From Deceit to Delusion: How Ruling Class Lies Fuel the Sovereign Citizen Trap

Read Time:11 Minutes

Separating the Sovereign Citizen (OPCA) Movement from Legitimate Questioning of Authority

Originally published on History with a Why substack by Lorraine Pratley.

In this article I explore the rise of the “sovereign citizen” (sovcit) pseudolaw movement in Australia, how it feeds on alienation, inequality, and distrust, and how it is weaponised against legitimate criticisms of state and corporate power. I look at the tragic case of Dezi/Desmond Freeman, who allegedly shot two police officers dead and injured a third on Tuesday, the dangers posed by pseudolegal beliefs, while acknowledging the political need to address the real roots of misinformation: the ruling class lies that fracture public trust.

The Root Problem: Deceptions from Above

The ruling class has a long history of lying — about Palestinian resistance being “terrorism,” about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that neoliberalism would make wealth would “trickle down”, that politicians are there to represent us, or that the pharmaceutical industry and public health infrastructure are trustworthy. With deception this widespread, it is hardly surprising that some people turn to strange and destructive ideas, including the “sovereign citizen” (or Organised Pseudolegal Commercial Argument (OPCA)[1]) movement.

Freeman and the Pseudolaw Trap

This recent police shooting in Porepunkah, Victoria, has highlighted the risks of these beliefs. While it’s still unclear how deep Desmond Freeman was into OPCA ideology, media is uncovering compelling evidence.

“Pseudolaw magnifies problems for the individual,” one (well worth reading) legal review explained. “Most commonly, pseudolegal argumentation will extend the time, energy and costs incurred by the adherent. These arguments also increase societal costs.”[2]

The problem isn’t just the risk of violence. It’s that pseudolaw dupes people, ruins lives, and provides the state with an excuse to smear and crack down on wider dissent — including legitimate critics of authoritarian policies during COVID-19.

Why Do People Get Drawn In?

Dr Josh Roose of Deakin University points to inequality and social breakdown as key drivers:[3]

“You’ve got this rapidly increasing inequality in the regions. People often can’t even buy a house in the town they grew up in because they’ve been locked out by investors — industries have packed up and moved, farms have shut down, other forms of the economy have taken over in regional Australia.”

“What we’ve seen here [in Porepunkah] is an individual who’s moved off grid, who has a long history of engagement in sovereign citizen circles … who’s armed himself to the teeth and has a deep hatred of police.”

Isolation, Roose adds, can radicalise: “If you think about it, it’s no different to people sitting in the hills of Afghanistan and being exposed to radical ideologies.”

This Afghanistan comparison is technically a good one, but what about the very recent and local example of what happened during lockdowns!? When governments imposed isolation, they created conditions for paranoia to spread. Authorities need to be held accountable for that. I’ve noticed that experts like Roose studiously avoid any criticism of official pandemic narratives – I guess they know which side their bread is buttered on.

The Freeman case echoes the 2022 Wieambilla shootings in Queensland, where the Train family combined pseudolaw, pre-millenarianism-style Christian fundamentalism, and prepper-style armed separatism, killing two police officers before being killed themselves.

University of South Australia associate professor Joe McIntyre spoke to Four Corners, as part of a story about the rise of the sovereign citizen movement in Australia and the increasing risk of violent confrontations between some of its adherents and the state. He said the “Convoy to Canberra” protest held outside Parliament House in early 2022 was the largest protest ever held on the doorstep of parliament, and was attended by average citizens, anti-vaxxers, and activists protesting the COVID restrictions imposed by governments. (note the unusually honest separation of categories in this listing). McIntyre:

“For a lot of people, that was the first time that they’d really confronted law as a coercive force.”

“Also present at the protest was a small but growing group who didn’t just resent the government’s rules; they rejected its legitimacy entirely: sovereign citizens. Since that protest, experts say that group has only gained momentum. “Post COVID, the sovereign citizen movement isn’t fringe anymore,” according to Professor Heilpern, former Magistrate and judicial trainer.” [4]

Law, Justice, and the Pseudolaw Delusion

Human society cannot function without rules. Before class society, those rules were shared customs of cooperation and reciprocity. Under class society, law became an enforcement tool for a parasitic elite living off the labour of others.

(Some of us hold out hope that, one day, organised workers and their lower middle class allies overthrow the class system once and for all!)

Successful struggles to change unjust laws — workers’ movements, human rights campaigns — have always been collective, and grounded in reality. OPCA-adherents reject this. They claim that by saying “I do not consent” or “I am a living being,” they can escape taxes, fines, or cooperate with accepted legal norms. As the legal study explained:

“These phrases purport to deploy a talisman of legal immunity – like a cross presented to a vampire, state actors melt away, immunising the bearer from the need to wear masks, to pay taxes, or to hold a driver’s licence.” [5]

But the truth is brutal: no sovereign citizen case has ever succeeded. Many adherents bankrupt themselves. Leaders prey on followers, but never admit this reality. “Apart from tragedy,” writes former magistrate David Heilpern, “what do the following three police siege deaths in the last 12 months have in common?” He cites the deaths of Krista Kach, Daniel Whelan, and the Trains at Wieambilla — all spouting OPCA ideas in their final moments.

It is really sad that people believe these things.

