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12-02-2006, 11:58 PM #1
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Treason - Does it apply to failure to secure the borders?
I'm not sure what happened to the thread I started regarding treason, but if it was moved perhaps someone can direct me to the correct section.
In the mean time, I had promised to post a treatise I had previously authored for another site, and so I provide that at this time so that those who suggest that failure to secure the border or even that threatening the continued sovereignty of this nation are acts that can or shoud be tried as treason. While I understand the passion behind the belief, and while I believe wholeheartedly that at least half of the Presidents and other political leaders of the 20th and 21st centuries have been traitors to their countrymen and in gross breach of their oaths of office, I cannot agree that they can be proven to have committed treason as narrowly defined by the Constitution.
The short article was written regarding treason generically, and was therefore not specific to the open borders or multinational trade agreemtns that threaten our survival as a nation. I offer it as originally written and then will comment further below:
Treason – What is it?
Merriam-Webster’s dictionary describes treason thusly:
1 : the betrayal of a trust : TREACHERY
2 : the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family
The Constitution of the United States of America, however, limits the legal definition of treason in Art. III, Sec. 3:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
Now, while the dictionary definition of treason and the common usage of the term are both quite broad, the legal definition which is limited by the Constitution is actually quite narrow and specific.
We often hear people accusing one or another elected official or outspoken citizen of treason. If one is adhering to the dictionary definition of treason, then this is quite acceptable. However, when one suggests criminal sanction for the act of treason, the dictionary definition becomes utterly irrelevant.
Criminal treason, which is the only treason that may be prosecuted, is strictly limited to three elements, with one element standing alone and the other two being mutually dependent. The element that stands alone is “levying War against (the states).” Any person who can be proven to have participated in the actual levying of war against the states is guilty of treason. The other two elements are the two components of the act of providing aid and comfort to the Enemies of those states. In order to be guilty of treason under this provision, one must be proven to have provided aid and comfort. Also, it must be proven that the person, group, or entity to which aid and comfort was rendered was in fact an actual (declared) enemy of one or all of the several states (or of the nation, in modern terms).
There have been fewer than 40 federal prosecutions of treason in this nation’s history, with only a handful achieving a conviction. The few times that rebellion or insurrection was tried as treason, the result was either pardon (in the case of the Whiskey Rebellion) or acquittal (as in those who resisted the Jefferson Embargo Acts and the Fugitive Slave Law), with the notable exceptions of Thomas Dorr and John Brown. Even the leaders of the Confederacy were never tried for treason.
Among the few actually convicted of treason were Tokyo Rose (Iva D’Aquino, paroled just over six jears into a ten year sentence and later pardoned by Gerald Ford), Governor Thomas Dorr (who led the Dorr Rebellion against Rhode Island, but was released from a life sentence of hard labor after only a year), Hans Max Haupt (convicted of helping his son aid the Nazis and sentenced to life), Axis Sally (Mildred Gillars, who propagandized for the Germans and was paroled from a sentence of 10-30 years upon her first request), Martin Monti (a US pilot who defected to the Nazis with his P-38 Lighting and eventually convicted and paroled), abolitionist John Brown (who led violent insurrections and murdered at least five people in the cause of abolition of slavery, and who was eventually hanged for treason against the state of Virginia), and dual US/Japanese citizen Tomoya Kawakita (convicted of treason for torturing US POWs in Japan during his employ with Oeyama Nickel, for which he was originally sentenced to death – the sentence was commuted to life by Eisenhower and he was released and deported to Japan by Kennedy).
So conviction for treason has been extraordinarily rare in this country and has never been successfully prosecuted outside of a declared war except in the case of armed insurrection.
In the past, it has not been uncommon for the occasional commentator to opine that this or that person is a traitor or is guilty of treason. Lately, however, it has become far more common for folks to actually discuss the desire to prosecute one or another person for the crime of treason, and to do so with a straight face. Such individuals clearly do not understand the history of the prosecution of treason in this country or the extremely limited list of actions which are considered to be worthy of prosecution as treason.
First off, we cannot make the case for these people making war against the US unless and until armed forces are sent against the civil authority of one or more states or political divisions therein. Until this government actually uses force of arms against us, we must look elsewhere for prosecutable treason.
So what about aid and comfort to the enemy? Well, while you and I may consider one or another of the countries whose peasants are flooding our own country to be enemy states, they are not declared enemies. As a matter of fact, nations such as Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador are considered allies and trading partners by this nation's government. So while one may well make the case that our politicians are engaged in the aid and comfort of those foreign states, often to the detriment of our own, the case falls flat because there is no declared enemy in the equation.
