Sometimes I look at what Democrats do and say “I can see where that makes sense.” Most of the time I shake my heads and say “What in the wide world of fuck are you doing?” Today is one of those times.
It started with a video put out by former military and intelligence folks currently serving in Congress. Their message was clear: enlisted military have no obligation to obey unlawful orders. Seems harmless enough, right?
Wellllll…this is where things get messy.
As a personal aside, I will admit my knowledge of military justice is as limited as the range on Nerf gun. Therefore, I am going off my understanding of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and welcome any corrections, words of encouragement, and rotten produce you are willing to send my way.
The aforementioned UCMJ is designed to deal with legal matters within the military so that they can be dealt with in a way that doesn’t disrupt their duties. Which is killing the enemy and/or breaking their shit while at the same time making sure the same doesn’t happen to us.
Anyway, there are provisions within the UCMJ dealing with unlawful orders, namely military personnel don’t have to follow them. And that’s what the Democrats in the video are expressing, so there’s no real harm, right?
That’s where the wonderful world of sedition comes into play. Our good friends at Merriam-Webster define sedition thus:
incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority
Our laws go into greater detail, but you get the drift. Sedition is a big no-no, which I would hope former military and intelligence personnel now serving in Congress understand. Then, President Trump entered the chat and accused the Democrats in the video of seditious acts. He even went so far as to say the punishment for sedition is death.
Unfortunately for him, he got it wrong. The actual punishment is possible fines and imprisonment, so there’s that. But is he wrong about the video being seditious?
Wellllll…he kinda is. The Democrats’ defense on this is they were just reminding our military they can refuse to obey unlawful orders, which tracks. But then I started wondering why now. This message is the kind of shit military personnel get drilled into their skulls during basic training. From a military/tactical standpoint, there’s nothing objectionable in reinforcing basic knowledge. Legally, the Democrats in the video are in the clear, too.
From a political standpoint, though, that’s where there may be a case for sedition. The President has taken actions many on the Left find objectionable, from sending in the National Guard to police city streets or making drug running boats into the world’s most expensive and addictive flotsam. This latter example is the one the Left seems fixated on at the moment, with some on the Left calling it murder.
As you might expect, the UCMJ kinda frowns on murder, so to float the idea that what the military is doing to drug runners is murder might weigh heavily on the heads and hearts of those brave men and women. (Still two genders, kids!) With what they endure on a daily basis, it’s only a matter of time before someone cracks and decides to defy the chain of command by refusing a direct order he or she believes to be illegal.
That little seed of doubt is all it takes for our military to weaken just enough to break. Unlike in the world outside the military, order is what keeps things moving. It is the first, last, and only line of defense against a fully dysfunctional family feud with heavy artillery.
And these Democrats who served our country know that, or at least should know that.
That’s where I think the sedition charge sticks, if it even sticks at all. Politicians are known for being slicker than a non-stick pan covered in baby oil, and since this is more of a political line of attack, there’s a good chance they are relatively safe legally.
That’s not to say I condone what these six Congresscritters did in the name of politics. When pressed to give examples of illegal acts, these motherfuckers sputter more than Speed Buggy. Instead, they mention they’ve talked to military personnel who just so happen to say what the Left’s narrative is at the moment. Pretty convenient, I’d say.
You know, if I was a complete dipshit.
The video wraps deception in an American flag and tries to pretend it’s just a friendly reminder when it has the potential to be a bunker buster to the heart of the world’s most powerful military. I’d say they should be ashamed of themselves, but I’m not sure there’s an ounce of shame among them.
And if I may be so bold, I want to give the President some advice here. First, stay off social media before you fact check what you’re going to say. No filter works great, but not when it comes to proclaiming a punishment that is more severe than it legally is.
Second, let’s try some alternative thinking here. Don’t charge these assholes with sedition. Instead, charge them with something else and make the punishment having them pull KP duty until the Rapture.
Tag: sedition
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
Yep, this is another Election 2020-related blog post.
The latest news out of the Election That Won’t Die revolves around 126 Republican Congresscritters who supported a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump’s election team against four states due to election irregularities (you know, like…throwing away military votes for the President). This has the Left up in arms. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said these Republicans have “brought dishonor to the House.”
