Contempt – Sedition – Treason

Over the last number of years, the American public has grown weary and even angry with the bureaucracy in Washington DC. A large number of the politicians we have elected, regardless of the political parties they represent, become corrupted the minute they set foot inside the beltway. Forgotten are the promises made to those who elected them. They seem to be attracted like moths to a flame of corrupt influences that Washington has to offer – money, special interests, lobbyists, self-indulgence, arrogance and power.

We can remember how election after election, the public mantra was, “Obamacare must go”. After the Republicans had won a majority in the House, Senate, and finally the Oval Office, the limp-wristed, weak-knee, majority couldn’t muster enough votes to kill Obamacare, proving once and for all that regardless of party affiliation, politicians in general, simply cannot be trusted to do the right thing!

MIT Professor, Jonathan Gruber¹, the architect of the “Affordable Heathcare Bill”, even bragged on a national television talk show panel, just how stupid the voting public was and that the Obama administration and the Democrats pulled one over on all of us . . .

“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber said. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”

Prior to the presidential election of 2016, the public began to realize that party affiliation had little to do with electing representatives that would speak for their core constituency back home. I think all along America was waking up to TRUTH, that in spite of taking an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, many of them must have had their fingers crossed!

The oath by the way, used today has not changed since 1966 and has not changed in theory since the original was adopted on May 5, 1789. For members and civil servants, it was a very simple: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States.”  It was the first bill passed in Congress. Today’s version is more specific and is prescribed in Title 5, Section 3331 of the United States Code². It reads:

“I, Representative’s name, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Members of Congress, by and large, are well educated (on paper, that is)³. Over 95 percent of members of Congress have completed a bachelor’s degree or higher compared to only 28 percent of the general population. Additionally, 0.6 percent of the U.S. adult population are lawyers, compared to 41 percent of the 113^th Congress. Interestingly, Members of Congress are 86 times as likely as all American adults to have practiced law, and perhaps many of them might not have been the brightest bulb in the lamp, gravitating to elected office rather that choosing to make lucrative sums of money in the legal profession. But I guess we can all assume they fully understood the oath they took when they were sworn into office.

This brings us around to the situation we find ourselves in as taxpaying, hard working, honest citizens of the United States, who despite our latest attempt at trying to find a voice in our government, many of those we elected (or re-elected) have turned their backs on those of us who put them in office, refusing to either pick up the mantle and go forth doing the will of the people, or instead have joined the “Deep State” with the Democrats to subvert the Representative Republic of the United States. What is occurring in Washington is a direct abrogation of the oath of office they took!

According to the well respected Federalist⁴, as days go by, it has become nearly incontrovertible that a slow-motion coup d’etat is now taking place. Since November 9, 2016, forces within the U.S. government, media, and partisan opposition have aligned to overthrow the Electoral College winner, Donald Trump. It went on to say:

“To achieve this they have undermined the institutions of the Fourth Estate, the bureaucratic apparatus of the U.S. government, and the very nature of a contentious yet affable two-party political system. Unlike the coup d’etat that sees a military or popular figure lead a minority resistance or majority force into power over the legitimate government, this coup d’etat is leaderless and exposes some of the deepest fissures in our system of government.”

This coup d’etat represents not the rule of one man or even many, but by the multitude of our elites, even though evidence mounts with the passage of time as to the complicity of former President Barack Obama and the incorrigible minions of his Administration, with the aid of the Justice Department and the security agencies under its command, including the various departments of governments sworn to protect Americans – the FBI, NSA, CIA, the DOJ – whose roles have been the primary protectors against domestic and foreign foes.

As written in The Objective Standard – Winter 2011 Issue⁵, “The proper purpose of government is, as the Founding Fathers recognized, to protect people’s inalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness . . . Insofar as an individual violates rights—whether by direct force (e.g., assault) or indirect force (e.g., fraud)—a proper government employs the police and courts as necessary to stop him, to seek restitution for his victims, and/or to punish him. Likewise for international relations: So long as a foreign country refrains from using (or calling for) physical force against our citizens, our government properly leaves that country alone. But if a foreign country (or gang) attacks or calls for others to attack us, our government properly employs our military to eliminate that threat. As Thomas Jefferson summed up, a proper government “shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”.

