German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has banned a major faction of the far-right “Reichsbürger” movement. Some leaders of the group, the “Kingdom of Germany,” have been arrested, including its self-declared king.
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has banned the far-right group “Königreich Deutschland” (“Kingdom of Germany”), a faction within the so-called “Reichsbürger” (Reich Citizens) movement, accusing it of trying to establish a “counter-state” within Germany.
The ban came as police on Tuesday conducted raids on the properties of key members of the group in seven German states, making four arrests, including that of Peter Fitzek, the self-declared monarch of the “Kingdom.”
Security authorities believe Fitzek to have founded the group in 2012.
This group calls themselves Reichsbürger, and from my understanding it’s essentially equivalent to Sovereign Citizens in the US.
Installing a monarchy may be the stated goal, but it is not in itself the reason why people join this group. Rather it is about illegitimizing the current government so that they (supposedly) do not hold power over you.
There are various reasons why people would join a group like that, but a common one seems to be that they are running away from the consequences of their actions in one form or another. If the government is illegitimate, then the pain their society imposes (e.g. unpaid fines, mounting debt, etc) is also illegitimate.
The reason for the government’s illegitimacy is irrelevant. All that matters is that the state should be illegitimized in some way.
Sovereign citizens are supposedly individualistic and about freedom, “citizens of USSR” and Reichsbürger are a bit different.
Would be a noble goal to bring obligations closer to something voluntarily taken and not just obedience.
Call a strong bad man (a politician in his own opinion) a bitch in presence of someone of his relatives, and the ensuing events will make you sympathize with them.
It may be noble, but it is also a bit out of touch with reality.
When you participate in society (even if it is something as simple as buying groceries at the supermarket) then you have to follow the rules of that society that you participate in. We have decided together as a society, democratically, what those rules are.
You can’t then say “I’m not playing by the rules” and expect people to just accept that.
Edit: Fixed a typo
No we haven’t. If you opt out of a vote, you are still treated as if you have an obligation to obey its result. That’s not how “deciding together” works. When you put magical words where something well-proven should be, you get Putin.
Some existing mechanism spitting out rules is not “the society”.
There’s such a thing as mandate, and there is such a thing as a source of a right, and so on.
None of the laws you can find are well-founded in these. Official mechanisms make laws outside of their mandate all the time, and nobody cares about sources of right, replacing that logic with a stick.
Which means that a legally literate person understands everything can be contested. Calling that “not playing by the rules” is an attack at the dignity of your equal, you peer, who is trying to dispute philosophy and law with you. They may be clumsy, but their right to contest statements in those is never in question.
I mean, the USA has that 9th amendment, all it says is that rights are transcendent and the constitution can only confirm them, it’s not a source of rights and rights are not limited by what’s said in the constitution.
This is just amazing. Because without accepting that rights are transcendent you encounter contradictions only resolvable by violence everywhere.
And this “rules of the society” thing you’ve said means just that somebody is more potent at violence than me. It’s a return to barbarism.