sovcit

This is an abbreviation which has popped up recently for sovereign citizen, a term that has been part of American English since the 1980s.  We have acquired our own sovereign citizens over the last decade. These are people who resist the power of the state wherever it is wielded.  They believe that acquiring licences and permits and cards from corporations (including the government which they view as a kind of corporation) involves them in entering into a contract and thus losing their sovereign status as individuals, a status acquired naturally by birth.   In America they began by defending the right to own a gun, of course, but also by refusing to pay taxes.  Or to obey the police.  They could be called modern anarchists except that an old-fashioned anarchist wouldn’t have wasted time arguing about taxes. They would have just blown everything up.  

 The abbreviation has taken a while to appear and is prompted by the arguments on the state borders about right of entry under COVID restrictions.  I don’t think the sovcits refer to themselves as such. They take themselves much too seriously.  While it is true that sovereign citizen is a bit of a mouthful, I think the rest of the community use the term as an offhand reference, a way of puncturing the inflated egos of these warriors for the rights of the individual against the state.