SwiftVets.com

[4moreyears]

...whoever when the United States is at war, shall willfully cause or attempt to cause, or incite or attempt to incite, insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall willfully obstruct or attempt to obstruct the recruiting or enlistment services of the United States, and whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the Army or Navy of the United States into contempt, scorn, contumely, or disrepute, or shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any language intended to incite, provoke, or encourage resistance to the United States, or to promote the cause of its enemies, or shall willfully display the flag of any foreign enemy, or shall willfully by utterance, writing, printing, publication, or language spoken, urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of production in this country of any thing or things, product or products, necessary or essential to the prosecution of the war in which the United States may be engaged, with intent by such curtailment to cripple or hinder the United States in the prosecution of war, and whoever shall willfully advocate, teach, defend, or suggest the doing of any of the acts or things in this section enumerated, and whoever shall by word or act support or favor the cause of any country with which the United States is at war or by word or act oppose the cause of the United States therein, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or the imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both: Provided, That any employee or official of the United States Government who commits any disloyal act or utters any unpatriotic or disloyal language, or who, in an abusive and violent manner criticizes the Army or Navy or the flag of the United States shall be at once dismissed from the service. . . .
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kerry returned to the United States on July 22, 1971, held a press conference publicly calling on President Nixon... for the surrender of the United States to North Vietnam.

[RStauch]

So, under the Sedition Act, Kerry's vote against the $87 Billion (though he voted for it, before he voted against it) is "willfully by utterance, writing, printing, publication, or language spoken, urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of production in this country of any thing or things, product or products, necessary or essential to the prosecution of the war in which the United States may be engaged, with intent by such curtailment to cripple or hinder the United States in the prosecution of war?"

Cool!
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Richard Stauch
Ft. Myers, FL

[dafrog]

Kerrys people will come up with what does a what does "is" mean. He didn't really see a declaration of war. Or even better the real question is...

[4moreyears]

[Paul]

This is a problem that very much stems from the failure of our Congress to formally declare a national emergency and with so-called undeclared wars.

It's the same reason that our people were left defenseless against the machinations of the so-called anti-war movement during the Vietnam conflict, particularly at its organized height post ’68 through ‘73 and the central reason, among others, why such as Jane Fonda and others were never formally charged with treason for their activities. And that includes those who were very active in advocating “fraggings” and mutiny among our troops.

It’s also why activists were free to hold such as a rally to raise funds for arms for the Mexican-backed insurgency of Augusto Sandino in Nicaragua was held in May 1930 while American sailors and Marines were fighting and dieing fighting that very Bandit insurgency in Nicaragua. Granted that was a smaller and more focused task than either southeast Asia or the so-called GWAT. But I include the example for demonstration.

Personally, this is why I'm angry that our people have been sent abroad under nothing more substantial than a new "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution."

This is among the reasons that Ronald Reagan in 1965 called publicly for our nation to make a formal declaration of war against the People’s Republic of Viet Nam which was waging a sophisticated war against the Republic of Viet Nam.

The results of our having failed to so is why in 1976 I joined with others in giving then speaker Ronald Reagan a standing ovation in my then home town of Albuquerque, NM when he declared that never again should our nation send its armed forces into a war that it had no intention of winning and failed to formally declare.

Damnit. We’ve done it again.

So don’t get you hopes up. Our self-serving gutless wonder “leaders” in both the Congress and Executive have insulated themselves with this self-serving ambiguity and lack of a formal declaration of national emergency. Once again we’ve left our people in our armed forces hanging and defenseless against 5th column activities against them. Once again, we’ve embarked on an endeavor that short-circuits our constitution.

The late President Reagan never deviated from this principle or many others even if he did deviate on less important ones at times. God bless and God rest him for it.

These words need to be repeated again.
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Paul

[4moreyears]

Maybe the dems drag their feet to declare war so that they can create havoc with no fear of legal entanglements such as charges of sedition and treason.

There is the legal act of such shortcomings and then there is the spirit.
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kerry returned to the United States on July 22, 1971, held a press conference publicly calling on President Nixon... for the surrender of the United States to North Vietnam.

[Paul]

"There is the legal act of such shortcomings and then there is the spirit."

Exactly. And not just legal in a “legalistic” sense, but this a very pragmatic aspect of successfully waging a war so as to win. The provisions are given us by our very pragmatic and sound constitution so as to provide for times of war and national emergency. When a so-called war is undeclared, then such effort is fundamentally reduced to mere metaphor and all of this becomes a matter of personal character and debate about it only.

If I mention the example of the NY rally for Sandino during the eight years of what’s now known in the naval service as Second Nicaragua, then the same problem was faced by our people in the Philippines 1898 through 1903.

The hyperbole of the so-called anti-Imperialist League that inspired the insurgency that our soldiers, sailors and Marines were fighting and dieing against there led Brig. Gen Lawton, USV, to state that if he was killed by a Filipino bullet, then it might as well come from one of his own Filipino Scouts.

The late general explained that what he meant by his peculiar public statement was that while himself and many others had come to question the wisdom of our national policies in the Philippines, the exaggerated statements of men like Mark Twain and those of the anti-imperialist league were wrong and only encouraging and sustaining the hopeless insurgency being fought against and dealt with. Lawton was an honorable man. Brigadier General Lawton engaged in political activities on behalf of both the United States and the indigenous Filipinos and he led the military effort in the field against the insurgents where a few months after these statements he was killed in action. May he rest in peace.

