None Dare Call It Sedition (YAY! Orcinus has new material!)

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http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2010/04/none-dare-call-it-sedition.html

None Dare Call It Sedition
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
-- by Sara

Well, finally. It's high time somebody had the guts to say the S-word -- sedition -- right out loud.

When the indictments against the Hutaree were unsealed last week, the S-word was right there, front and center, in Count One. The Justice Department accused them of "seditious conspiracy," charging that the defendants "did knowingly conspire, confederate, and agree with each other and other persons known and unknown...to levy war against the United States, and to prevent, hinder, and delay by force the execution of any United States law."

This is very serious stuff. But the Hutaree are getting nailed for sedition only because they crossed the line with inches to spare. They're by no means the only ones. Advocating, encouraging, and sanctioning sedition is the new norm on the conservative side.

We saw it again last Thursday, when the Guardians of the Free Republics -- a Sovereign Citizen group that believes that the oath of office taken by state governors is invalid under their twisted Bizarroland interpretation of the Constitution -- sent letters to most or all sitting state governors telling them to either a) take what they consider to be a legitimate oath of office; b) stand down; or c) or be removed "non-violently" within three days. The FBI, rightly, regards this as a potentially seditious threat against the governors.

These two events are a wake-up call for progressives. They're telling us that it'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.

More at the link...

Sara's right. The GOP and their radicals have been spending the last four decades systematically undermining democracy. When they have power, they shit on our Constitutional rights and deliberately mismanage the government so they can claim "Government doesn't work!" and go for the Norquistian drowning of government in a bathtub. When the Democrats have power, they obstruct and sabotage. And now their old tactic of spreading fear and hate has grown to the point where they're dancing with open insurrection, hoping that the crazies step across the line and lead them the rest of the way. That's the way of the American Fascist party.

It's a damned good thing that the feds rounded up the Hutaree and directly charged them with sedition. Maybe if the charges stick, it'll serve as a deterrent.