It's not as dramatic as my proposed wingnut treason trials, but Sara Robinson thinks we should be prosecuting sedition

I'm thinking firing squads for the treason convicts,

but hanging works too. Or maybe stoning?

"It's time to confront the sobering fact that the entire right wing -- including the GOP establishment, which encourages, endorses, and echoes these sentiments almost every time its officials appear in public -- is now issuing nearly constant invitations to criminal sedition. They're creating a climate and using language that lowers their base's inhibitions around violence -- and irresponsibly eggs on the handful of sociopaths in their midst who are already primed to kill. They've given their newly-expanded corps of flying monkeys permission to brandish their guns in public, empowered their militias, promised them glory, and are now telling them explicitly which targets to hit."

-- Sara Robinson, in "None Dare Call It Sedition"

Sedition: Crime of creating a revolt, disturbance, or violence against lawful civil authority with the intent to cause its overthrow or destruction

-- Brittanica Concise Dictionary,

as cited by Sara R

by Ken

My own impulse, in the face of the pervasive right-wing campaign to bring down the government, would be for the DoJ to begin preparing dozens of treason indictments, so that the trials can get going and in a week or so we can get on to the first of the executions. Or if we labeled them "enemy combatants," could we just turn them over to military tribunals and save even more time?

I was figuring on getting through maybe five treason trials a day. But tribunals, without breaking a sweat, ought to be able to process, say, 25 guilty verdicts a day, no? Plus, it would give the Obama people a chance to call attention to the roll-out of their latest new (wink-wink) "just the same as the Bush regime" policy.

My plan calls for starting with the 15-20 most loathsome crackpots in the Senate and 40-50 in the House. Not all Republicans, of course. The interest of bipartisanship, the noblest political virtue to which Americans, or leastwise liberals, can apparently aspire, dictates that a generous sprinkling of the most odious Dems be included. I'm thinking firing squads would be picturesque, but I could see the case for hangings. Ooh, wait, how about stoning? Followed by purification of the carcasses in bonfires, with free hot dogs and marshmallows for all.

(I bet we could get a quick signoff from the Roberts Court that none of these methods constitutes either cruel or unusual punishment with just a little trick: Slip them a case where it appears it's liberals who are going to be offed. Can't you just see Smirking John's piggy little eyes simply light up at the prospect?)

For better or worse, Sara Robinson -- one of my favorite writers -- is not only smarter than me but more, er, judicious. However, she's deadly serious about the appropriateness and urgency of getting some legal proceedings going. The crime she wants to see prosecuted is one we haven't heard much about recently: sedition.

In an important new piece posted both on the Campaign for America's Future blog and AlterNet, Sara writes:

[I]t's time to openly confront the fact that conservatives have spent the past 40 years systematically delegitimizing the very idea of constitutional democracy in America. When they're in power, they mismanage it and defund it. When they're out of power, they refuse to participate in running the country at all -- indeed, they throw all their energy into thwarting the democratic process any way they can. When they need to win an election, they use violent, polarizing, eliminationist language against their opponents to motivate their base. This is sedition in slow motion, a gradual corrosive undermining of the government's authority and capacity to run the country. And it's been at the core of their politics going all the way back to Goldwater.

Sara wants to be clear that we understand what sedition is. Advocating violent activity: legally protected though extremely dangerous. Planning and of course participating in such activity: sedition.

People who promote subversive ideas, no matter how dangerous those ideas might seem, are completely protected under the First Amendment. Even calling for the overthrow of the government is protected (though not benign, as we'll see later, because it creates justification, permission, and incitement to seditious acts). That's why the conservatives have been safe -- so far. It's only when those people start actively planning and implementing a government rebellion that it turns into criminal sedition.

Fortunately, there are hardy loony-watchers -- like the folks at the Southern Poverty Law Center -- who have become skilled at divining where the line is crossed, whether it's in terrorist or far-right-insurrectionist movements.

These escalating armed demonstrations, accompanied by belligerent sloganeering, are a clear signal that these folks are done talking -- and, worse, have already decided that democracy is futile, and taking up arms is the only appropriate response to the threats we now face. They're carrying weapons to scare us weak-kneed girly libs into submission, and to show us they mean business. Growing up in gun country, I was taught at my daddy's knee that when someone says they're going to shoot you, it's always smart to take them at their word and handle yourself accordingly. Right now, I think that's good advice for anybody in America who considers themselves a member of the reality-based community.

Sara points out that the revolutionaries have even been provided with a convenient target list by that pathetic scrambled-brained loser Bernard Goldberg, with his book listing the "100 people who are destroying America." "He was writing a target list with seditious intent," she says.

From a legal standpoint, though, sedition is a tough charge to prove in court. A successful prosecution in the Hutaree case would be the first such case made to stick against American right-wing groups.

[B]ut the first step in stopping sedition is making sure everybody knows exactly what it is when they see it. And that means calling out the S-word every time we see the conservatives defiantly flinging their hands and feet out over that line to score a few cheap political points.

And the immediate challenge is to force the people who are manipulating and trying to take advantage of the crazies, whether for personal or political gain, to face up to what they're doing.

If this is just political grandstanding to energize the base, they're playing with fire, and they need to bring this incendiary campaign to a screeching halt. Right now. This Mickey Mouse pussyfooting around, play-acting at sedition is criminally dangerous chickenshit politics that puts the short-term needs of the Republican party ahead of the long-term viability of the American democracy they've sworn to uphold. In case the party leaders haven't noticed, their base has taken them as seriously as a heart attack -- and they're genuinely making ready for armed revolt.

On the other hand, if they're actually serious about seditious rebellion against the US government, then let them stand up, follow through, and face the charges. They're either Americans, committed to working in good faith within the democratic process to create our common future; or else they're seditionists in intention or fact -- and thus enemies of the state, plain and simple.

For the good of the country, we cannot continue to let them have it both ways. They need to choose whose side they're on: America's, or their own.

I was intrigued by the story Howie passed on earlier of that archloon Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn confronting just this distinction at an ugly town hall meeting back home, where he wound up lecturing the crowd on civility and defending Nancy Pelosi. As Howie put it, "Coburn stared the teabaggers in the face and was mortified to see the gross ignorance and overblown bigotry."

Score one small victory. The only thing is that, crazy as Senator Dr. Tom is, his craziness has never taken the form of fomenting violence. On the scale of craziness, it turns out, he's a moderate.


"STOP THE PRESSES" HEADLINE OF THE DAY:
BIG AL "MUMBLES" GREENSPAN REJECTS CRITICISM!

Courtesy of the New York Times today:

Greenspan Rejects Criticism of Policies at Hearing

Because Big Al (aka "Mumbles") is widely known for his invariably thoughtful consideration of reasoned criticism of his judgments.

With regard to Big Al's testimony before the financial-meltdown commission, CAF "Our Work" blogger R.J. Eskow writes in his assessment, "In the Dark: A Good Prosecutor Would've Pinned Greenspan Down":

It was almost anticlimactic when the power failed during the final fifteen minutes of Greenspan's appearance. The light had left the room long before then.

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