OK, this story’s a little goofy. But as a reporter I have some first-hand knowledge of this group.
In 1996, I spent a weary week in Jordan, Montana covering the three-month-long standoff between the Freemen and the F.B.I.. Attorney General Janet Reno’s debacle in Waco, Texas was still fresh in the public’s mind. When a right-wing separatist group called “The Freemen” barricaded themselves in a ranch 20 miles outside of Jordan, the word went out that the Clinton administration didn’t want another Waco. The Freemen believed they could declare themselves a Sovereign State, not bound by state or federal laws or taxes. They manufactured their own money. They refused to pay taxes or get drivers licenses. They believed American flags with yellow fringe weren’t true American flags.
Now, nutty right-wing ‘Sovereigns’ are causing more trouble in northern Montana, filing ‘tax liens’ against property owners and using the courts to grab large portions of land for their future Sovereign America.
Can they really get away with this stuff? It’s not much crazier than the stuff that Homeowners Associations get away with on a daily basis. The right wing Sovereigns write their own law as they go along. So do Homeowners Associations.
(story on the anti-government Sovreigns)
(Wiki account of the FBI standoff with the Freemen in Jordan, Montana)
Hard to believe these people live among us. And they can take over any distressed HOA “community” with their crazy tactics.
This reminds me of the Willows of Elmhurt. The current President is a totalitarian dictator along with a group of haters as fellow board members. I will never live in this type of community again.