As we can see from this interpretation of what Constitutional authority was initially granted by the Founders, The Government has strayed far from protecting the country from threats, both foreign and domestic, and we the people have allowed them to get away with it. As Thomas Paine said in his acclaimed work, Common Sense, “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right” ⁶. Likewise we can conclude Thomas Jefferson was right when he said “The government you elect is the government you deserve”.⁷

The title of my article, Contempt, Sedition, and Treason, is to help more fully understand the predicament with which America is faced, and has truly taken our beloved country to the precipice of tyranny. We the people must decide our own fate to either succumb to the tyranny of the progressive left who see themselves as above the law, or stand-up and fight back with whatever means we have at our disposal. Thank God the Framers of the Constitution had the foresight to give us the 2nd Amendment, which was meant to insure the integrity of the Constitution itself. Scholars from Stanford University upon researching all aspects of the 2nd Amendment surmised,

“The Anti-Federalists at the Pennsylvanian Ratifying Convention followed the same reasoning as those at the Virginia convention. Their minority bill of rights, later printed as “Reasons of Dissent,” included “that the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own state, or the United States, or for the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed, or real danger of public injury from individuals.” This immediately dispels the notion that “bear arms” refers only militia related action, a stance held by several amicus briefs in both Heller and its due process-based sequel, McDonald v. City of Chicago.” ⁸

I am in no way advocating taking up arms by those of us who feel betrayed because we followed the law and elected Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States, only to see the administrative personnel in the Obama regime resort to seditious acts in an effort to deny the will of the people. It is a thought however, in the backs of many a mind.

I have heard the word, “treason” used by many Leftists, and the bantering about by the media and certain Democrat legislators who have resorted to using that word, “treason”, to justify their coup d’etat of Donald Trump. Their hatred for the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law is illustrated in their effort to overthrow his Administration, because he is attempting to restore our democratic processes giving power back to the people.

To set the record straight as to the happenings inside the Beltway, I felt we should define what salacious acts the Deep State (aka the Democrat Party and their accomplices in the media) is taking in their coup d’etat, which has been unwillingly unmasked by what remains of the legitimate press.

The first undertaking is to define the word “CONTEMPT”. By definition, the word “contempt” means⁹:

The feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn, disdain, disrespect, scornfulness, contemptuousness, derision, disgust, loathing, hatred, abhorrence, in short, disregard for something that should be taken into account; “An action which displays an arrogant contempt for the wishes of the majority.”

In layman’s terms we all should be aware of its meaning in the court of law: the offense of being disobedient to or disrespectful of a court of law and its officers.

We also have examples of contemptuous acts in relation to the will of Congress, which has been graphically illustrated in the much publicized Congressional Oversight Committee hearings. Congress is trying to get to the bottom and document the abuse of power by the various departments of government as they implement their silent coup d’etat. The oversight committees have run into a brick wall of false testimony (perjury) by members of the Obama Administration, and high ranking FBI bosses, other security officials, and outright contempt by refusing to comply with numerous FOIA requests, and subpoenas for records. The weak-kneed Republicans in Congress have stood by rather than to simply voice their disgust and shut the whole mess down, leaving we the people in complete disbelief, and a growing intolerance of their stupidity! I believe that most American have Contempt for the whole mess inside the Beltway!

The second word of importance is SEDITION” ¹⁰ Sedition means:

Conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch. such as provocation, rebellion, insurrection, mutiny, insurgence, and civil disorder. Example: “The on-campus protestors were charged with sedition” : the crime of saying, writing, or doing something that encourages people to disobey their government. Sedition differs from treason¹¹ (defined in Article III of the U.S. Constitution) in a fundamental way. While seditious conspiracy is generally defined as conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state, treason is the more-serious offense of actively levying war against the United States or giving aid to its enemies. Another way of looking at it is that seditious conspiracy often occurs before an act of treason.

