...I would like to point out that the purpose of this website is not to debate the doctrinal schisms within the contemporary Moorish Science movement. There are indeed plenty of Moorish-oriented websites where this can be debated "in-house." However, at risk of extending the debate, I think it would be instructive to take a look at what the Anti-Defamation League has to say about the Moorish movement on their page on the "Sovereign Citizen Movement." On this page "Moorish groups" are discussed alongside grassroots-right groups such as the Montana Freemen, the Republic of Texas and the ultra-racist Posse Comitatus.

First, this what they say about about the sigificance of the "Pernicious 14th Amendment" to these groups:

Among the various subjects of energetic sovereign citizen revisionism, perhaps none is more important than the 14th Amendment. Ratified in 1868, the Amendment had several aims, including the guaranteeing of United States citizenship for the ex-slaves. But to sovereign citizens it did much more; they claim that before its ratification, virtually no one was a "citizen of the United States." One would previously have been a citizen of the republic of Ohio or of some other state; only residents of Washington, D.C., or federal territories were citizens of the United States. The 14th Amendment created an entirely new class of citizens, they argue, one that anybody, theoretically, could voluntarily join.

But to become a citizen of the United States was to willingly subject oneself to the complete authority of the federal and state governments; clearly, no one would want to do this. The government, therefore, tricked people into entering into its jurisdiction and that of the "corporate" state government by having them sign contracts with it. The trick was that people did not even realize they were signing contracts: these included items like Social Security cards, drivers' licenses, car registrations, wedding licenses or even, as Terry Nichols noted, hunting licenses and zip codes.

The sovereign citizen solution to this problem is the one that Nichols used. Since these contracts were made without people's knowledge, they could be declared invalid and torn up. Social Security numbers, licenses and permits, even birth certificates could be revoked, allowing people thereby to become "sovereign citizens," freed from the jurisdiction of the "de facto" government and courts. They were once more subject only to the "common law."

The development of this theory resulted in a movement whose members believe not only that virtually all levels of government have no jurisdiction over them whatsoever, but also that acceptance of any government regulation or permit means entering into a "contract" with the government that results in the loss of liberty and freedom. Consequently, committed sovereign citizens resist, sometimes with violence, nearly every form of governmental authority, from police enforcing traffic regulations to inspectors enforcing building codes. Unsurprisingly, they end up in constant conflict with the law.

Here is ADL's brief entry on the Moorish-Americans:

Moorish groups. The resurgence of sovereign citizen activity in the 1990s led to an unexpected development: the appropriation of sovereign citizen ideology and tactics by a variety of African American groups. These groups, generally identifying themselves as "Moors," combine standard sovereign citizen theories with many new twists and additions of their own. Some groups are, to varying degrees, Islamic in nature, while others adhere to various New Age philosophies. Examples include the Moorish Nation, the United Mawshakh Nation of Nuurs and the Washitaw Nation. A number of such groups have ties to "traditional" sovereign citizen groups. Many of their tactics are the same, too, from bogus automobile documents to Redemption.

And what is "Redemption"?

The most recent surge in the use of fictitious financial instruments began in 1999 with the development of a tactic called "Redemption" (sometimes known as "Accept for Value"), based on the theories of Roger Elvick, a sovereign citizen and white supremacist convicted on fraud charges in the 1980s. Redemptionists argue that by using a complicated process known as "regaining one's straw man" they can establish special Treasury Department accounts and issue bogus instruments they call "sight drafts" to pay off debts or make purchases. Should law enforcement officials or others interfere with this activity, redemptionists are told to file falsified I.R.S. Form 8300s against them, alleging that such officials engaged in a suspicious currency transaction. By the end of 1999, Redemption had swept across the country. Sovereign citizen organizations like The Aware Group, Rightway L.A.W. and the Republic of Texas, among others, regularly hold Redemption seminars to teach the tactic to eager audience members. A number of practitioners have been arrested since 1999 in Idaho, Ohio, Oregon, West Virginia and other states for attempting to pass the fictitious sight drafts or for harassing public officials attempting to halt the practice. In 2001, it is probably the single most popular sovereign citizen tactic.

However, sovereign citizens have a number of other weapons at their disposal. Many have engaged in a variety of frauds and scams, often targeting people with similar ideological beliefs in what might be called affinity fraud. A few of these schemes, most notably those perpetrated by the Colorado-based We the People and the Florida-based Greater Ministries International in the 1990s, took in millions of dollars. Other sovereign citizen groups, like the Embassy of Heaven and the Washitaw Nation, have specialized in the creation of fictitious car-related documents ranging from drivers' licenses to license plates.

Without wishing to pass judgement on the doctrine of "Redemption," I will point out that the license plate issue is, at least potentially, a little more complicated than portrayed here. For instance, the Native Hawaiian sovereignty movement has also issued its own license plates—and given that the US Congress has officially apologized for the 1893 US-backed coup that deposed the Hawaiian monarchy and led to the archipelago's annexation, this assertion of sovereignty cannot be dismissed as dubious. The case was argued eloquently in the Washington Law Review in 1996, in an article posted on the Hawaii Nation website.

Similarly, the Washitaw Moors claim that their soveriegnty was officially recognized by the French and Spanish colonial rulers of Louisiana, and that the US has been illegally occupying their lands since the Louisiana Purchase. Again, I do not wish here to pass judgement on the veracity of this claim, as I have not exhaustively researched it—I am merely noting its existence.

So while I warn my Moorish brothers and sisters against adopting the ideology of those who would ultimately like to hang them (e.g. Posse Comitatus), I likewise warn the ADL against painting with too broad a brush...