But that’s not good enough for Leftists. Leftist Twitter (but I repeat myself) exploded with claims these House Republicans are guilty of sedition. Probably not the best week to invoke this, given Rep. Eric Swalwell sleeping with a Chinese spy while he was running for the House, but let’s go with it. Do they have a point this time? Let’s delve deeper into sedition, hopefully without contributing to it.
sedition
What the Left thinks it means – advocating for revolting against and toppling the established order
What it really means – another example of how the Left doesn’t understand irony
For the past 4 years, Democrats and Leftists have been calling President Trump illegitimate and demanding he be removed from office because he didn’t win the popular vote and/or various crimes he and his family are alleged to have committed. They “know” Trump had help from Russia to steal the 2016 elections. In fact, they went so far as to hold protests across the country delegitimizing the Trump Presidency, up to and including violent overthrow of the government or blowing up the White House.
Yeah. These are the folks I trust when it comes to sedition.
On the plus side, Leftists are concerned with people who want to overthrow our government. On the down side, they’re going after the wrong folks. I’ll be the first one to tell you I thought the lawsuit was dumber than letting Jeffrey Epstein babysit, but does it rise to the level the Left wants you think it does? The short answer is no. The longer answer is still no, but has a lot more words connected to it.
The President’s lawsuit, although ill-advised, isn’t an attempt to overthrow the government or its rightful leadership. Neither is the support from House Republicans because…and this is the part the Left keeps forgetting…Trump is still President until January 20, 2021. This little detail makes the sedition charges harder to stick. After all, why would the support for the President’s lawsuit be seditious when the person bringing the lawsuit itself is the President? No violence called for. No threats against the President’s life or the lives of government leaders. Just support for a lawsuit.
Can you say “overkill”? I knew you could.
Even if you expand the focus to the lawsuit and its supporters hurting the government, it falls flat because of the forum used to address the President’s concerns: the courts. You know, the courts…that are established in the Constitution? If President Trump is trying to get people to rebel against the government, he’s doing a crappy job of it. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say the Left is reaching more than Reed Richards.
The funny thing (at least to me) is how quickly the Left is adopting conservative ideas. Since it’s their ideology that stands to gain or lose the most over the outcome of the lawsuit, they want to preserve the status quo of a Biden victory over Trump. If the courts agree with the Trump campaign (which, to date, they haven’t, making them the second most losing team in history behind the Cleveland Browns, but work with me here), that overturns everything the Left wants to accomplish. No Green New Deal, no tax hikes on the wealthy, no free health care and tuition, just four more years of Trump’s Tweets and Leftist meltdowns. Don’t worry, though. Leftists will still have their meltdowns because that’s what they do in lieu of gainful employment.
Once you get past the hyperbole, the Left’s concept of sedition in this case is frightfully strong in words, but frightfully weak in application. In a few short years, they’ve gone from “Dissent is patriotic” to “Dissent is treason.” Yet, the First Amendment gives people the right to not only criticize the government, but to redress grievances with the government. Under Republican Presidents, the Left uses, if not abuses, both concepts demanding they be heard. Under Democrat Presidents, however, they seem to “forget” these parts of the First Amendment exist. Funny how that works out, isn’t it?
This is by design, of course. Leftists believe anyone who doesn’t stay in line like a Rockette is intellectually and morally inferior, which justifies their actions (at least in their minds). To extend this thinking a bit further, anything a non-Leftist does is anti-American and dangerous to the country. And when that non-Leftist is connected to Trump in any way, it becomes an imperative to discredit them, if not outright punish them for not thinking the right way.
George Orwell called. He wanted to let you Leftists know “1984” wasn’t an instruction manual.
Regardless of my feelings on the Trump campaign’s lawsuit regarding the 2020 election, there is no way it rises to the level of sedition, even if you water the definition down like a drink at a strip club. It’s more of the Left conflating objections to their ideology with objections to the country. After seeing some of the Left over the past four years, it’s safe to say the two are mutually exclusive.