An excellent, bull's-eye commentary ~ I strongly believe the GOP/TPers are dipping their toes in seditious acts ~ and, in my perfect world that I know does not exist, they'd all be charged ~ they are irresponsible, arrogant, malicious, deceitful, self-serving bullies who are willing/eager to intentionally hurt millions of others to get their own warped way ~ ~ Sooz
AlterNet / By Lynn Stuart Parramore Guilty of Sedition? Tea Party Threatens America’s Economic and Political Systems Pushing the country toward disaster is what right-wingers call patriotism. Perhaps there's another name for it.
October 16, 2013 | Members of the Tea Party like to wrap up in the American flag and call themselves patriots. But does a love of country include wrecking the country?
The behavior of the GOP’s extremist faction is looking increasingly outlandish and unprecedented, like the machinations of some lunatic fringe in a country far, far away. But they're right here. They want to destroy the U.S. government and they will plainly thwart laws they don’t like in the name of foolhardy austerity and unregulated markets. Hindering a law by using threats or force, by the way, is sedition, and some have argued that the Tea Party members are guilty of this crime.
Certainly extortion has become the Tea Party’s method of choice, behavior Andrew Reinbach of Huffington Post suggests might make them subject to the 1951 Hobbs Act, which covers “extortionate threats of physical, economic and informational harm.”
As these radical elements push the country toward default, there is no doubt that much damage has already been done. The fragile U.S. economy has taken a blow as communities across the country have suffered from the shutdown. American consumers will likely be stuck with higher interest payments. The financial rating agency Fitch has warned that it may downgrade the country’s creditworthiness. That could happen even if lawmakers agree to a last-minute deal.
The deadline for default is Thursday, whether crazed Republicans can be dealt with or not. It’s difficult to say when exactly when the unpaid bills will start piling up as America’s creditors call in their debts. No one really knows precisely what would happen, because a default hasn’t occurred in modern times. But the stock market would likely take a nose dive, interest rates would spike, and a credit crunch could ensue. All of which could bring us right back to catastrophic recession. Fast.
Like a mentally unstable person standing on a bridge and mesmerized by the sight of the river below, the right seems hypnotized by a compulsion to jump into uncharted waters. They chatter that we could somehow prioritize payments. But they don’t know if this can even happen. They say that the Treasury could rig something up. Or maybe not. Maybe, deep in their hearts, they are craving a catastrophe that would weaken the government so effectively that oligarchs like the Koch brothers would be released on the country like the Kracken.
Occupy Wall Street protestors, who peacefully demonstrated in parks to call attention to economic inequality and corporate abuse, have been accused of treason and sedition and subjected to brutal suppression. Yet what was the result of their activity? A renewed public focus on the gulf that separates haves from have-nots and Wall Street crime.
The Tea Party has no such positive agenda. Its members seek to deny payments to Social Security and Medicaid recipients, letting them go without food or medicine. They have made the U.S. a spectacle of bad government, economic recklessness, and moral insensitivity. Why would global investors look favorably on a country that can’t run itself and threatens its most vulnerable citizens?
they are irresponsible, arrogant, malicious, deceitful, self-serving bullies who are willing/eager to intentionally hurt millions of others to get their own warped way
All that and more but treason has a legal definition and, IMO, they don't meet that definition... yet.
oskar, "sedition" has a legal definition as well ~ and, in my view, the GOP/TPers fit snugly into that definition ~ I also believe someone can be a "traitor" without resorting to legally treasonous acts ~ there are "live links" to more information in the Wiki quote below ~ Sooz
1. incitement of discontent or rebellion against a government. 2. any action, especially in speech or writing, promoting such discontent or rebellion. 3. Archaic. rebellious disorder.
In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel. A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interests of sedition.
***
The difference between sedition and treason consists primarily in the subjective ultimate object of the violation to the public peace. Sedition does not consist of levying war against a government nor of adhering to its enemies, giving enemies aid, and giving enemies comfort. Nor does it consist, in most representative democracies, of peaceful protest against a government, nor of attempting to change the government by democratic means (such as direct democracy or constitutional convention).
Sedition is the stirring up of rebellion against the government in power. Treason is the violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or state, giving aid to enemies, or levying war against one's state. Sedition is encouraging one's fellow citizens to rebel against their state, whereas treason is actually betraying one's country by aiding and abetting another state. Sedition laws somewhat equate to terrorism and public order laws.
Is sedition even a crime any more? I don't think there's been any legislation mentioning it since the first world war. Some folks actually went to prison for advocating against the US' participation in the war (and other wars going back to the founders' times) which doesn't recommend sedition laws, in my mind. The last version of the law was repealed in 1920. Good riddance.
Although if it were still a crime, Rick Perry could be in trouble for talking about Texas' secession, the kooks who want to gather all the libertarians in New Hampshire and then secede, etc., could be safely put away. And I would rat out my Baptist brother-in-law, who wants to establish The Kingdom Of God here in the US.
I'm with Gramps on this. That kind of law is just too damn dangerous. Sure, you might want to use it against crazies and nasties now, but if they ever get into power its YOUR head on the chopping block.
Remember McCarthyism before you start witch-hunting.
I need to double-check, but I think "sedition" is still in the federal penal code ~
CM, I disagree "That kind of law is just too damn dangerous." mostly because I see sedition as even more dangerous ~ I also don't believe in enacting laws that have interpretive opt-outs just in case I might choose to break that law sometime in the future ~ the problem I see is the blurry line between the 1st Amendment and conscious, intentional acts to undermine the government ~
Obviously, others share my own thoughts ~ ~ I am seriously thinking about signing this petition because just the threat of charges that carry a 20-year imprisonment might be a wake-up call these "great minds" will understand ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz
Petition hosted by MoveOn calls for arrest of GOP leadership on sedition charges By Travis Gettys Friday, October 18, 2013 9:01 EDT
A petition posted online at MoveOn.org is calling for the arrest of prominent House Republicans on sedition charges for their role in engineering a 16-day government shutdown.
