What is a sovereign citizen?

There is a lot of confusion (here and here) about the concept of sovereign citizen and the various movements that have sprouted from it. Opponents criticise and vilify anyone claiming his 'sovereign rights' while proponents can sense that their ancient rights and authority have been usurped, but are unable to clearly state exactly how and why. Without understanding what a covenant is, or how a sovereign lord with his loyal servants each have their clearly defined roles within it, their arguments will never really hit the mark.

A first look at the origin of the word sovereign reveals a lot:

late 13c., "superior, ruler, master," from Old French soverain "sovereign, lord, ruler," noun use of adjective meaning "highest, supreme, chief"

early 14c., "great, superior, supreme," from Old French soverain "highest, supreme, chief," from Vulgar Latin *superanus "chief, principal", from Latin super "over" (see super-). 

Source: Online Etymology 

Many sovereign citizens believe that only white men have rights because only the Constitution and the Bill of Rights apply...

Source: Rational Wiki

(Bold emphases are mine)

However, when we look at covenants and how they were originally intended to work in practise, we see that today's sovereign citizen movement is only partially right. So here is a new definition based on the ancient covenant system:

A sovereign citizen is a man who serves his family as a lord and husband under the Covenant Law of God, to whom he has pledged his oath of covenant love and loyalty.

In principle, he is only answerable to a higher authority within the covenant hierarchy. See also: Trial by Jury

My personal view is that on the whole, men who are sovereign lords over their house(hold) have a strong legal case when they refuse to obey an authority from a different system. However, wisdom is called for when deciding whether to cooperate with a different system on a voluntary basis or not. We live in a fractured society under a patchwork blanket of organisations, authorities, belief systems and religions, and need to have an eye for everyone's wellbeing, not just our own.