H/T to my friend @Specialist, who I still affectionately refer to as Beasley Beasemill, from our RedState days. This art will become our new trademark photo for future Dark Alley, Rolled-up Newspaper, Bloody Nose-Black Eye pieces.
I just wrote 3500 words (a lot of words) a couple of days ago about the genesis of modern political corruption in America today. Now I’ll give you only a few words, by comparison, about what to do about it, besides squawk.
Far too many of you say, “Hell, charge ’em with treason then throw their butts in jail.” End of discussion. Even with the hippie revolt against the war in Vietnam, I never heard the words “treason” and “traitor” thrown around so un-prophylactically as I do now. (There are others words, too.)
I see this almost daily at Twitter, and when I look at who’s making the most noise, I also note it isn’t our young kiddie korps.
I’m just going to throw this out at you, and even invite you to check Google, Wikipedia, or whatever if you think I’m wrong.
Treason
Like alcoholism, there’s a social definition and a legal one. They ain’t the same. Dammit!
In fact, Americans just like us took a special dislike for the word “treason” because, from almost the very beginning of the Republic, John Adams, that John Adams, 2nd president of the United States, and his party, passed the Alien and Sedition Acts (plural, four of them) in 1799 because of growing foreign (mostly French) influence in America following their own revolution in France. The French Revolution was about as opposite as ours could be and by1800 or so, Napoleon Bonaparte, an Army general, like Julius Caesar, filled the power void in France. Then he made plans on America.
In Bonaparte’s view we were easy pickings. But those plans were dashed because he was unable to reconquer the black slaves of Haiti, who’d freed themselves during the Revolution in Paris. Already owning “Louisiana”, including the entire Mississippi-Missouri River basin…a big chunk of land…Napoleon figured New Orleans would make a perfect launching pad to conquer the United States.
There were whispers of a French (and Spanish) conspiracy all up and down the Mississippi and Ohio River areas.
Napoleon needed Haiti as his staging area, and invaded there first, to take the island back. But guess what, those freed slaves beat the French back, which caused Napoleon to instead, sell Louisiana to Thomas Jefferson in 1803, the Louisiana Purchase, giving us Lewis and Clark, Mike Fink and Nebraska, just to name a few.
Betcha didn’t know we owed our security to a bunch of freed slaves in Haiti, did you?
But that’s a another story. First came the Alien and Sedition Acts, and Americans, especially on the frontier, didn’t like the idea of being thought of as traitors simply for voicing a negative opinion of the Adams Administration. In the east several newspapers were shut down for editorials, a few editors jailed, a lot of street disturbances. In the West (which was Kentucky then, and a new state) you could be targeted for saying “Merci beaucoup”, which was pretty common in central Kentucky, especially Bourbon County, where they made all the whisky by the same name. And still do.
There actually was a French conspiracy, only it involved very few people, as well as a Spanish conspiracy involving Aaron Burr, former vice-president in Jefferson’s first term, and the man who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Burr was brought up on “treason” charges, and was likely guilty, depending on whether pro-Jefferson or anti-Jefferson historians are writing the history, but was acquitted in a trial before Chief Justice John Marshall, primarily because of very sketchy evidence.
You might think maybe Burr beat a treason rap.
Actually, it was evidence technicalities. But his trial did point out how devilish it is to get a “treason conviction”. (Look it up.)
Only Aaron Burr didn’t beat the rap, and this is where historians fail to understand the great power of the people. The American people largely felt he was guilty. Public opinion, even when people could only read the news once a week were convinced.
Once Burr was released there was no place he could hide. He had to leave America one step ahead of creditors and angry people with rolled up newspapers. And when he returned to America years later, he came back under an assumed name. (Look it up.)
This is exactly how I always expected Bill and Hillary to end up, in part because the kind of “smoking gun” evidence you think there is out there really isn’t out there. At least not yet. Juries don’t look at quid pro quo corruption in politicians the same as ordinary citizens do. See Sen Bob Menendez, a hung jury in a slam-dunk evidentiary trial. It was “only money and sexual favors”, many on the jury believed, and no third parties seemed to have been hurt. (Bill Clinton “sold” weapons technology to China, and God knows what he and Hillary swapped at the Foundation. We may still get a peek.)
What will destroy the Clintons it for all their “crimes” come out in a certified way, so that people can fully see their crimes, so that they will be unable to go anywhere in America that people won’t spit on them, or curse them. To know they are unwelcome. Unadmired. It’s happened before and it is the coldest funeral a self-loving person can ever receive while still being alive.
So drop this “treason’ rant.
Proving “treason of the heart” is easy. We do it every day against the anti-America crowd. And we’re right. But they also do it to us every day, for they hate everything we and America stand for. They too go to bed at night secure in the righteousness of their beliefs, and also, as long as they keep it to public lies, no one under the color of law will come to haul them off in cuffs either.
But more than a few of them have crossed the line, including the Clintons, and may well have to stand before a court for those crimes. But that’s for our duly constituted lawyers to decide, not us.
I can assure you none of them will be capital crimes.
Burr proved “treason by law” is not easy, and public foot-stomping won’t make it any easier. That’s called a “lynch mob”. The last person we hung for Treason was Mary Surratt for plotting (and succeeding) in the assassination of the president, for which (and this is a plan I could get used to) she was tried, convicted and hung within 90 days after Lincoln died!
In World War II we convicted a few Americans for treason…all of whom who had gone over to either the Germans or Japanese. (The military men served their time fully, while Tokyo Rose and Axis Sally had their sentences cut short. Look it up.)
The Rosenbergs, Ethel and Julius, who stole H-Bomb secrets and sent them to the USSR, were tried, convicted and executed for Espionage, not Treason, for the foreign party they assisted, the USSR, was not a “declared enemy of the United States.”
That’s the law, folks.
I’m not even sure there is an anti-coup statute out there, but instead of ragging, it might be better if you all put your heads together, and accumulate a list of practical charges that could be brought to Brennan and his IC cohorts, Comey and his FBI cohorts, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch and their minions in DOJ. Then, list the elements of proof that would have to presented that would cause a jury to convict. Study up on statutes of limitations, for you might be surprised.
Quit trying to out-guess one another about the charges that should be brought. Seeking out bragging right only proves a motive that is unimportant. Making every one of these people feel just like Hillary Clinton looks in this photograph should be victory enough.
Just let the evidence provided by others wash over them, effectively removing just about any good thing history would remember about them, keeping the misery of Aaron Burr’s last 30 years of life in mind.
And, if you’re so inclined, stand at the prison when some of these creeps are released, and just hold a rolled up newspaper as a reminder that there is no place in America they’ll be able to walk unnoticed, only for all the reasons they never dreamt.
