Re: strange article about survivalists
Yes indeedy, FEMA is an exceptionally corrupted entity. It is unfortunate for us (and in turn fortunate for it) that many people have not been able to truly appreciate how debased FEMA is due, in part, to all the attention and headlines garnered in recent years by the even worse abomination - HSA. Comparatively, FEMA has been relegated to a poor man's HSA, or in other words, the latter is like the enhanced V2 of an already perfectly despicable and serviceable prototype.
On the topic of Sovereignty. There was a small albeit significantly important snippet of a clue I wanted to mention but forgot. I had mentioned the animation into existence of a corporation given the identical name of an already well known and previously existing title - United States. There are other variables in play and depending on how some of those other variables may manifest from time to time, this is not always a 100% ironclad clue, but it is a fairly reliable clue as to how a flesh & blood person can discern the difference between the like-named entities. The fictional, corporate version routinely appears in the form UNITED STATES. For instance, people who have reason to be on the receiving end of correspondence from this corporate entity will generally be tipped off that this is the case by this form UNITED STATES appearing on the correspondence - such as letter head, or other documents that appear to be official.
In the wake of 1871, it would required several more decades of continued evolution in the process and operation of the fictional corporate entity - UNITED STATES, acting as though it was the original United States, but over time, eventually, the latter entity was able to lure and subsequently enlist all 50 states in the Union to incorporate themselves in like fashion. The original Union consisted of 13 separate state legislatures, such as the state of New York, the state of Georgia, the state of Maryland, and the "keystone state of Pennsylvania". For all practical purposes, these original 13 states united within the Union named United States each constituted separate, individual, independent IE> sovereign, nations. In other words, the sovereign nation of United States was constituted (pun intended) of 13 individual sovereign nations. The evolution in our use of the language has been such that over the years, people have attained the habit of referring to the former as "nation" and the latter as "states" but it is important to remember that at one time, both were both. The nation "United States" was a state IE> government, and the 13 states were each a nation. As a figurehead so to speak, United States represented the top level state that signified a sovereign nation that itself was made up by a voluntary Union of 13 separate and independent "state" nations.
As of the aforementioned slight of hand perpetrated by the Act of 1871, the top level United States, on paper (somewhat dubious paper at that) was replaced by a fictional entity - UNITED STATES. It was not until after the reign of FDR that the wheels of this brand of justice had turned enough to allow all 50 states, one by one, to be herded into and converted "sheared" from their sovereign status to fictional corporate status and thereby putting them in line with the aims of their corporate parent. The state of New York became the STATE OF NEW YORK, state of Georgia became STATE OF GEORGIA, so on and so forth. Look it up! Each state previously had their own organic Constitution. Subsequently each state legislature enacted the processes to revise their Constitutions to bring them up to date and officially animate the new fictional versions "STATE" into operation. This process had generally completed by the era of the 1950s. Since that time, a corresponding large body of pseudo / quasi "federal law" was invented with the purpose of creating new court procedures "law" that ties and blends together - for commercial purposes, all of this fictional corporate activity acting as though it is of real flesh & blood. This large body of new law is known as UCC - Uniform Commercial Code. In a separate but related legal maneuver, the Supreme Court ruled "decided" that for business purposes (such as but not limited to tax purposes), a corporation is a person. This ruling was it's own "keystone state" of sorts, without which the notion of UCC would never have flown.
What does one suppose this code endeavored to render uniform? Find the answer to that question and you will also have the information that ties together the pieces and snippets of history mentioned in this thread on the topic of sovereignty, be it state sovereignty or private/personal individual sovereignty.