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by Paul R. Hollrah, Lincoln Heritage Institute Senior Fellow
What is sedition? Sedition is a term of law referring to actions and speech that tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition has been construed to mean subversion of a national Constitution and incitement of discontent with or resistance to lawful authority.
Unlike treason, sedition does not consist of waging war against the government or of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, even though that may be an indirect effect. Nor does it consist of peaceful protest against government, or of attempting to change the government by democratic means. It lies somewhere in between; it is “treason-lite.”
Today, the people of America find themselves at war against the most numerous and the most deadly enemy that any civilized nation has ever faced – the only enemy that has ever seriously threatened the lives of every man, woman, and child in America and the continued existence of the republic.
In view of the threat posed by the forces of Islamic fascism, and given the uncooperative stance of the American left, using the war to its own political advantage at every turn, it’s time we took a serious look at recent developments in the sedition laws of Australia.
The new legal definition of “seditious intent” in Australian law now includes the “intention” to use force or violence to: a) urge disaffection against the Constitution, the Government, or either House of Parliament; b) urge another person to attempt, other than by lawful means, to procure a change to any matter established by law; and c) promote feelings of ill will or hostility between different groups so as to threaten peace, order, and good government.
The new law makes it an offense to urge another person to interfere by force or violence in the election of a member or members of the Australian Parliament, or to urge violence within the community. It makes it an offense to urge a group or groups (whether distinguished by race, religion, nationality, or political affiliation) to use force or violence against another group or groups, and when the use of the force or violence would threaten peace, order, and good government.
In addition, the new law makes it illegal to urge any person to engage in seditious conduct when the purpose of that conduct would be to assist an organization or country that is at war with the Commonwealth, whether or not a state of war has been declared, or when the organization or country is specified by Proclamation to be an enemy at war with the Commonwealth.
All of the new crimes cited are punishable by imprisonment for a term of 7 years.
Clearly, the Australians understand the threat posed by Islamic fascism and have gotten very serious about preparing for an extended conflict, a process that left-wing partisanship and political correctness in the United States has forestalled.
In the United States, the Sedition Act of 1798 was so unpopular that similar laws were not enacted until the early 20th century. During World War I, the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 punished speech and writings that interfered with the war effort or that created contempt for the government. They resulted in more than 2,000 prosecutions, mostly against radicals and the radical press.
The Smith Act of 1940, restricted to the advocacy of violence against the government, was invoked infrequently during World War II, although it was later used to prosecute leaders of the Communist Party. The libel decision under Sullivan v. New York Times (1964), which granted special protection to criticism of public officials, largely eliminated what remained of the crime of sedition in the United States.
However, the times now dictate that we revisit the subject of sedition.
Under a statute similar to the new Australian law, Muslim clerics who preach violence and hatred against the United States would be either deported or behind bars; political leaders who promote acts of fraud and violence in political campaigns would be behind bars; government employees who leak details of secret intelligence programs, and the editors and publishers who publish them, would be behind bars; most of the liberal intelligencia and much of the Hollywood film community would be behind bars; the ACLU, MoveOn.org, and an entire host of leftist interest groups would be either out of business or forced underground.
Sound radical? Not when we realize that, sooner or later, our very survival will dictate that we do these things. We cannot allow our cherished rights and freedoms to be turned against us as death-dealing instruments of national suicide. And those who would purposely convert our cherished freedoms into weapons to be used against us should be either deported or placed behind bars.
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