ZZZZZZOOOOOOTTTTTT!!!!!!
Posted on 11/12/2003 3:30:36 PM PST by ayoshida
Paul Douglas Revak, a Western Washington University student who plotted bomb attacks against Coast Guard and Army National Guard stations has pled guilty to reduced charges and will probably be out of prison before Christmas. His lawyer claims that he was merely, “expressing his frustration with the Administration.” The whole case calls to mind what Ann Coulter said about John Walker Lindh- that he should have been executed to send a message to liberals that yes, there are consequences to treason.
During the Revolutionary War, suspected Tories were tarred and feathered and British collaborators were executed. During the Civil War, President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus, threw secessionists in jail and, eventually, arrested Copperhead ‘Peace Democrats’. In the First World War the Congress passed the Sedition Act, threw those opposed to the war in jail, and banned the shipment of anti-war materials through the mails. In the Second World War all Japanese-Americans were interned along with those Germans and Italians believed to be sympathetic to the cause of their parent nations. I do not bring up these examples to warn against the loss of civil liberties today, but rather to point out that we have lost too few. Republics cannot allow the same freedoms in war as they would in peace. Inter armes silent leges- in times of war the law falls silent. Not my words: Cicero’s.
The left in this nation has forgotten the difference between ‘dissent’ and treason. While, in the past, people have objected to America’s other wars have done so largely silently and alone, today’s ‘dissenters’ presume that they have a democratic right to seek to undermine a war effort, even going so far as to collaborate with the enemies of their own nation. They view Jane Fonda’s 1972 trip to North Vietnam, during which she mocked American Prisoners of War and broadcast enemy propaganda, as simply a legitimate act of political expression. It wasn’t: it was treason in the clearest sense of the word. It would have been utterly proper and just if, upon her return, Jane Fonda had been arrested, tried, convicted, and hanged. In fact, it would be proper if it were to occur tomorrow: there is no statute of limitations on treason.
In every other major war in human history, war opponents have been booed, beaten, jailed and, depending upon their actions, executed. It should be so in this war as well. Paul Revak shouldn’t have been allowed to go free with a few months of jail time. He should have been put to death- not only to punish him for his sins, but also to send the right sort of message to those who share his ideas: yes, you too can be executed.
But it is more than simply worrying about a few crazies who might join al-Qaeda, build bombs, or fly to some far-off land to broadcast enemy propaganda. The greatest threat is posed by the massed ranks of the so-called anti-war movement which, together with elements of the left, constitutes the real fifth column within this country. Islamic terrorists preparing terrorist attacks aren’t fifth columnists: to be a ‘fifth column’ there must be a presumption of loyalty. The Islamists, even those who are sleeper agents, are more akin to enemy special forces than anything else. Those opposed to the war constitute a disloyal element serving the goals of the enemies of freedom. They must be harshly dealt with.
The idea that a government ought to permit an active anti-war movement during a war for national survival is new, dating mostly from the Vietnam era, when traitors successfully cloaked their machinations in the rhetoric of freedom as a means of subversion. No nation can be expected to successfully wage a war when it has ten million enemies clustered within its own borders: working to destroy public morale, undermine confidence in leadership, question the reasons of war and take other actions which can be spun as ‘innocent’ but which, in all reality, are pro-enemy.
Any crackdown upon traitors should begin with the trial and execution of those who have committed overt acts of treason: John Walker Lindh being the primary example, but also including Jose Padilla, James Yee, Paul Revak, Ahmad al Halabi, Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, and probably about a dozen others. It should be followed up upon by the passage of laws (along the lines of the Sedition Act of the First World War) which will allow for the detention of potential subversives. It doesn’t even matter so much if the laws aren’t quite Constitutional- the both the World War One Sedition Act and Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus were eventually ruled so- with sufficient will it can be arranged so that no final decision will be made until after the war.
Anti-war publications and journalists should be harassed and, where possible, shut down with their employees jailed. The internet will be harder to handle, but not impossible. With a few million dollars, the blind eye of law enforcement and the right people, the treasonous elements on the internet could be quickly expunged through a combination of sabotage, hacking, infiltration, and denial of service attacks. IP tracing and other tools could be used to uncover the identity of anti-war individuals who could then be made subject to harassment: either official or unofficial.
This is a war: we don’t have time to argue with the agents of the enemy, to reason with them and we certainly have no reason whatsoever to compromise them or consider the validity of even a single syllable that they utter.
“If you so restrict freedom,” some will say, “then the terrorists will have won.” That is nonsense, the terrorists will only win when we lose the will to defend our society. The terrorists win when we let their advocates roam free. The terrorists win when we let the words of their friends give them comfort. The terrorists don’t win when we put their lovers in jail.
Let's see. Big list. Rockefeller, Most Democratic Politicians, Most of the media, etc.
Try something like it again these days and I promise to personally bring your life to a very rapid and very violent end.
L
Truly breathtaking statist cynicism. And what of a "War on Terror" that, like the War on (Some) Drugs, need never -- and, for that matter, can never -- be considered by its proponents to have an "after"? To ever end?
216.244.21.206
Come and get me, Yoshida. If you have the balls to put your guns against mine. ... Oh, you want others to do your dirty work? Pretty gutless, I'd say.
ayoshida: Since 2003-11-06
Welcome to Free Republic. I suppose if DU types can invade here, so also can the ultra-statist Right. Neither side respects the Constitution, as you do not.
Athens permitted it. Ever read Aristophanes? Ever read Euripides?
The Liberteens are going to have a cow...
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