Caution: That Axe Can Cut Both Ways

[kevin_standlee]

While driving to the office today, I heard a caller on a conservative talk show complaining about certain members of the US Congress being highly critical of our country's forces in Iraq and elsewhere. The mid-twenties caller said those people criticizing our troops were guilty of "treason."

"Treason" is an extremely strong word, and not one people should throw around so freely. There's a reson it's the only crime defined in the US Constitution; the country's founders knew that governments tended to use "treason" to mean "dissent against whoever is in charge right now."

Dissent, even very strongly-worded dissent, is not treason. Treason is "levying war against [the United States], or in adhering to [the country's] enemies, giving them aid and comfort." I suppose some people think that criticizing the government or its agents (including our military) is "giving aid and comfort," but that's taking things too far.

Anyone who throws around the word "treason" against opponents of the current government should be really careful, unless of course you assume that your friends will be the Permanent Government. Assuming the opposition comes into power again someday, those same charges you levied can be turned against you.

But of course, the tendency of whoever is in charge to try and silence the opposition is an old tradition. For the USA, start with the Alien & Sedition Acts and move onward from there. I simply hope we will eventually retreat from the current swing, just as we always have before.

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have to remind myself that Republicans are not in fact automatically guilty of treason (despite the fact that the current government is in fact an enemy of the United States).

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

While I agree in general that the current government is mismanaging the country, I don't think that a government can be guilty of treason against itself.

The same speaker went on to say how important it was that "our enemies fear us." I said to the radio, "That's not the problem. The problem is that our friends fear us, too, and that's why we are rapidly running out of friends." But I doubt that means anything to people like that. As long as everyone else cowers in fear of Big Bad Bully America, he'll be happy.

[danjite.livejournal.com]

But, he asked, can a government can be guilty of treason against it's people?



Or if it doesn't like them, can it dissolve them and elect a new people?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

It's sad that we find ourselves in a position where we ask such questions.

I haven't given up on the USA yet.

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

I blame the current Administration who was the first to use the T word in referencing dissenters. It was not even a word often used against dissenters during the Vietnam War, as my limited ability to recall things from that time recalls.

[cherylmmorgan.livejournal.com]

You know, I suspect that most of these people have no idea what "treason" means, beyond it being "a really bad thing to do to your country."

I also think that most people have a tendency to over-react. You've talked before how people tend to yell "I'll sue" at the slightest provocation. And today I was reading up on freedom of speech (in that book about Internet privacy I blogged about). The author was explaining how you can't just make it illegal to tell lies about others, because people can and do make mistakes, and you can't have debate if people are going to sue the minute someone gets a fact about them wrong. So if you are going to allow people to sue for defamation you have to require them to prove malicious intent. That reminded about how often, when someone has objected to one of my book reviews, they immediately assumed that I didn't really dislike the book (how could one dislike a book that they liked?), but that instead I had maliciously told lies about it with the express purpose of causing distress to the author.

People like being the center of stories, and consequently they always dramatize things.

[whumpdotcom.livejournal.com]

Why listen to Conservatives? It's bad for one's health.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Becuase staying inside of a single belief circle is dangerous. You need to know what others who don't necessarily agree with you are saying and doing.

I'm subscribed to a number of advocacy news digests, including one for public transportation advocacy. The list (quite rightly) includes stories written by people who are firm opponents of all forms of public transport. If you don't know what they're saying, you won't be prepared to refute it when necessary.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Becuase staying inside of a single belief circle is dangerous. You need to know what others who don't necessarily agree with you are saying and doing.

Bravo.

John Stuart Mill wrote, "Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument; but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it." If we fail to listen to those with whom we disagree, then we cannot say that we have considered their arguments and found them unsound. We have, instead, made judgment without reason, fact, or logic.

Since this is what we accuse our opponents of, it's probably wise not to be guilty of this same thing ourselves.

[howeird]

Devil's Advocate time (not my true sentiments):
The caller is correct. Surely it gives comfort and joy to the enemy to hear officials of the US government criticize their own military. Note that the caller was not calling them traitors for being against the current administration - that is completely different from being against the rank and file troops and their officers. Your argument leaps that rather deep and wide gulf far too effortlessly.

/devil'sAdvocate

IMHO, an all-volunteer army which doesn't have the moral fortitude to refuse to incarcerate, torture and blow up innocent civilians does not deserve our support.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

"Supporting our troops" does not mean "always agree and endorse all actions taken by every soldier under every circumstance." In general, we should support our troops, who are doing the job they've been ordered to do by the duly elected civilian government. But that doesn't mean it's out of line to criticize specific actions taken that one believes are wrong.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

"Supporting our troops" does not mean "always agree and endorse all actions taken by every soldier under every circumstance."

Yes. Support our troops means, or damned well should mean, "do not force our military men and women to fight for stupid reasons or die in the service of idiocy, greed, and the self-aggrandizement of those who would leave a 'legacy' for historians to study."