Yes, I realize that it sucks that what you and I may consider to be blatant treason cannot be so defined within the context of the laws governing treason, but the law is what it is.
If you don't like this particular provision of the Constitution, then I suggest that you set about trying to garner support for an amendment so that it can be changed. Personally, I don't think that I want the definition of treason to be any broader because it is more likely that the government would use it as a weapon against the concerned citizenry than that the citizenry could use it against corrupt government.
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12-03-2006, 12:19 AM #2
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Crockett, how strictly defined is levying war? Does this by definition require the US military and physical violence?
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12-03-2006, 12:30 AM #3
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Originally Posted by Kate
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12-03-2006, 01:11 AM #4
Well, I think in this case couldn't we use the term "war" as loosely as those we might want to try for Treason as the "war on terror".
When the President of the United States has declared war on terror and applied it universally across the globe, then aiding and abetting any country or persons to enter the US illegally without permission is an act of Treason for they are aiding and abetting the elusive enemy of "terror".
During war, security of the border is a prerequisite. We are being ID's, Spied Upon, Detained, Surveilled, Inpected, Targeted, Rated, Metal-detected, our Naked Bodies soon to be illuminated upon airport screens and observed by security soldiers engaged in the war on "terror".
Failing to secure the borders has already been established by members of the US Congress as the Line in the Sand, the Threat of the Southwest Border".
A "threat" .. in the war on terror.
It's like leaving the gate open for the enemy to slip in.
Border Patrol will confirm the number of armed infiltrators and the terrorist enemy disguised and coyoted into the country through the Gate Left Open by the sneaky Traitors.
I think during a war on terror declared, funded and definitely engaged ... that failing to secure the borders to prevent the entry of the "enemy" would qualify.
I mean sending 6000 National Guard Troops to the Border WITHOUT AMMUNITION? Is not an act of Treason in the War on Terror?
Or how about instructing Border Patrol not to shoot the enemy as it flees and instead throw the BP Agents in prison assurng the enemy that it is not only okay to enter, but in the event they should be intercepted, just run and then try again another day because the Traitors have given the order ... do not shoot the enemy as it flees. Is this not an act of Treason during the War on Terror?
If a general in any war sent troops to fight the war but told them not to shoot the enemy and to leave the gates to their base open so the enemy could enter ... would he not be court-martialed and tried for "aiding the enemy"?
Gee ... seems to me we could make a case for it. That's how all law develops. You make a case and take it to court. Both arguments are heard, for and against, and a decision by an impartial jury decides the outcome.
What is for sure, you never win a case if you never pursue it.
A Nation Without Borders Is Not A Nation - Ronald Reagan
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12-03-2006, 01:25 AM #5
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... 382#254382
Here's another one!
Islamofascism and Shariah Law is our enemy in the war on terror.
Traitors set up two Islamofacist Regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan with new Shariah Law Constitutions; defend them; protect them; guard them; support them; aid them; comfort them.
Wow ... that's a BIG ONE, isn't it?
We've got some BIG TREASON going on during war, levying war ... how many American Troops have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since October 2005?
Yep ... this is the Really Big Show in the Treason Game.
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12-03-2006, 01:30 AM #6
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Originally Posted by Judy
Originally Posted by Judy
Originally Posted by Judy
Originally Posted by Judy
Originally Posted by Judy
Originally Posted by Judy
Originally Posted by Judy
Originally Posted by Judy
Originally Posted by Judy
What is for sure, you never win a case if you never pursue it.
[/quote]
What is even more sure is that a prosecutor is not going to try a case for which none of threshold conditions for indictment and prosecution exist.
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12-03-2006, 01:33 AM #7
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Originally Posted by Judy
Beyond that, poor judgment or poor leadership is not grounds for charges of treason.
What you have been doing is levying a long list of grievances against the President and (presumably) against the Congress that empowered the President to undertake these policies. Grievances do not make for treason, which is limited to levying of war against the United States and giving aid and comfort to a declared enemy.
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12-03-2006, 01:36 AM #8
So in laymen's terms.....what CAN we do
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12-03-2006, 01:38 AM #9
http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?
Here is another article claiming Islamofacism as the threat.
That makes it the enemy doesn't it?
Our gates have been left wide open for this enemy to enter guarded by men with either no bullets in their weapons or by men with bullets but under orders not to shoot.
A Nation Without Borders Is Not A Nation - Ronald Reagan
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12-03-2006, 01:44 AM #10
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PLEASE NOTE:
The United States of America had NOT declared war since WWII.
Herein lies the difficulty. WAR has NOT been declared, therefore, we are in a 'conflict.'
This lack of declaration of war puts an entirely different spin on the entire subject.
"Threats" don't count. There is a very limited scope for Treason.
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