Where was that line again?

She could act (0.00 / 0)

in the tradition of civil disobedience, putting her money where her motor-mouth is for a change and going to jail rather than go against her beliefs.

Fat chance.

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by: dan.burns @ Mon Mar 15, 2010 at 20:41:24 PM CDT

she may be "doing" sedition, but... (0.00 / 0)

...I don't think it's a crime anymore. I'm not even sure it should be. Most of the attempts to write an anti-sedition law have been regarded as limitations on free speech. Attempts to try and enforce such laws tend to turn into a civil rights c********k.

Having said that: yes, this seems to be "incitement to resist lawful authority." (Bachmann and company would not agree that the authority is lawful, they see the President and the Democrats in Congress as acting beyond the scope of the Constitution. But that is not for them to decide as a matter of law. That power of saying what the law is, is not granted to people outside of official government--we have elections in order to appoint people to decide for us.  And a society where any citizen is free to decide what the law is or whether a law is "legitimate" or not: is anarchy, no society at all, outside the American tradition of a democratic republic.

So she is lying to her supporters about what the law is, what it requires, how the Constitution works, and what the Constitution does and does not allow the government to do. She is encouraging citizens to disobey the law if or when it passes, and that represents her personal rejection of an authority that is based in more than two hundred years of American lawmaking by an elected leadership. And she is rejecting the rule of law itself, where it does not fit into her paranoid, lying narrative.

I don't think you can or should throw her in jail for sedition, just for doing that. Doing that, by itself, is still the right of any American crackpot. And it is an awful thing for a lawmaker and attorney to advise people to disregard a law simply because they sincerely think that law is "illegitimate"--I don't know what measure are available to hold MB accountable.

Maybe there is a professional standard, under Minnesota's Rules of Professional Responsibility for attorneys. Maybe there is a case on point, where some attorney advised people to deliberately disobey a law and was disbarred. If so, I'm not even sure that would apply here, since the law hasn't actually been enacted yet.

Maybe there are ethical guidelines within Congress to discipline her. That's a topic for research, I guess. But her colleagues in Congress wouldn't censure her when she accused some of them of harboring anti-American attitudes, and they didn't censure her when she suggested that the census in its current form was unconstitutional.

 

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by: Bill Prendergast @ Mon Mar 15, 2010 at 20:47:07 PM CDT

I believe she has crossed some line again (0.00 / 0)

this time more clearly than previously. I found this current oath of office for serving in congress:

"I 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."

I don't think it it's her crazy interpretation of the constitution that she is obligated to support.  Congress should take some kind of steps to rein her in, as she gets scarier each passing month.  Her speech at the recent rally seemed creepy to me- all her references to "our country" although her teabaggers are nowhere near a majority. Maybe this ongoing crazy talk will help dems limit their losses in Nov, thought it will take better coverage from the MSM to expose these extremists.

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by: lc in cd2 @ Mon Mar 15, 2010 at 23:40:35 PM CDT

Here's the thing... (0.00 / 0)

...elected official, or officials appointed by elected officials, regularly interpret the Constitution. They have to, it's part of their job as representatives of the people: for example, when a police decides to pull you over--he's making a conclusion that involves an interpretation of the US Constitution (even if he's not thinking of it in those terms.)

Sometimes our representatives in government disagree about what the Constitution requires. That happens very often, in some very high profile cases--and it happens in some low profile cases to. You write:

I don't think it it's her crazy interpretation of the constitution that she is obligated to support.

I happen to agree with you--but SHE doesn't agree with us, and SHE'S the "official" here--not you or me. The argument available to her is the same as the one that's available to any person upholding the oath of office: "I don't think the Constitution means what my colleagues in government say it means. My oath of office and my mandate from the voters requires me to interpret and opine and uphold what I think the Constitution means." In American history, you see the contest over what constitutes proper interpretation...between presidents and the Supreme Court...between the Supreme Court and Congress...between the county sheriff and the local legislature...all kinds of officials, depending on their agenda, may differ on the interpretation of how the Constitution applies, and whether this or that law or application of the law is constitutional.

So is within her rights as an official and an elected representative to have her own (ridiculous and unfounded) opinion to say "I think that's unconstitutional, this legislation they're talking about," and to advocate against it on that basis.

