Hatewatch Tweets
Hatewatch is managed by the staff of the Intelligence Report, an investigative magazine published by the Alabama-based civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center.
‘Sovereign Citizen’ Sues Government Over Grammar
These days, the U.S. Department of Justice and its investigators and prosecutors get accused of a lot of things by conspiracy-minded antigovernment extremists, but here’s a new one. A so-called “sovereign citizen” in the state of Washington, just sentenced to 40 months in prison, has filed suit accusing the government and its agents of using poor grammar and writing at a second-grade level.
David Russell Myrland filed the civil suit in U.S. District Court in Seattle with help from David Wynn Miller, another sovereign who claims he became the “king of Hawaii” in 1996 after turning that state’s name into a verb. (For the record, Miller prefers the “full-colon” spelling of his name, David-Wynn: Miller. Like many sovereigns who don’t recognize most state and federal laws, he claims the government uses grammar to enslave it citizens. By using hyphens and colons in their names, he claims, citizens can escape the grasp of government and its taxes.)
The “evidence” attached to the suit filed Jan. 23 is the federal criminal complaint filed by the Justice Department in January 2011 against Myrland, accusing him of threatening to kidnap and injure the mayor of Kirkland, Wash. Every word in the complaint is painstakingly footnoted as a “syntax-word-key meaning.”
Myrland, part of a sovereign group calling itself “Assemblies of the Counties,” pleaded guilty last August to threatening to use deadly force to arrest various government officials. The group has ties to Alaska militia leader Francis Schaeffer Cox, who faces charges of plotting to kidnap and kill judges and state police officers.
For the past 20 years, Myrland has been illegally practicing law and teaching others how to cheat on their federal income taxes, prosecutors said in court filings when he was sentenced in December.
Somewhere along the way, Myrland hooked up with Miller, who modestly claims he has an IQ of 200 and is a frequent speaker at antigovernment “Patriot” movement gatherings. Both men’s signatures (with hyphens and full colons, of course) are on the suit, along with Miller’s fingerprint atop his signature.
After 10 pages of single-spaced, legal gobbledygook, the suit concludes: “For the ‘why’ of the sheriff’s-statement-writings and: United States Attorney’s-statements-writing are with a second-grade-reading-level and: writing-level and: vacating-facts, opinions, guessing, modifications, viod [sic]-factual-syntax-grammar word-meanings by the vassalees against the collusion-conspiracy with the handycapping [sic]-parse-syntax-grammar-communication-pleadings and: babbling-collusions-threats against the David-Russell: Myrland by the vassalees.”
“For this federal-judge: David-Wynn: Miller’s-correction of the vassalees-fiction-syntax-grammar-pleadings is with the correction-participation-claim of this babble-indictment-evidence and: bad-probation-syntax=grammar-evidence. (Why did the vassalees do this case with a void-communications?) For the void-drogue-law, void-oath of an office, void-judge’s-oath, void-docking-court-house-vessel in the Washington-state-dry-dock and: void-original-lodial-land-title.”
Whew.
Unsurprisingly, the Myrland-Miller lawsuit has hit a snag.
William McCool, the court executive for the Western District of Washington, sent a letter addressed to both men, saying their suit was not accompanied by an In Forma Pauperis form. The plaintiffs were given until Feb. 23 to either pay a $350 filing fee or prove with a certified copy of Myrland’s prison trust account that he’s truly indigent and can proceed as a pauper.
on February 14th, 2012 at 3:39 pm
“Miller prefers the “full-colon” spelling of his name” but what his colon was full of had to be censored.
on February 14th, 2012 at 4:06 pm
Duh! What part of “void-drogue-law” don’t you understand?
on February 14th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
Too bad that thanks to the Prison Litigation “Reform” Act these fools will only be able to provide their unique brand of entertainment for the clerks (and crazy pro se litigants are definitely one of the highlights of the job) three times before they generate their three strikes for friviolous and malicious litigation.