An old soldier who served our nation in the Civil War, in the Indian Wars (most particularly the Apaches wars in which he took part in the final successful campaign that defeated the Apaches who engaged in guerilla and terrorist tactics), the Spanish American War and then finally, the post-Spanish American War insurgency in Luzon in the Philippine Islands (where his experience from the Indian wars was invaluable).

Times have changed but the tactics have not. We have new technology and so do our enemies who also make use of the new technologies.

The Bandit Sandino was limited to publishing his pictures of the mutilated bodies of U.S. Marines in the Mexican and Honduran press along with his boast of having “drunk Yanqui Blood” just as the Iranians were limited to publishing the pictures of the mutilated bodies of our airmen and Marines in the 1980 rescue attempt in Iran to a local press. Now with the internet and international media being what it is, our enemies abilities are all the greater too and they're making use of them.

All the more reason, I believe, that it is a disgrace that our national leaders have embarked on something of this scale while failing to formally declare a national emergency to focus our efforts and ensure constitutional protections.

And this is not something resulting from anything akin to post-SAW PI, the Banana wars era of the navy during the post-WWI era when the navy was routinely labeled “the merchants of death” by the anti-war pacifist movements. This is not even akin to the effort against the Soviet & Chinese backed north Vietnamese offensives against Laos, Cambodia and the Republic of Viet Nam 1959 forward. This is after an attack on our own homeland worse than the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Personally, in this context, and with all of the objective examples from our past, I find this disgraceful, both of our Congressional and Executive branches of government.

Our people in our armed forces are once again left unprotected. The whole effort is reduced to only a vague “spirit” and metaphorical “war.” It’s good for no one, but cowardly politicians and our nation’s enemies.

I apologize for being so wordy. But this is outrageous.
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Paul

[BuffaloJack]

The Sedition Act would have been just the thing to go after Kerry with. Too bad it was repealed by Congress in 1921.

[Paul]

“The Sedition Act would have been just the thing to go after Kerry with. Too bad it was repealed by Congress in 1921.”

I left it alone. But it’s probably good it comes up.

If one is speaking about the seditious activities of the pro-Hanoi activists back during the Vietnam war, then for the most egregious, blatant and notorious offenders (and Kerry was more in the “up and comer” category in 1971), there was and remains federal legislation capable of dealing with them at the time (or at least it would seem there was and is except that it was not even “tested”).

Our nation’s Attorney General’s under Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Ford obviously chose not to even try. With new precedents being established at the time in our courts on some extremely broad interpretations of the First Amendment, with no formal declaration of war for our nation’s armed forces in Vietnam, with the state of cultural chaos that ensued from ’68 forward and numerous other reasons then personally I’m not impressed that they didn’t even try but not shocked they that they didn’t either.

The Sedition Act of 1918 was repealed in 1921. The state of war that the United States had been in was formally over. The Versailles Treaty was a treaty. It ended a war.

The Sedition Act of 1918 was enacted during a time of war following our nation’s formal and clear declaration of war. There’s a lot of spin-type rhetoric about it today (what a surprise. . . ), but for individuals tried under the Sedition Act of 1918, then the conditions that had to met as constituting an act of sedition were specifically those outlined in our constitution.

So, obviously Senator Kerry’s vote in 2003 would not constitute an act of sedition under the Sedition Act of 1918, or any other I don’t believe. Not even in “spirit.” Personally, I don’t believe that the vote of a US Senator or US Congressman can be held to be an act of sedition.

Anyway, a formal declaration of war during Vietnam may not have been a panacea, but it certainly would have been a strong and clear support for our federal laws against seditious and traitorous acts, particularly those targeting our men and women in the service at the time, who were left defenseless, and aid in the safeguard of constitutional rights.

In contrast to the Sedition Act of 1918, the Sedition Act of 1798 was a pure controversy and pain full of constitutional and legal problems right from the very beginning.

The Sedition Act of 1798 was enacted due to what’s become known as the Quasi-War with France of 1798 to 1803; Our nation’s first undeclared war (lacking either a formal state of war declared by our enemy and acknowledged by ourselves or declared by our nation against an enemy). It lacked the safeguard support of our constitution and even threatened some aspects due to our lacking a formal declaration of war.

For those who speak or write so wistfully of our nation’s going to war without a formal Declaration of War then, again, there are of plenty of examples to at least seriously question the wisdom of doing so, particularly in a major long-term undertaking.
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Paul

[Paul]

By the way, out new updated "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution" passed by our Congress in 2002 giving the Executive branch the authority to invade Iraq was not only passed by the action of congressional democrats -- it was a "bi-partisan" action of the majority of the members of our Congress that brought it about. And I heard no complaints from the Executive branch.

So I doubt it's only a democratic plot. Rather, a "bi-partisan" act of gutlessness by many.
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Paul

[d19thdoc]

Just in Kerry's testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations committee on 4/22/72, much that is prohibited in the Sedition Act is on display. Please read the entire thing http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=Testimony

Plus all of his other statements of record, and the acts against flag and uniform, good order and discipline, mutiny, etc. perpetrated or advocated by him and his cohorts in VVAW.

In the coming firestorm over the anti-war activities, do not let them pin you down to just a few paragraphs of well worn quotes from that testimony.

One of the most uinfortunate side-effects (or was it the principle goal) of the anti-war movement was to move the bar for treason and sedition way, way up. Much of the intolerable political discourse we have today is a direct result of their "triumph" over the governemnt in the 60's and 70's.

Just another example of weakness feeding the beast.
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For The Honor of the Fifty-Eight Thousand.
"He Can Lose, But He Can Not Hide"