Hawkish on sedition.
By Paul J Cella Posted in fifth column | sedition | the Jihad | War — Comments (49) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
One of the more remarkable ironies of what is infelicitously called the War on Terror is the rigid mental partition we have set up between its foreign policy aspect and its domestic security aspect. The basic way this works is that the domestic aspect is ignored in its specifics, while the foreign policy aspect is exaggerated in generalities. A politician who talks tough on foreign policy, but almost exclusively in the comfortable language of political abstraction, is labeled a Hawk; while a politician (at this point only imaginary) who talks tough about the specific details of the domestic threat, will probably be labeled a bigot.
Now this is all very strange to me. Consider: The only reason the Jihad is a real threat to us is because its agents and propagandists are in our midst. In other words, the Jihad has not the wherewithal (yet) to deliver us blows from without. It must rely on infiltration into, or recruitment in America. That is a fact.
Read on.
Here is another fact, perhaps even less palpable than the above: America has a long history of reacting early and vigorously to this peculiarly modern sort of war of subversion. Whittaker Chambers knew a thing or two about this modern form of war:
When, in 1936, General Emilio Mola announced that he would capture Madrid because he had four columns outside the city and a fifth column of sympathizers within, the world pounced on the phrase with the eagerness of a man who has been groping for an important word. The world might better have been stunned as by a tocsin of calamity. For what Mola had done was to indicate the dimension of treason in our time.
Other ages have had their individual traitors — men who from faint-heartedness or hope of gain sold out their causes. But in the 20th century, for the first time, man banded together by millions, in movements like Fascism and Communism, dedicated to the purpose of betraying the institutions they lived under. In the 20th century, treason became a vocation whose modern form was specifically the treason of ideas.
Arresting stuff. We might add that the seeds of this ghastly vocation were already sprouting in the late 18th century when the French Revolutionaries, in Burke’s cogent phrase, declared that “all government, not being a democracy, is a usurpation,” and made war by subversion on the whole world to vindicate that statement. The fifth column, a linguistic innovation of Spaniards in the 20th century, was really the political innovation of Frenchmen in the 18th. Napoleon’s armies would appear at some Italian hamlet with the announcement: “Men of Italy, the French Army comes to break you chains,” and then proceed to plunder the place. Subversive war was declared upon the whole of Europe — every ancien regime without exception.
And the subversion came also to America. Whereupon Americans cracked down on it with zest, in an episode taught by our Liberals as a black mark on our national honor. Whoever has imbibed this Liberal fairy tale of the awful Alien and Sedition Acts ought to at least take a moment to read the legislation. In fact it is less restrictive than Senator McCain’s campaign finance law; and far, far less restrictive than the standard campus and workplace speech codes.
But the Federalists and Pres. Adams overreacted, right? Horseapples. A moment’s reflection on the misery, the deprivation, the treachery and cruelty, the torture and humiliation and depravity, the quarter-century-long bloodletting and chaos: all this, finally culminating in the proto-totalitarian despotism of Bonaparte, was visited upon Europe by the convulsion of the Revolution — a moment’s reflection upon it ought to stifle the charge of overreaction. The very worst that can be conjured up by Free Speech absolutists from the Alien and Sedition Acts episode, is that some muckraker journalists served unjust prison sentences. That’s it. They were not guillotined. Their churches were not desecrated. They were not subjected to a reign of terror.
Or again, when Communism exploded upon the European scene, America moved quickly to update our sedition laws to counter it. Further updates came in response to Fascism, and, after the Second World War, in response to the renewed threat of Communism. Earlier we cracked down on Copperheads (in the North) and Unionists (in the South); on Mormon polygamists whose commitment to their marital innovation, it was believed, inclined them toward sedition; on anarchists and other turn-of-the-century radicals; etc., etc.
My point is this. An aspect of the American political tradition, since the very beginning of the Republic, has been a willingness to act aggressively against subversive movements. Our Liberals think is aspect a disgrace; in my view a more sober analysis will disclose that it has been a singular achievement, even a triumph. Since the dawn of the Republic, the world has been convulsed by eruptions of utopian revolutionary fervor, which invariably issue in merciless slaughter and iron autocracies; and none of this tumult has ever made much headway here — in part because Americans have been willing to use the instrument of law to strangle it in infancy.
Nothing, in my view, is more pressing today than that we show the courage to embrace this aspect of our political tradition, defy the Liberals when they howl, and employ it against an enemy that has already done more damage to us than all of those other wars of subversion combined. Proposing that would earn politicians the true label of Hawk.
