This originally ran at HuffPo on the 8th of October, 2009.
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
Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or
Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof (Emphasis mine)
The statute was written before YouTube, but a video calling for violent overthrow of the democratically elected President of the United States certainly qualifies as “sedition.” So does this video:
Mind you, that one comes from the National Association of Rural Landowners — one of the sponsors of the 9/12 “tea parties.” That’s how far this kind of un-American rhetoric has penetrated the mainstream conservative movement.
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:
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.
That is the very definition of fascism.
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.
