And most states have their own anti-sedition statutes. The courts have never ruled them unconstitutional, AFAIK. But what is constitutional is not necessarily wise or just. Should sedition, as defined above, be a crime, or not?
Hmmm… Tricky issue. On the surface it looks similar to laws prohibiting threats against individuals, only applied to the government.
With that being the case, it seems superfluous at best. Any threat or enticement to violence against the govrnment would also be a threat against the people in it. There’s already laws against overthrowing the government (not directly, perhaps, but certainly against the actions one would have to take to violently overthrow the government. If I seriously advocate such illegal activity, I’m committing conspiracy, am I not?
I don’t see why the government needs an additional layer of protection above other people and institutions.
Yes, it should, but only because of the terms “by force or violence” “by the
assassination of any officer”. It’s akin to yelling FIRE! in a crowded theatre.
However, I would hope that the sedition portions of this law would be enforced on an extremely rare basis.
The nurse was IMHO a careless idiot to include the words “act forcefully” and the Agency was correct to *investigate * her- and also correct to apparently have that investigation come to naught. An “investigation” was the correct thing. Punishing her would be incorrect. However, I am not sure if I would want a careless idiot for a nurse. Sorry.
Now, if she had not included a phrase like that one- then there would have been no investigation. I have no doubt that many 10’s of thousands of dudes & dudettes who work for the Government have written letters protesting the current Administrations Policies. Hell, I work for the Government and have written such letters (and they have been printed, too). I did have my Boss remind me not to send any such letter out using my government email or government postage.
Well, anybody who advocates violently destroying my society isn’t exactly going to get much sympathy with me.
Should we allow violent threats against individual people? Obviously that’s a crime. What about classes of people? Should it be legal to advocate violence against, say, jews or blacks or gays or abortion doctors or atheists? Of course not. Then why should it be OK to advocate violence against government workers?
I can state with 100% confidence that anyone who advocates violently destroying the government of the United States wants to destroy my civil and human rights, as well as the civil and human rights of my friends and neighbors, and yours to.
If you violently supress civil rights in the region formerly known as the United States, you’ve destroyed the society that used to exist there. Anyway this is just semantics. Why should people have the right to advocate the use of violence against civil servants?
You wanna advocate that we dissolve the United States and substitute some new utopian society, go ahead. When you tell me you’re going to shoot me if I don’t agree, I’m gonna advocate that the cops put you in jail.
“Violence against civil servants”? Only if you’re a dumbass like Timothy McVeigh. That’s neither a goal nor, usually, a tactic of revolutionaries. A smart revolutionary, in fact, will want to keep at least some of the civil servants of the old regime to work in the new one (assuming the revolution is not aiming at anarchy).
“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;”
No brainer IMHO. Sedition is and should remain a crime.
Because if they respected civil rights they’d try to change things by democratic means, obviously.
Anyone who embraces violence as a method of changing the government neccesarily rejects democracy, because the majority of people don’t support changing the government. If they did, the government would change.
So anyone who advocates violent change of the government is threatening to shoot me unless I give up my civil rights.
So, if I say “the only way to get rid of corruption in the government is to dissolve Congress”, I can be prosectued for sedition? After all, I would’ve just knowinlgy advocated for the destruction of the US government.
And I’m not asking as a practical matter (i.e., whether I’d actually be prosecuted), but as a matter of what the law says.
No, but if you said “the only way to get rid of corruption in the government is to dissolve Congress with a bomb”, then it seems like you would be. IANAL.
Of course I don’t mean that if 50%+1 of the voters want something, it will be instantly enacted. And we have a Constitution that prohibits certain governmental actions, although you can change the constitution democratically.
But in our country the government chosen by the people. You don’t have to like what the people decide, but if you advocate killing people who you disagree with then off to jail with you.
Or do you think murder is just another legitimate political protest? Why shouldn’t it be a crime to advocate political murder?
You’ve said this several times recently (or a similar theme) in several threads without bothering to explain what YOU believe. Interestingly no one has called you on it. Would you care to explain what YOU believe, if you don’t believe we have free elections or that the government is chosen by the people in this country?
I see the rationale for wanting to keep sedition illegal, but it still kind of bothers me because it seems to accord the US government(s) a special immunity that we don’t demand in the case of others.
For instance, Christian-right leader Pat Robertson recently advocated in public the illegal assassination of the president of Venezuela, and AFAICT he’s facing no legal penalties for it:
This seems to be regarded as just a legal exercise of freedom of speech:
But if he had said it about Bush or any other US government leader, it would have been sedition.
Somehow it seems kind of unsuitable that a nation as committed to freedom of speech as ours should allow that kind of talk about foreign leaders but forbid it in the case of our own.
I can certainly see how actively trying to attack or overthrow the US government by force, or form or join an organization dedicated to that purpose, ought to be kept illegal. But merely saying that you think it would be a good idea? I dunno.