Posted on 10/08/2009 3:24:29 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Article III of the Constitution defines treason against the United States in three ways: levying war against the country, adhering to the country's enemies, or giving aid or comfort to enemies. The punishment for treason is death, but the article requires a high burden of proof. It is the only crime defined in the Constitution.
Sedition, on the other hand, is defined by statute and has a lower burden of proof. Sedition is an attempt to disrupt or overthrow the constitutional government of the United States or incite resistance to lawful authority. Here is the relevant US Code:
Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or
etc. snipped
When the right-wing website NewsMax.com ran a John Perry column praising the idea of a military coup against the president, they were also engaging in sedition. NewsMax wisely pulled the column, but Perry's rhetoric is only growing more common with a new burst of militia movement activity. Sedition keeps showing up on talk radio: Michale Savage has pined for armed revolt on the air, and Jim Quinn has called for riots. The callers can be even worse...
snip
You would think that Republicans, being the party of law and order, would move quickly to condemn this kind of speech. But in fact, they both enable and encourage it. Texas Governor Rick Perry famously invoked the spectre of secession against stimulus spending and health care reform; Republicans regularly stovepipe policy statements through FreeRepublic.com, whose founder openly advocates the overthrow and removal of the entire US government.
When Michele Bachmann asked listeners to be "armed and dangerous" on cap & trade, it wasn't her first use of a violent metaphor. She has spoken of "slitting our wrists" to become "blood brothers" in defeating health care reform. In her speech, culture wars are conflated with potential violence in an atmosphere of insurrection. Bachmann has repeatedly curried favor with birther website World Net Daily, which now campaigns for Obama's impeachment.
Of course, this is all just rhetoric -- so far. It is a right-wing fantasy of reversing last November's democratic election, replacing it with a 'return' to some mythical golden age through the violence of an armed minority. It is the same as saying we know better than the majority and have the guns to prove it.
snip
We have already seen sedition; the first shot fired would definitely qualify as "levying war against the United States" -- treason.
Let us dare to call these things by their proper names.
Laughable. Especially since Obama and company are themselves dead set on destroying our legal constitutional government and ushering in world socialism.
Perry was not a conservative and the article did not praise the idea of a coup.
The Left are a funny bunch. They collaborate with our enemies and dare call us traitors.
I’m living in a very bad Hollywood script. That’s the only explanation.
It’s not laughable. I know you meant that in a different way. But this is serious. Bachmann’s comments were clearly meant figuratively, but the HuffPoseurs are willing to call them seditious . . . If they ever manage to consolidate power, what they write here will be deadly serious.
The only question is whether they can still be stopped at the ballot box in 2010 and 2012.
they are a bunch of maroons.
hitlerian behavior, are you surprised.
I don’t think the lefties want to bring up execution for treason, since the highest levels of our government are guilty of it in so many ways.
america probably would vote for ham sandwich rather than obama in 2012. question is will this vote get all acorned over?
These people are nuts. Pure nuts.
They have John Holdren wanting to force mass sterilization, Kevin Jennings wanting to recruit elementary kids into gay and other perverted lifestyles, that one Cabinet member who thinks we can save the world by painting the roofs white etc etc
HuffPo considers those people “normal”.
oh they talk about high burden of proof, then they give us a high burden of poof. we say we come unarmed. this time.
So we have to pass this unconstitutional government rationed healthcare bill. And who is going to pay? When rationed healthcare is free, it sure seems to cost a whole lot.
Isn’t it odd the puff-puffs were all worked up in a snit over the library cards being spied on, but not a whimper when the government wants to warehouse and peruse your healthcare data. Actually I doubt that passes constitutional muster either. Puff pukes.
Yo Matt, get back to me when you condemn this clown and his buddies who nurtured and groomed the current POS in the WH.
This has me ‘LOL’ing, because WE have all the guns!!!
Come and make my day, Comrade.
Two words: “nineteen eightyfour”
dont banish me to canada please
That said, how does a person chained to a world slave ideology know what treason is? They have no country and they have no loyalties, they only live in fear of the state.
Ping to a JR thread.
Maxine Waters said yesterday that if single payer isn’t in the HC bill “Bricks will fly”.
Thomas Jefferson said;
“When the people fear the government you have tyranny, when the government fears the people you have liberty.”
Why don’t THEY go to Canada if they love socialism so much?
yeah they sure funny who they trust with this private data. wait till it turns on them.
Where u is at?
I direct your attention to the word "lawful." Since the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, resistance to unconstitutional government action cannot be seditious.
The constitutionality of much that the government does is certainly open to argument, and to the extent that argument prevails, then the government cannot be seen as acting lawfully. The government can take enforcement action against those who resist its usurpations, but that does not make the objects of that enforcement seditious.
They always for get that last part ... libturds think they are for life.
It’s lovely how the leftist now all of a sudden have become concerned with treason. Of course as usual they redefine the word like they redefine alot of words to suit their twisted political and social agenda.
Ballot box in 2010, now that is funny, I mean laughable for real.
I’ll see you in the camps before then. This is how it started in NAZI Germany, those who resisted the socialists were called all the really bad names. Then they just started taking them away.
bummer runs his pinocchio nose into our fists (so to speak) then wails that we socked him in the face. bummer should not be running community organizing website while so called president!
Free Republic does not advocate or condone racism, violence, rebellion, secession, or an overthrow of the government.
http://www.freerepublic.com/home.htm
Sue this clown for slander!
ill noise
Ping to a Jim Robinson/Thompson thread...
“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
~Abraham Lincoln, Address Before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois (January 27, 1838)
Related:
What Good Can a Handgun Do Against An Army?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2312894/posts
That is why we have to fight to preserve the Second Amendment.
The National Socialists in Germany had no resistance from an unarmed populace.
Yep...they are going all in....
Dissent is now sedition...
So much for that “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism” garbage they spewed for eight years, huh?
All of a sudden, dissent is racist, sexist, homophobic, seditious, and treasonous. I would find it a lot more humorous myself if they weren’t so dead serious about it and I didn’t think they’d start Stalinist purges for it in my lifetime.
more like army of angry angry voters. the give a damn factor has got to go way up in future if we are to run roughshod over acorn like they deserve
You have to break some eggs to make an omelet. C’mon down to the Gulf Coast, you’ll like it down here.
If the leftists really want to have conversations about which party currently is and has been committing treason, I'm all for it. As long as the lamestream media will report our side of that conversation too.
come on cant you just give chicago to canada?
Only if they take Detroit too.
who was it who said if this is treason let us make the most of it? patrick henry?
I doubt if the Canadians are that stupid.
Works for me.
Fair is fair, though. If they want to attack us I’m game; but we’re fighting back.
Since we’ve got all of the guns and guts I suspect it’ll be a short battle with a happy ending. . .
thats a deal. canadians make better cars anyhow.
Please. Interrupting with facts interfers with the hyperventilating hyperbole....
BTW, if there is any doubt the Left would shoot us to shut us up, they are now getting brazen enough to say it out loud.
And *we're* the danger to the Republic.
Gotta say it about these handmaidens of hell: They're unhindered by a sense of irony.
they would probably prefer it to toronto but then where does toronto go? to russia?
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