Hawkish on sedition. 49 Comments (0 topical, 49 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
http://www.redstate.com/stories/war/the_jihad_sedition_law
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
So, Paul says "we should pay attention to the growing subversive threat and address it", to which you say "so you are proposing McCarthy hearings and internment camps for all Muslims".
That's excreble.
Stare decisis is fo' suckas -- Feddie
I'm used to it. Say "sedition law," and you're likely to be greeted by all manner of hyperbolic horror story.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
McCarthy exposed the very dangerous commie snake in the garden -- not just in Hollywood, but in the State Dept and elsewhere. While his name is reviled near-universally, he may have saved us.
Stare decisis is fo' suckas -- Feddie
The guy was a bully, a buffoon (and probably a drunk), but he was closer to the truth than his Liberal despisers.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
I'll admit it. I've always said the Alien act was fine, but bought the line I was taught in California schools that the Sedition act was bad. But now I'm reading the sedition act, and one word makes all the difference.
And be it enacted that if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States... then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.
Bolding added.
If that part said "false, scandalous, or malicious" writing, then it would be the law that I was taught it is, that it was there to stifle dissent.
But no, in order to meet this burden of proof and be convicted of this crime, your writings against the government (with intents listed) has to be false, it has to be scandalous, and it has to be malicious, the way I read this.
That's a pretty narrow case, and I think most of us agree that liars trying to take down the government by making up stories to discredit our Constitutional government, had no business being allowed to do so unchallenged.
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Reid, Murtha, Durbin, etal.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
especially if that includes Pinch, WaPo, NBC News, etc.
Stare decisis is fo' suckas -- Feddie
have immunity on the Speech and Debate Clause. Alas.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
MoveOn's Petraeus ad.
Anyone out there with signs saying "Bush lied, people died".
Carlos: "What? Were they [Democrats]?"
Seth: "They look like [Democrats]? Is that what they looked like? They were vampires.
"[Democrats] do not explode when sunlight hits them."
I notice that your comments regarding these two Acts do not mention in any detail the outrage the Acts caused immediately. You did not provide links to the Kentucky Resolution of 1799 nor the Virginia Resolution of 1798; both of which roundly condemned the Acts as unconstitutional; especially the Sedition act. Here are the links:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/kenres.htm -and- http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/virres.htm
Far from being some kind of Liberal conspiracy, the Acts were regarded as Unconstitutional by the very generation of Americans who wrote the Constitution. They would know.
You also failed to mention that if the Sedition act was in force during the Clinton presidency, most republicans would have been in jail and unable to vote for Dubya. ... OK, on second thought, maybe it's not such a bad idea ... Just kidding.
sean s.
Are you saying that the things Clinton got impeached for were false?
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Not everything scandalous and malicious written about Bill Clinton ended up in his impeachment. The Whitewater investigation began with scandalous, malicious accusations of finanical improprieties which never were proved.
sean s.
The Clintons killed the investigation.
Carlos: "What? Were they [Democrats]?"
Seth: "They look like [Democrats]? Is that what they looked like? They were vampires.
"[Democrats] do not explode when sunlight hits them."
Even if the accusations were disproved, it's still not sufficient to convinct on the Sedition Act. The Sedition Act requires an intent not just to libel, but " with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the constitution of the United States, or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States, their people or government."
Merely opposing a man from being re-elected, or to get his political aims achieved, or even to get him impeached, is insufficient.
The only people who would qualify would be fringe nuts who quote Thomas Jefferson a lot while they polish their guns and check behind them for black helicopters.
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Neil,
We could dispute this until hell freezes over, but I believe the facts of the commentary about the Clintons (before Monica Lewinski) were sufficiently scandalous and malicious to at least get the charges before a jury if the Sedition Act were still in effect. You disagree. So be it.
sean s.
Yes, an interested prosecutor probably could have gotten indictments. But I don't see any mainstream Republicans getting convicted, sorry.
And your comment implied voter ineligiblity through felony conviction.
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And the VA and KY resolutions laid the groundwork for the doctrine of Nullification, which was actually a dispute not over Free Speech but over the extent of Federal authority vis-a-vis the several States. But we don't need to go through that long and fascinating story, because it's not germane to my point.
If we are going to revisit the VA and KY resolutions' arguments about constitutionality, we'll have to revisit quite a bit more than sedition law.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Whether the Acts in question were unconstitutional is one thing, whether a State has the right to nullify acts it considers unconstitutional is another. Those of us who deal with the law understand that a court decision or even a statute can be overturned IN PART, leaving the remainder with authority.
