Just let it roll off of your back as best you can. I'm sitting around a campfire, and one of my friends starts up, "so you're a physics guy, don't you think that the Earth could be hollow?". I offered to give him a list of reasons why 99.999% of scientists don't believe that particular theory, but he genuinely wasn't interested. He started attacking the "framework in which our scientific theories were entrenched". Like, it's cool that you're trying to poke holes in shit, but you're not going to get anywhere without "stooping" to stand on the shoulders of the giants that came before us, as they say. I guess anti-science-establishment-ism would make more sense to me if the technologies governing our daily lives weren't progressing primarily due to scientific research. It's a really weird disconnect some people have.
This happens everywhere. I'm a lawyer, and we hear all kinds of craziness (and not just from Sovereign Citizens, although that's my personal favorite brand of crazy). But there's also less systematic forms, more like common misconceptions...for example, the idea that an undercover police officer has to identify themselves as such if you ask. When I first started learning Biblical Greek, my textbook said something that amounted to "if you think you've come up with an alternate translation that will fundamentally change Christian theology, the odds are good that you're wrong." I can only imagine the e-mails he gets.
What are those? Which breaks the point of "undercover" in half, washes it in salt and eats it for breakfast. Any reasonable-sounding base for that one?Sovereign Citizens
for example, the idea that an undercover police officer has to identify themselves as such if you ask.
Oh, you're in for a treat. They are the centerpiece of a broad category of nonsense. Think snake oil, only applying to English-derived legal systems (they seem to be most prevalent in the U.S., Canada, and the UK). Broadly speaking, they believe based on various logical leaps and historical inaccuracy that the government doesn't actually have any authority to them. Where it often comes up is in the case of income taxes and traffic stops. Basically, they have various theories about how they're not really subjects of the federal government. Sometimes it's that they're only citizens of their state. Sometimes it just applies to courts (which is where they usually end up); for example, the idea that federal courts can only sit in admiralty (i.e. maritime law), and so have no jurisdiction outside of that. Usually it's more about how these courts don't have any jurisdiction over them. The IRS is a frequent target. There are a lot of ways they go about this. Some try to selectively renounce their citizenship, for example. They're also big believers in the idea that if you write something a certain way in a court document, this has different effects (whether it's a different color, using odd punctuation, whatever). They also like to cite to the Uniform Commercial Code a lot (odd since the UCC itself has no legal effect whatsoever). Usually they're just cooks, but every once in awhile they can be dangerous. There have been instances of these folks attacking police or using violence on others, and of course the most famous example is the Oklahoma City Bombing, where a couple of anti-government types set off a car bomb at a U.S. government office building, killing 168. None as far as I can tell. It's something I've seen on TV a lot, but I think that's a response to the trope rather than the cause of it.Sovereign Citizens
Any reasonable-sounding base for that one?
They still use the government-funded social advantages like medicine or schooling, correct?Broadly speaking, they believe based on various logical leaps and historical inaccuracy that the government doesn't actually have any authority to them.