) and his wife, Elaine Alice Brown (born c. 1940), residents of the state of New Hampshire, gained national news media attention as tax protesters in early 2007 for refusing to pay the U.S. federal income tax and subsequently refusing to surrender to federal government agents after having been convicted of tax crimes.

The concept of sovereign citizen is very related with the concept of self-ownership. Why this relation?

Well, self-ownership means sovereignty of the individual or individual autonomy. Is the concept of property in one's own person, espressed as the moral or natural right of a person to have bodily integrity and be the exclusive controller of his own body and life.

For anarchist political philosopher L. Susan Brown, "Liberalism and anarchism are two political philosophies that are fundamentally concerned with individual freedom yet differ from one another in very distinct ways.

Tha idea of self-ownership has been very controversial, not only because of legal aspects, also because certain religious groups have discussed this idea in a moral way. For example some libertarian christians says that not all libertarians should believe in self-ownership because this idea attempts to some christian principles.

Nevertheless some libertarian christians think that political and economical ideas should be separated form religious beliefs and self-ownership is compatible with all the religions of the world.

Is it a potential idea?

Yes, it is. In the last decades, a political phenomenon appeared, micronationalism. It is an ideology that some excentric or artistic or interested people are developing with the aim of creating new countries.

Some people wants to create their own country, and this is micronationalism. That is to say, nationalism but in a little scale, because most micronations claim little territories as independent states which they aren't. Some became micronationalists because of their libertarian ideology, others want to create or support micronations because they want to participate in an artistic or fictional project. Others believe in micronationalism because they are excentric and they have the desire of creating their own country, that's to say, to take part of history. Some bussinesman wants to take profit of micronations for evading taxes or for creating an utopical country with the dream of receiving a lot of visitors.

The relation of micronationalism and self-ownership is very big. It is the same. People create their own countries because they want to be the only owners of their territory, withough being part of an state or authority. They want to be self-sovereign and take part of all the aspects of their lives. It is not only a political idea, it is a live philosophy.