That Kentucky and Virginia felt that the Acts were unconstitutional debunks the notion that it was later liberals who unfairly maligned the Acts. Contemporaries saw the Acts as unconstitutional, and on the strength of his opposition to them, Jefferson was elected President in 1800.
Whether nullification is valid or not (Not.) is irrelevant to the question of whether contemporaries thought the Acts were unconstitutional.
sean s.
Both Acts included sunset clauses, if I recall correctly. So the question of their constitutionality was never answered.
My point about the VA and Ky resolutions is that I don't see the relevance. Some people -- including some heavy-hitters -- opposed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson and Madison pushed through treatises on them, generally dealing with an issue quite different from the Free Speech one that is usually mentioned.
Later Liberals transformed the whole drama of the A. and S. Acts into a Free Speech morality play, when in fact the much hotter issue at the time was States' Rights.
Current law on sedition, by the way, is pretty strongly-worded, in my judgment. 18 U.S.C. § 2385
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
exactly. Some Framers saw these Acts as affronts to States Rights, others to Freedom of Speech. Later liberals didn't have to work too hard to "transform" the drama. States Rights has become a smaller concern since the Civil War (whether you like it or not) but Freedom of Speech remains vital to anyone who wants to advocate an unpopular idea.
The current statute really represents more a response to incitement to violence than sedition. There are people every day in America who publicly call for the overthrow of the government. But unless their words are arguably intended to incite immediate violence, they are unprosecutable.
sean s.
Fifth Column that enabled it, Paul. For anyone who labors under any delusion of what transpired within the United States from the end of World War II until Mr. Gorbachev's aborted abduction, please read In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr. In the current environment, it is hard to envision a Truman figure who excises the contemporary equivalent of Wallace from the Democratic Party...or for that matter, someone who in the post-Bush GOP who will show the courage to confront the domestic advocates of violent jihad along with their enablers.
Finally, you are more optimistc than me, Paul. I don't believe there are any "hawks" as you defined them left because political correctness has neutered any who would be in a position to deal seriously with an internal threat.
The Cold War analogy works fine, but it seems to me that there is still so much bitterness about it, that one could easily find that the discussion begins with Jihad and ends with Communism.
You and I know the truth about the Communist Enterprise and the Liberalism that abetted it; but our Liberals will be long in coming around to the truth. Their complicity in the horrors of Communism is still too near.
My "optimism" (a word I would eschew myself) derives from what I mentioned here. I have met with good success persuading people that the Jihad is a wicked and terrible menace, which we must confront directly and unapologetically.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
would be the same cabal that is passive toward jihadist sedition today. Same mindset, same complacency, same denial, same people. Were those who were more receptive to you about jihadist danger more or less from the center/right?
I've brought several stone-cold (but not particularly active) Liberals around to a decisive skepticism of Islam. These are just normal people, not immersed in politics, blogs, etc -- who started out hostile to my view but in time came around to a clear sympathy for it.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
it's a bit weird that Paul's suggestion is precisely what Pervez Musharraf is doing in Pakistan?
Precisely my foot.
Perhaps the difference between an autocrat suspending the constitution and taking power for himself, and a deliberative assembly writing law, is obscure to you; but would not have been to the men who founded our country.
My effort is to persuade my fellow countrymen in sufficient numbers, until what Publius called the "deliberate sense" of the people joins me in firm opposition to the Islamic doctrine of jihad; at which point, I trust, the legislative institutions of the Republic will begin reflecting the popular will.
My experience has been positive in this regard, especially in person. It is not so difficult to persuade people that a wicked thing is in fact wicked. Jihad is a wicked doctrine. Our laws ought not protect it.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Actually, while there is a huge difference between an Autocrat declaring it and a representative legislative body - I'm not sure our founders would have seen this result as acceptable in either case.
Our courts certainly have inerpreted it that way: (from the District Courts opinion in National Socialist Party of America v. Skokie; upheld on appeal)
“The ability of American society to tolerate the advocacy even of the hateful doctrines espoused by the plaintiffs without abandoning its commitment to freedom of speech and assembly is perhaps the best protection we have against the establishment of any Nazi-type regime in this country.”
Would seem this should equally apply to speaking of "Jihad" (I hate using terms with multiple meanings), as wicked as it might be.
The Blind Shiek was convicted of seditious conspiracy for participating in the first World Trade Center bombing.