How was this fool able to go 20 years pretending to be a lawyer and practicing law against a license? There are supposed to be laws against that!
on February 14th, 2012 at 4:53 pm
I think I just heard my old Warriner’s English Grammar exploding… Yep, those are shards of sentence diagrams flying past my head.
on February 14th, 2012 at 6:00 pm
If they don’t recognized the United States, the U.S. Constitution, Law and Order. Who are they that would “recognize” them? Certainly not the American people. These “Sovereign” loons should be categorized as “Undocumented”, somewhat the same way as a criminal illegal alien who trespasses into our country.
on February 14th, 2012 at 9:14 pm
Although this is more of a vocabulary thing as opposed to a grammar issue, I’d like to sue people who spell “lose” and “loser” as “loooser.”
on February 14th, 2012 at 11:08 pm
Reynardine,
I believe that’s the funniest comment I’ve ever heard you contribute to the site. Thanks for the laugh!
on February 14th, 2012 at 11:59 pm
I’m no English major, but I’m pretty sure that use of a colon is a bit suspect.
on February 15th, 2012 at 10:22 am
Shadow Wolf:
You have got a splendid idea. If these sovereign citizens are so anti America, maybe it is time to deport, but where is the question. These clowns has no regard for the American people andthis country. It’s time to treat them like the garbage that they are.
on February 15th, 2012 at 11:42 am
Erika asked:
“How was this fool able to go 20 years pretending to be a lawyer and practicing law [without] a license?”
The short answer: not very successfully. According to federal court records, he’s filed numerous lawsuits and obviously hasn’t won any multimillion-dollar awards. He’s also filed bankruptcy at least twice, in effect asking the federal courts to protect him from his creditors – sort of hypocritical for someone who doesn’t recognize those courts’ legitimacy.
on February 15th, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Somewhere Strunk and White have just doubled over, retching.
on February 15th, 2012 at 11:51 pm
this would be funnier if this person weren’t clearly mentally ill.
on February 16th, 2012 at 9:44 am
The part of this I find most amusing/strange/looney is…
“By using hyphens and colons in their names, he claims, citizens can escape the grasp of government and its taxes.”
So I’ll just add a hyphen and a colon to my name (and by the way, what is the official procedure for that?) and go over to a store and buy something and claim I don’t have to pay the sales tax? Uh, sure…that’ll go over well.
I’m sure that these morons don’t “escape the grasp of government and its taxes” each time they go to the grocery store or the gas station (talk about government taxes!), or they couldn’t eat, or get around, or do much else. So just right there, their whole argument falls apart.
While Peet thinks they’re mentally ill, I’m not so sure. I think they’ve been exposed to all this “sovereign” crap so long that they have deluded themselves. So while they are clearly insane, they’re not mentally insane, per se.
on February 16th, 2012 at 10:24 am
Don’t assume that every irrational person is mentally ill. There is already too much bias against the mentally ill. The mentally ill are more often victims of violence than propagators, but tell that to the media and the public. The New York Times has been running an excellent series by Ben Carey about mentally ill folks who are doing well and live productive lives. Those on the streets are there due to deinsitutionalization, and the failure to build community mental health centers in and housing in most cities. Would you hate someone who had diabetes?
on February 16th, 2012 at 4:52 pm
I have worked with the mentally ill and do not hate them. However, in all those years, I realized they had some very irrational ideas: “When people look at me, they drain my thoughts with their eyes.” I believe strongly in helping the mentally ill–and these people do sound irrational to me. I don’t believe that comment was made in hate–or why would the person who posted be at this site?
on February 17th, 2012 at 12:37 am
If these so-called “sovereigns” weren’t so clearly dangerous, I’d pull out the popcorn right now.
But there’s a good reason government documents are written simply (though I’d say they’re more at a sixth- or seventh-grade reading level): so as many people as possible can understand them. If this clown thinks his “grammar” is better than that of the government, I really wonder where he learned to write!!
on February 17th, 2012 at 10:19 am
Dont mistake their filings and beliefs as the result of a mental illness. Its very simple: Greed.
on February 17th, 2012 at 11:57 pm
Shadow wolf and concerned Citizen, just put ‘em on a boat and track it so they don;t come back here. Let them choose a better country.