Redemption movement
The redemption movement is a pseudolegal conspiracy theory marketed as a debt elimination scam. It holds that when the US government abandoned the gold standard in 1933, it pledged its citizens as collateral in place of the gold to support the currency. (Related theories hold this occurred in 1913 with the formation of the Federal Reserve.) The attractive bit is the claim that you can redeem your birth bond for FREE MONEY!
Actually putting any of this into practice gets you fined or put into jail.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
The notion originated in the US with white supremacist Roger Elvick, who pushed it through the 1980s and early 1990s. He went to jail, of course.
The idea is most of the source of the strawman theory.
Despite the name, it has nothing to do with Christianity.
[edit] How it works
Elvick believed that the government deposits exactly $630,000 into a hidden bank account linked to the newborn American and administered by a Jewish cabal.
Its promoters claim that if you complete the correct magical legal manoeuvres, you can avail yourself of the $630,000 held in the name of your doppelganger persona, and that after filing the correct paperwork at the courthouse declaring oneself a sovereign citizen, one's home loans and other debts can be paid in full by tendering a "sight draft" or "bill of exchange" in the name of the U.S. Treasury.
[edit] Ideological descendants
The ideas of the redemption movement were later taken up by the freeman on the land movement, which claims that similar birth bonds exist in Canada and the UK.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ United States v. Anderson, 353 F.3d 490 (6th Cir. 2003), at [1].
- ↑ United States v. Dykstra, 991 F.2d 450 (8th Cir. 1993), at [2].
- ↑ United States v. Hildebrandt, 961 F.2d 116 (8th Cir. 1992), at [3].
- ↑ United States v. Rosnow, 9 F.3d 728 (8th Cir. 1993), at [4].
- ↑ United States v. Salman, 531 F.3d 1007 (9th Cir. 2008), at [5].
- ↑ United States v. Wiley, 979 F.2d 365 (5th Cir. 1992), at [6].