Plus it is pure speculation to say what the Court will say on Jihad-sedition, since the issue has not yet come before it.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
What would you add to this law that doesn't step the line of the first amendmant? This should cover the negative attributes one may associate with Jihad while not preventing the use of the term in its other religious connotations.
http://www.redstate.com/stories/war/the_jihad_sedition_law
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
I don't see this adding anything to the law - it still leaves it in the courts hand to either determine whether the speech is willfully advocating the voerthrow of tehg overnmetn or if it fits whatever will develop as the legal definition of 'jihad'. I would think it more straightforward to leave it at the current burden then to introduce a foreing term that will be difficult to define and pin down.
I have to run off to a seminar shortly, but my first impression of your proposal is that it adds nothing to the existing statute except the appearance of religious bias.
Several commentors have pointed out that the term "jihad" has multiple meanings within Islam. Where the term is used to preach the kinds of ideas already addressed under Title 18 U.S.C., specifically mentioning jihad in that Code adds nothing to the law.
All it will do is make life difficult to Muslims who use the term for it's other, legitimate and non-violent purposes.
sean s.
And, to refer to the larger point of my original post, there is ample precedent in the American political tradition for using the instrument of law to repress wicked doctrines. The case of Mormon polygamy is another one to ponder -- especially because it has such a happy ending.
In short, I see plenty of benefits in naming Jihad-sedition as a particularly grave threat, which needs a particular aggressive and open response.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Paul, can you spell out a scenario in which the implementation of your statute would differ from implementation of existing law?
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NARF
would basically consist of enabling legislation, directing the Executive branch (read: federal prosecutors) to start bringing sedition indictments against Islamic organizations. The examples of their sedition are amply documented. I recommend Paul Sperry's book Infiltration to get a sense of this.
So my scenario would basically amount to this: every time some Jihadist preacher or propagandist or imam or agitator or lobbyist or internet pamphleteer takes up his pen or opens his mouth to urge Jihad, he would be well aware that effort might result in a term in federal prison.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
How does your scenario pan out differently with your proposal versus existing law?
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NARF
Current law does not take specific cognizance of the threat from the Jihad; my proposal goes to rectify that.
I'll leave to you to imagine how pushing through such legislation would be greeted by the media, the Liberals, our enemy, etc.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
But they aren't. No one is doing a durn thing about Jihad-sedition. This needs to change. Let the legislative branch make the change. That's how republics work.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
But the legislative branch cannot compel the executive to prosecute the law - so I don't see why additional law would do anything new.
It seems you should be lobbying the executive branch to change policy rahter than the legislative to pile on to already existing law.
No, Congress cannot compel prosecutions, but it can put plenty of pressure on the Executive. For instance, by insisting on annual reports from federal prosecutors on Jihad-sedition prosecutions. Or by establishing by a law a new prosecutorial office for Jihad-sedition. Those are just off the top of my head.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
it's a bit weird that JConstantine's "observation" is precisely what a troll would say on a blog?
absentee
What do we do when, in the midsts of these debates, Liberals (many of whom may regard themselves as Conservatives) persist in the charge of bigotry!, or simply whither in the face of it?
To this I can only say: persevere and defy, with an emphasis on the latter. Nothing is more sure to break a petty little tyranny of the mind than open and unabashed defiance of it. The charge of bigotry rests on a perfect absurdity: that when a man says he opposes a doctrine, he makes himself a hater of other men.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
the comment stream on Paul Cella's proposal is getting unreadable.
Bottom line: his proposal will not help at all. If an imam preaches the violent overthrow of the US Government, existing law will adequately enable Federal prosecutors to respond. Use of the word "jihad" does not make the crime different or worse.
This is just a "feel-good" proposal. At the end of the day, there is no tangible benefit.
sean s.
exhibits a surety that makes me dubious of his judgment.
The mere passage of an amended Sedition Act to take cognizance of the Jihad -- which would indubitably come through a storm of hysteria and hyperbole -- would be a blow delivered against our enemies of considerable size.
Let America be the first nation to announce in her laws the intolerance of her people for this wicked doctrine of jihad, and its concomitant legal system sharia, and the enemies of the Jihad worldwide will stand up a cheer.
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And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
version of the McCarthy hearings or something more akin to Japanese internment camps for all Muslims in this country until after the GWOT is won?
Please give us some specifics as to how you think is the best way to address the "domestic security aspect." Because I think you are going to far and into dangerous territory.