But she goes further. She tells her supporters that even if this law is passed, it is somehow not the law of the land and she encourages them to ignore the law, not to comply with it. She is a lawyer, and telling people that is very bad legal advice and actually encourages lawlessness--in some other countries it would violate laws against sedition. Because even if a law is bad, it's still the law: and telling people that they should not or must not or don't have to conform to it is a terrible lie to tell.

Because you and I and the lay citizens at the tea party rally do not have the authority to strike down laws. We can demonstrate against them, we can go to the voting booth and vote against the people who make the laws--but as non-officials, we do not have the authority to "strike down" or disregard an enacted law with impunity.

Bachmann is fostering the legal thinking of a lynch mob here--"circumvent and disregard the democratic process of a republic if the vote isn't going your way." And this is not the first time she's done that. This is another reason why it perfectly appropriate for the press and her political opponents to identify her to the public as an extremist. She doesn't have any respect for the law and institutions of American democracy if they aren't fulfilling her personal political agenda, and she teaches and fosters disobedience to the law and the institutions of democracy if they don't trend toward her political agenda: the mark of the real crackpot, the extremist, the proto-fascist.

That is not patriotism, that is not protection of liberty and freedom, no matter how many times they invoke those terms. That kind of thinking, accepted by so many Americans on the right who admire Bachmann, is a threat to liberty and freedom--no matter how many American flags they bring to their rallies.  

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by: Bill Prendergast @ Tue Mar 16, 2010 at 01:47:27 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

When I read that quote earier (0.00 / 0)

this was exactly the question that came to mind.  At what point do we start prosecuting sedition, anymore?  That being said, the image the last line conjures may be my favorite part.

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by: Jlubby @ Tue Mar 16, 2010 at 12:05:54 PM CDT

Does anyone besides me, see what would (0.00 / 0)

be wrong with calling for Bachmann to be prosecuted for "sedition," on the basis of what she said? Does anyone here, see how "recognizing a federal government power to prosecute sedition"--could be turned against you and me and the people we vote for--if conservatives ever returned to control the three branches of government as they did in this last decade?

For example: the conservatives have intentionally misidentified Obama as a Marxist, a tyrant. There are millions of Americans who actually believe that. If their representatives come to control Congress (as they did after 1994), come to control the White House (as they have several times), come to control the federal courts (as they still do.)

Do you imagine that when they return to power in the United States, they'd hesitate to use "sedition laws" to prosecute Obamas, Wellstones, Frankens, Kucinichs, their supporters, you, me, the liberals who "hate America." Do you think the differences between what Bachmann says here and what liberals and progressives argue elsewhere will protect you or me from threat of prosecution, fines, etc. by a conservative American government with the power to prosecute for "sedition?"

No one here remembers the Gonzales thing, or can imagine what Gonzales and Bush and Rove and Cheney could have done to Democrats with an official and well established power to try political opponents for sedition. In most cases, they would even have to prosecute, there'd be nothing to prosecute because their opponents would be "chilled" into silence out of "fear" of prosecution by conservatives. (I've actually seen this happen, covering the Bachmann story--a preference for shutting up, out of fear of legal action for speaking out. The thought of a government that includes crazy Michele Bachmann types being given the power to bring criminal prosecutions fills my pants with almost tangible fear, and it bugs me when people are so eager to get Bachmann via some "sedition law" that they can't see the almost undoubted outcome of setting such a precedent.

What she's doing here is telling people to defy a law, if it is passed. That's a horrible, irresponsible thing to do. And I have no doubt that if she is called out on it nationally, she will successfully back up on the remarks, spinning their meaning as she has in the past (eg, the census comments fracas.) The press and the elite that supports her will let her do that and keep her around so long as she retains her popularity with the nutty grass roots.

There may be other ways of holding Bachmann accountable for doing this. It's true that this is the kind of "anti-rule of law talk" that gets people killed, regularly. But you don't want to be the progressive who advocates letting this particular "sedition" genie out of the bottle. Too many of our own heroes were tried under laws that amount to "anti-sedition" laws. I'm not going to advocate sedition charges just to "get" Bachmann even if she's committing sedition--because that would be "getting" the Gandhis, the MLKs, the Wellstones and Obamas.  

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by: Bill Prendergast @ Tue Mar 16, 2010 at 13:46:32 PM CDT

[ Parent ]