Pseudolaw in the Freedom Movement

During the pandemic, OPCA figures like Western Australian Wayne Glew — who lost his farm for refusing to pay council rates — gained a wider audience. Some in the medical freedom movement, desperate for solutions, fell for pseudolaw promises. I saw it first-hand: videos of people spouting gibberish about “Australia is a corporation” went viral. Another was on alternative currencies, about which a friend said, “He knows a lot, but it’s too complicated for me to follow”, blaming her own perceived ignorance as the problem. Trusting the intentions of the speaker, she didn’t hear it for the BS that it was.

This is how people who simply wanted informed consent and honest science got mixed up with a destructive ideology. Embedded in the movement, I noticed a culture of “unity at all costs,” born from negative experiences with cancel culture and mainstream contempt – it meant people were reluctant to challenge bad ideas within the movement. That tolerance allowed sovcit nonsense to spread.

It’s not enough to shrug and say “live and let live” or “everyone’s opinions are valid.” These are not necessarily bad people, but they are badly deluded. As I tell anyone who raises OPCA points with me: read Rob Sudy’s Freeman Delusion website. A former believer himself, Sudy is now the foremost expert in Australia, documenting cases and exposing the false claims that circulate online. His work has helped many people escape the sovcit trap.

Violence, Guns, and State Response

The danger is not only to adherents themselves. In the U.S., Dr Christine Sarteschi has documented over 600 violent sovcit cases, including around 140 murders. Since 1983, there have been at least 75 attacks on police. [6] In Australia, magistrates report court lists are clogged with pseudolegal claims, taking “three or four times as long” as normal cases. [7]

Inevitably, these incidents fuel calls for more gun control, for domestic terror laws, and for tarring legitimate critics — including vaccine sceptics — with the sovcit brush.

A Case for Empathy, But Not for Excuses

Mainstream media often ridicules sovereign citizens. But the deeper causes — inequality, financially inaccessible courts, alienation — must be addressed. “Pseudolegal arguments are, arguably, to some extent a consequence of the conduct of [and inaccessibility of] judicial systems,” the legal review noted. [8] If people can’t afford lawyers, it’s not surprising they turn to “legalese” charlatans who promise quick fixes.

The law journal authors suggest that new litigants should be treated with patience and care, especially since many can’t afford legal representation. They note that genuine claims can sometimes get buried under “pseudolegal” arguments. For example, in a 2022 case in New Zealand, Justice Isac found that although the plaintiff’s arguments were full of sovereign citizen ideas, there was still a real breach of contract claim underneath. The plaintiff admitted they couldn’t afford proper legal help.

As for solutions, the article highlights a Canadian program where court clerks were authorised to reject documents containing common pseudolegal features—such as strange formatting of names or fingerprints in ink. The approach was effective: the court found that asking people to resubmit their documents correctly often stopped abusive litigation before it began. In fact,

unpublished data showed that about 90% of people whose documents were rejected this way never came back. [9]

At the same time, we need blunt honesty:

● Magical phrases won’t save you from reality.

● If you don’t like a law, you can either suck it up or organise with others to change it in a way that wins support.

As Father Tony Shallue, Freeman’s local priest, put it: “I knew he was a bit anti-authority, but a lot of people are. The sad thing is these sort of groups just feed into people’s pre-existing problems. They just feed the paranoia. It’s so disturbing.” [10]

Sovereign citizen ideas are a dead end — for individuals, for communities, and for society. In most cases, they appeal to people who don’t want to play by socially accepted rules. In others, desperate people latch onto fantasies that harm believers and hand the state a weapon to smear legitimate dissent. To protect the integrity of legitimate resistance, we must expose pseudolaw whenever we see it, while also fighting the deeper lies and inequalities that make people vulnerable to it in the first place.

The most comprehensive resource on pseudolaw in Australia — and one respected by the legal profession — is Robert Sudy’s Freeman Delusion website. Sudy is a former believer himself, which gives him both sympathy for those caught in the OPCA trap and deep insight into how it works. He has repeatedly called on authorities to do more to help people escape these beliefs, but those appeals have mostly been ignored.

Sudy is widely regarded as the leading expert on the subject. He rejects the term “sovereign citizen,” preferring Organised Pseudolegal Commercial Argument (OPCA), which he argues better describes the phenomenon. On his site, he explains why Australian pseudolaw developed somewhat separately from its U.S. counterpart, and why precision in language matters.

Much of his material is behind a paywall, but for good reason — the site is meticulously researched and worth supporting. If you want reliable information about myths circulating in the “freedom” space, such as claims that “Australia is a corporation” or debates around the red ensign flag, even a short-term membership is well worth it.

[1] The most comprehensive resource on pseudolaw in Australia — and one respected by the legal profession — is Robert Sudy’s Freeman Delusion website. Sudy is a former believer himself, which gives him both sympathy for those caught in the OPCA trap and deep insight into how it works. He has repeatedly called on authorities to do more to help people escape these beliefs, but those appeals have mostly been ignored.

[2] https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UNSWLawJl/2024/11.html. Read this for lots of info on the history of the movement and the types of arguments litigants try to use.

[3] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-29/sovereign-citizen-growing-movement-regional-australia/105702148

[4] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-27/sovereign-citizen-movement-potential-violence-risk-four-corners/105701810

[5] https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UNSWLawJl/2024/11.html

[6] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-27/sovereign-citizen-movement-potential-violence-risk-four-corners/105701810

[7] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-08/nsw-magistrates-report-sharp-rise-in-sovereign-citizen-cases/102285772

[8] https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UNSWLawJl/2024/11.html

[9] https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UNSWLawJl/2024/11.html

[10] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-30/dezi-freeman-sovereign-citizen-porepunkah/10571131