Living in a society ain’t easy — and all of us, of course, live in a society. All these laws, rules and regulations you have to follow to be a “productive” member of your community; it’s just so tiring!
Seeing this, some people think they’ve discovered a cheat code. What if I just say I’m not actually a member of this society? Yes, I live, work and sleep here, but if I just loudly tell the world that I’d rather not be here, surely the rules won’t apply to me, right? RIGHT?
This is the mindset that created something called a “sovereign citizen.” There are a lot of breeds of sovereign citizens with a wide spread of (wrong) beliefs, but in short, these people think that the rules don’t apply to them because, well, just because, really.
This becomes an issue when they come face-to-face with the rules, as this recent video shows.
In the video, originally shared to YouTube before being reposted to Reddit, a car has been pulled over for not having a license plate. In place of a plate, the driver has put on a tag that says it’s part of the “Global Postal Union Treaty” and that it’s a “neutral zone transport vessel.”
As far as I can tell, this doesn’t appear to be a thing. The only things that come up if you Google “Global Postal Union Treaty” are other sovereign-citizen cases in which people have tried to invoke this “treaty” and been told to eff off.
Back to the video, the police officer tries to approach the situation as calmly as possible. However, the man has already called his partner as the officer approaches (she’s the master “mind” behind the scheme, it seems), and they are both on the offensive. The dude produces a sleeve of documents in place of a driver’s license, and before the officer can get clarification, he’s already being yelled at by the dude’s wife.
“That’s not how this works,” the cop says. After being told he does not “identify” with the state, the officer informs the woman that “it doesn’t matter who he identifies as; he’s operating a motor vehicle in the state of Florida, ma’am.”
The ridiculousness continues from here. The man calls himself the “Postmaster” before eventually saying that his name is Mark Destry (his name is actually Destry Wogerman). There are plenty more baseless ideas thrown around before Destry/Wogerman is forcibly removed from his car.
Soon, his partner “Michelle” (real name Laralynne Nabozny) shows up — and gets herself arrested, too. Fun for the whole family!
In case you’re wondering how everything shook out for these two, the answer is “not great”: “Wogerman was charged with driving an unregistered motor vehicle, driving with his license revoked (with a modification for habitual offense) and resisting an officer without violence. Nabozny was charged with resisting an officer with violence, and battery on a law enforcement officer.”
On the bright side, at least these two loons managed to find each other in the first place. Love always wins.
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