“I call on the Justice Department of the United States of America to arrest Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Speaker of the House John Boehner, and other decision-making House Republican leaders for the crime of seditious conspiracy against the United States of America,” the petition says.
The petition had attracted nearly 36,000 digital signatures by Friday morning.
“Arrest and try all those who were a party to deliberately trying to destroy the American Economy,” said one signer.
The petition’s author, Mark Belisle, said GOP lawmakers bent the rules to prevent the Democratic minority from bringing measures to the floor that could have allowed a so-called clean funding resolution to be brought to a vote.
“The House GOP leadership’s use of the Hastert Rule and H. Res 368 to shut down the government and threaten the U.S. economy with default is an attempt to extort the United States government into altering or abolishing the Affordable Care Act, and thus, is self-evidently a seditious conspiracy,” the petition claims. “Arrest the perpetrators in Congress immediately and bring them to justice.”
MoveOn Civic Action notes at the bottom of each petition that the group does not necessarily endorse the contents of petitions posted on the site, which is offered as an open tool to allow anyone to post petitions advocating any point of view that does not violate terms of service.
According to the U.S. code, a seditious conspiracy is part of any conspiracy to “oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.”
A conviction could carry a possible 20-year prison term and unspecified fines, although First Amendment guarantees of free speech make proving sedition pretty difficult.
An Albuquerque Veterans Administration nurse was investigated on sedition charges after she wrote a letter to a local newspaper denouncing the Bush administration for its response to Hurricane Katrina and for its actions in the Iraq War.
“We need to wake up and get real here, and act forcefully to remove a government administration playing games of smoke and mirrors and vicious deceit,” wrote Laura Berg in 2005, but all charges against her were dropped the following year.
Seven members of the Hutaree militia group in Michigan were acquitted in 2012 of conspiracy and sedition charges, although two members were convicted on weapons charges in the case.
“The court is aware that protected speech and mere words can be sufficient to show a conspiracy,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Victoria Roberts in her decision. “In this case, however, they do not rise to that level.”
Omar Abdel-Rahman, known as “The Blind Sheikh,” and nine others were the last to be convicted of seditious conspiracy in the U.S. for their roles in planning the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist plots.
Watch this video showing the House voting on H.Res. 368:
I'm not at all sure that refusing to pass a bill counts as "force". "Idiocy" and "Bastardry" spring to mind far more readily.
This is one area where "slippery slope" arguments do make sense. "Sedition" type laws have been used in the past precisely to stamp on dissent and they would be used again if politicians were given the chance.
There's also the fine distinction that seems to have been missed. Does, "trying to destroy a particular Administration" mean the same as "trying to destroy the Government"? Not at all in my book, but then I live in a parliamentary rather than a presidential system. Here its entirely possible to change the Administration without changing the system of Government. It happens on a regular (if not an exactly "common" basis).
What about the Posse Comitatus and various other"militias" wandering around in the woods firing their AKs and AR15s, and distributing tracts talking about the coming overthrow of our ZOG? Training to resist law enforcement officers with deadly force. Filing bogus liens on the property of local officials. Etc. In my mind they come closest to actually being seditious. I can't bring myself around to favoring criminalizing political activity, though.
Even their name doesn't make sense. They apparently think the original Boston Tea Party was a protest against high taxes. It wasn't.
Quote:
The Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, took place when a group of Massachusetts Patriots, protesting the monopoly on American tea importation recently granted by Parliament to the East India Company, seized 342 chests of tea in a midnight raid on three tea ships and threw them into the harbor.
This action, part of a wave of resistance throughout the colonies, had its origin in Parliament's effort to rescue the financially weakened East India Company so as to continue benefiting from the company's valuable position in India. The Tea Act (May 10, 1773) adjusted import duties in such a way that the company could undersell even smugglers in the colonies. The company selected consignees in Boston, New York, Charleston, and Philadelphia, and 500,000 pounds of tea were shipped across the Atlantic in September.
Under pressure from Patriot groups, the consignees in Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia refused to accept the tea shipments, but in Boston, the chosen merchants (including two of Governor Thomas Hutchinson's sons as well as his nephew) refused to concede. The first tea ship, Dartmouth, reached Boston November 27, and two more arrived shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, several mass meetings were held to demand that the tea be sent back to England with the duty unpaid. Tension mounted as Patriot groups led by Samuel Adams tried to persuade the consignees and then the governor to accept this approach. On December 16, a large meeting at the Old South Church was told of Hutchinson's final refusal. About midnight, watched by a large crowd, Adams and a small group of Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded the ships and jettisoned the tea. To Parliament, the Boston Tea Party confirmed Massachusetts's role as the core of resistance to legitimate British rule. The Coercive Acts of 1774 were intended to punish the colony in general and Boston in particular, both for the Tea Party and for the pattern of resistance it exemplified.
Canadian famous felon Conrad Black wrote a great piece last 4th of July, describing the politics of the American Revolution from the British point of view. Maybe I can find it. It was in National Review, and was not well received. (this emoticon courtesy of Sylvia)
Canadian famous felon Conrad Black wrote a great piece last 4th of July, describing the politics of the American Revolution from the British point of view. Maybe I can find it. It was in National Review, and was not well received. (this emoticon courtesy of Sylvia)
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot post attachments in this forum
Login
FAQ
Search
sooz06
~ Sooz
~ I am seriously thinking about signing this petition because just the threat of charges that carry a 20-year imprisonment might be a wake-up call these "great minds" will understand ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz 
(this emoticon courtesy of Sylvia)