Since the election of Donald Trump we have certainly seen glaring examples of sedition by those on the Left. One only has to look at the actions of Atifa to see sedition in motion. Besides Hollywood actors, from Jane Fonda, to Robert DeNiro and Kathleen Griffin, we have seen language to incite those on the Left to seditious action. An even more chilling example of such vitriol  (one among many of the many violent acts we have witnessed) from the Washington Post¹²:

“Last weekend in Berkeley, Calif., a group of neo-communist antifa — “anti-fascist” — thugs attacked peaceful protesters at a “No to Marxism in America” rally, wielding sticks and pepper spray, and beating people with homemade shields . . .”

Then we come down to outright TREASON, a word used by the Left to describe Donald Trump and the Trump Administration. The sad part of all this is that those who toss around this word like a hot potato haven’t the vaguest idea what the true meaning of “treason” is. On almost every main stream media channel the anchors discuss the day’s Leftist talking points using the word “treason’.

Treason is actually covered under Article 3 – The Judicial Branch Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which states:  “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court” ¹⁴. A word to these fools . . . Please tell us when President Trump levied war against America. Of course to these folks, adhering to the tenants of the U.S. Constitution would be a novel idea. Those on the Left side of the aisle consider the rest of the country these days as their enemies – with Trump giving us Aid and Comfort.

From the FindLaw.com website published by Thompson-Reuters, I found this great summation of the situation at hand . . . “In order to get a conviction for seditious conspiracy, the government must prove that the defendant in fact conspired to use force. Simply advocating for the use of force is not the same thing and in most cases is protected as free speech under the First Amendment. For example, two or more people who give public speeches suggesting the need for a total revolution “by any means necessary” have not necessarily conspired to overthrow the government. Rather, they’re just sharing their opinions, however unsavory. But actively planning such an action (distributing guns, working out the logistics of an attack, actively opposing lawful authority, etc.) could be considered a seditious conspiracy” . . . and lead to prosecution for Treason!

Bibliography:

1. http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/223578-obamacare-architect-lack-of-transparency-helped-law-pass Gruber
2. Oath http://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Oath-of-Office/
3. http://www.measureofamerica.org/113-congress-infographic/ education
4. http://thefederalist.com/2017/05/19/watching-slow-motion-coup-detat/
5. https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2011-winter/purpose-of-government/
6. http://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/sense1.htm
7. https://quotefancy.com/quote/918286/Thomas-Jefferson-The-government-you-elect-is-the-government-you-deserve
8. https://web.stanford.edu/group/progressive/cgi-bin/?p=559
9. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/contempt
10. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384
11. https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/sedition.html
12. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/yes-antifa-is-the-moral-equivalent-of-neo-nazis/2017/08/30/9a13b2f6-8d00-11e7-91d5-ab4e4bb76a3a_story.html ?noredirect =on&utm_term=.ae551d3ade3b
13. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/treason
14. https://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A3Sec3.html
15. https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/sedition.html

Ed Mattson

Following his service in the Marine Corps, Ed built a diverse career in business in both sales/marketing and management. He is a medical research specialist (biological response modifiers) and has published numerous books. His latest books are Concept of America and soon-to-be released, Blessed are the Heroes. Ed is past Development Director of the National Guard Bureau of International Affairs-State Partnership Program, and Fundraising Coordinator for the Warrior2Citizen Project. Mr. Mattson is a noted speaker and has addressed more than 3000 audiences in 42 states and 5 foreign countries. He has been awarded the Order of the Sword by American Cancer Society, is a Rotarian Paul Harris Fellow and appeared on more than 15 radio and television talk-shows. His non-fiction books range from what it means to be an American, to his best selling book on cancer research, Say NO to the Undertaker, published by Author House.

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