What is sadition? Does it exist?

virginiaJim · 10-15-2004, 08:09 PM

And why the hell don"™t we enforce it? Free speech should have a price during war time. And I think this nation is due for some people to step up and make some changes. Why on earth do we let people like Kerry and fat boy Michael Moore make up lies about the war for the direct result of reducing the moral of our troops in the field? We now have a case where members of the US Army rejected orders to deliver fuel to troops in the field because they are worried they might get killed. This is a direct result of people like Kerry and Howard Dean spreading lies about how we are losing the war. They are bringing aid to the people that are trying to kill us and our boys in the field. When are we going to say that"™s it, time to get busy and clean up this nation? Our founding fathers put rights in place for us to take action when it comes to this. How on earth are we ever going to win a war with people like this in power?

biscuit jake · 10-16-2004, 06:08 AM

Sedition. Espionage Act of 1917. (I believe.) Well, I am an old soldier and not a lawyer type, but my modest understanding of this is that this requires that Congress declare war. It has to do with undermining the government. That steepens the curve quite a bit about what people can do & say during war. As probably everyone knows, Congress has not declared war since WWII, thus, people avoid the sanctions.

virginiaJim · 10-16-2004, 03:30 PM

Thats a good point and I wish they would have made that formal vote.

stuckinthereeds · 10-16-2004, 05:52 PM

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Free speech should have a price during war time. And I think this nation is due for some people to step up and make some changes. Why on earth do we let people like Kerry and fat boy Michael Moore make up lies about the war for the direct result of reducing the moral of our troops in the field?

Would you rather we become a communist country or have a dictatorship and kill and/or torture those who have an opposing opinion? This is why we have a great country. We are able to voice desenting opnions or supporting opinions for our government. This is what our forfathers fought so hard. They fought so we can live in a free country. But if you want to live in a country where you can't voice your opinion, you might look into moving to China. Heck Cuba is just a couple miles away.

I don't agree with Kerry or Moore but just like you, they have the right to voice their opinion. Shoud only the opinions of those who support our current government have freedoms?

virginiaJim · 10-16-2004, 06:42 PM

We all know that the 2nd amendment was not to give us the right to hunt. When we have judges who impose their will on us and make up their own laws from the bench we have a problem. When we hear people talk about world courts and global taxes we need to be worried. When we are fighting a war so our nation can stay free and we have people give aid to the enemy we have a problem. When I joined the army I took an oath to protect this Nation form all enemies"™ foreign and domestic. I"™m talking about keeping our nation free in the long run. If something does not budge soon we are going to be living in a socialist or communist nation because the democrats are headed that way now.
All I am asking is how much longer should we just sit back and have more and more of our rights taken away bit by bit till its too late and we are all told where to go for health care, or where to go for work?

If you listen to people like Michael Moore, he thinks we should have bread lines and pay 80% income tax. Now is that something we all would be willing to accept.

When we are at war, freedom of speech is not a death pact, it"™s a right we all have till we lose a big war and then are forced to own a prayer rug.

stuckinthereeds · 10-16-2004, 08:43 PM

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If something does not budge soon we are going to be living in a socialist or communist nation because the democrats are headed that way now.

And from your first post, by not alowing society to express desenting views towards the government is playing into a communist nation.

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When we are at war, freedom of speech is not a death pact, it"™s a right we all have till we lose a big war and then are forced to own a prayer rug.

Your correct, freedom is a right. What good are rights if we aren't allowed to use them? What good are any rights if we can't use them. Should rights only be allowed for people who favor the current government.

You mentioned you were in the Military and you fought for our nations rights. That is very commendable!!! However, I do not believe you fought for rights only a select few, but for all of society to benefit from.

virginiaJim · 10-17-2004, 05:46 AM

Was it wrong to hold a draft during WWII? After all that could be viewed as taking away the rights of the citizens of our nation but because of the greater importance that we stay free in the long term rights were suspended. During the Civil War Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus and declared martial law. The constitution has provisions for this function because it was never intended to become a suicide pact for its citizens. Dissenting views are welcome but when it comes to our freedom in the long run, it becomes a kick in the teeth for our troops if they keep hearing that they are fighting an illegal war, or a war for oil, or that they are murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians a day. All are not true. We have every right to protect our nation from foreign threats. WMD aside, the treat from terrorism is greater than what one country can produce. Middle Eastern people do not recognize nations because they are tribal people. They view this dissenting voice as a weakness and pay on it. If we had this type of dissenting voice during WWII we would all be speaking German or we would be a lamp shade.

Coastie · 10-17-2004, 06:03 AM

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Your correct, freedom is a right. What good are rights if we aren't allowed to use them? What good are any rights if we can't use them. Should rights only be allowed for people who favor the current government.

You mentioned you were in the Military and you fought for our nations rights. That is very commendable!!! However, I do not believe you fought for rights only a select few, but for all of society to benefit from.

I don't believe anybody wants any of our constitutional rights suspende or denied to anybody. I would however like to see both sides of the story reported rather than the slanted journalism being broadcast on a day-to-day basis. Half truths and reporting only the failures is worse than no news at all. I don't want sugar coating applied anymore than I want to see all negatives, but I would like to see a balance and from what is written and reported on TV, most of what we get is only the negatives. If the facts are that nothing is right, then we must know that for sure but that does not seem to be the way it is.

virginiaJim · 10-17-2004, 06:48 AM

The biggest problem is we have a case where most of our nation does not recall history and the history of our own nation most of all. The best way to understand why we have rights is to review the history of our creation during the 1700"™s. A free and open society must be maintained or we will be over run by people who take advantage of it. Check out CNN where judges have just ruled that you can not use metal detectors to check for weapons on protesters because it"™s an illegal search. When judges toss out protections of the greater good we have a problem. It"™s about the greater good of an open society and maintaining it over the long term is what our founding fathers had in mind. If we have people coming in from other lands and we reach a point where they feel socialism is the way to go and they actually vote for it as in the case of Spain right now. What do we do? Just say, well it"™s now our right to be socialist and if we rise up and crush the socialist we are taking away their rights to be socialist? And if we rise up and put an end to it because we had been given the 2nd amendment right to protect ourselves from this happening are we then imposing our will against another group and we are the bad guys? I think what we have are sides. Some take one side vs the other. I feel we need to protect what was given to us by our founding fathers. The greater good of an open society must be preserved. During times of war, dissent can give comfort to the enemy, and anyone who does not see this, needs to look at the fact that Kerry, if elected will be the first communist war hero. His photo hangs in the Viet Nam National Communist museum as a recognized hero of communism. He gave comfort and strengthened the will of the enemy. Yep it was his right to help the enemy, but whose right is it to protect our nation anymore?

Coastie · 10-18-2004, 04:30 AM

While the greater good of an open society is indeed a worthwhile goal, the rights of the individual were actually more of a concern to the founders than society as a whole. If the rights of an individual can be preserved, then the rights of the entire society are guaranteed. The founders were, and rightfully so, scared to death of "Democracy", Mob rule. This nation was set up as and is, a Republic or a representative democracy in which we, the electorate are trusted to choose our leaders carefully and send them to our nations capitol to use their judgement in our representation. We, the people, have screwed up over the past century and are now approaching a socialistic system of government.
There has to be a way to balance the rights of the individual against the overall security of our nation. If we are not smart enough to figure it out, then we are doomed to obscurity and will fall victim to an ever more heavy handed federal government.