The theory holds that an individual has two personas. One of them is a physical, tangible human being, and the other is the
legal person, often referred to as a legal fiction. When a baby is born in the U.S., a
birth certificate is issued, and the parents apply for a
Social Security number. Sovereigns say the government uses that birth certificate to set up a secret
Treasury account which it funds with an amount ranging from $600,000 to $20 million, depending on the particular sovereign belief system. Hence, every newborn's rights are split between those held by the flesh-and-blood baby and the corporate shell account. The strawman theory is coupled with the belief that the government is actually a
corporation. Said corporation is supposedly
bankrupt and uses its citizens as
collateral against
foreign debt. After each person's strawman is created through their birth certificate, a loan is taken out in the name of the strawman. The proceeds are then deposited into the secret government account associated with the fictitious person’s name. Proponents of the theory believe the evidence is found on the birth certificate itself. Because many certificates show all
capitals to spell out a baby's name, JOHN DOE (under the Strawman theory) is the name of the "straw man", and John Doe is the baby's "real" name. As the child grows, most legal documents will contain capital letters, which means that his state-issued driver's license, his marriage license, his car registration, his criminal court records, his cable TV bill, correspondence from the IRS, etc., pertain to his strawman and not his sovereign identity. The theory is also based in part on a misinterpretation of the
Uniform Commercial Code, which provides an interstate standard for documents such as
driver's licenses or for
bank accounts: adherents to the theory see this as evidence that these documents, and the associated laws and financial obligations, do not apply to them, but instead to the "straw man". One scheme, notably advocated by sovereign citizen theorist
David Wynn Miller, involves adding
punctuation—typically
hyphens and
colons—to one's name: Miller would write his name as
:David-Wynn: Miller or
David-Wynn: Miller and verbally said it "David hyphen Wynn full colon Miller". Russell Porisky, a Canadian tax protester who emulated Eldon Warman's ideas, His concepts relied on a misinterpretation of the definition of a "person" in section 248(1) of the
Canadian Income Tax Act, which he combined with the strawman theory. Porisky was convicted in 2012 of tax evasion and was sentenced in 2016 to five and a half years in prison. Believers of the theory also extend it to law and legal responsibilities, claiming that only their strawman is required to adhere to statutory laws. They also claim that legal proceedings are taken against strawmen rather than persons and when one appears in court they appear as representing their strawman. The justification for this is the false notion that governments cannot force anybody to do anything. A strawman is therefore created which the adherent believes he or she is free to command. Proponents cite a misinterpretation of a passage in chapter 39 of
King John's
Magna Carta stating in part that, "no freeman will be seized, dispossessed of his property, or harmed except by the law of the land”. Adherents to the theory believe that separating from their strawman or refusing to be identified as such enables escape from their legal liabilities and responsibilities. This is typically attempted by denying they are a "person" in the same way as their strawman, or by writing their name in non-standard ways, using red ink, and placing finger prints on court documents. The use of thumbprints and signatures in red ink, in particular, is meant to distinguish "flesh and blood" people from the "strawman", since black and blue inks are believed to indicate corporations. The theory also holds that even after "removing" their strawman, people must remain cautious and take steps to avoid recognizing the validity of government regulations, which would make them succumb to another "invisible contract", experience "
joinder" and thus fall back under government authority.) can be used to pay one's taxes, debts and other liabilities by simply writing phrases like "Accepted for Value" or "Taken for Value" on the bills or collection letters, or that the strawman's funds are accessible through the use of certain
forms and
securities. Such schemes are commonly known as
A4V. One purported "redemption" method for appropriating the money from the alleged secret account is to file a
UCC-1 financing statement against one's strawman after having taken the steps to "separate" from it. His arguments were rejected by Canadian
provincial and
Federal courts. ==Legal status of the theory==