The definition of sedition in Merriam-Webster online concise encyclopedia:
Crime of creating a revolt, disturbance, or violence against lawful civil authority with the intent to cause its overthrow or destruction. Because it is limited to organizing and encouraging opposition to government rather than directly participating in its overthrow, sedition is regarded as falling one step short of the more serious crime of treason. In the U.S. the display of a certain flag or the advocacy of a particular movement, such as syndicalism, anarchism, or communism, has periodically been declared seditious. More recently, the courts have applied a more stringent test of sedition to ensure that constitutional guarantees regarding freedom of speech are not abridged. See also Alien and Sedition Acts.
The penalty for sedition as set forth in 18 U.S. Code § 2385 – Advocating overthrow of Government:
Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or
Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or
Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof-
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
Now we get to the Jefferson County Recorder of Deeds, Debbie Dunnegan, who saw fit to call for a miltary coup against our elected president on her facebook page:
I have a question for all my friends who have served or are currently serving in our military … having not put on a uniform nor taken any type military oath, there has to be something that I am just not aware of. But I cannot and do not understand why no action is being taken against our domestic enemy. I know he is supposedly the commander in chief, but the constitution gives you the authority, […] What am I missing? Thank you for your bravery and may God keep you safe.
Doesn’t this qualify as sedition? I’m not an advocate of sedition laws, but I’m sick of people who think it’s okay to talk about armed revolution or military coups because they don’t like the black man in the white house and they’re so dumb that they think that folks whose politics disagree with their own are criminals. I think George Bush nearly destroyed the United States with his wrongheaded policies and incompetence, but I would never have called for an armed uprising against him – there was no doubt that he was, so far as we could ascertain at the time, acting within his legal remit – even though the lies that led us into Iraq were perhaps grounds for a high-crimes impeachment trial.
Perhaps Dunnegan’ll never end up in jail just because she is so clearly non compos mentis. Not only did she attempt to excuse her effort to incite violent overthrow of the president by stating that “she meant ‘no ill intent’ toward President Obama” – which is beyond dimwitted – but she also seems to think that the Constitution would countenance the violent overthrow of a duly elected leader whom nobody outside the influence of the most corrupt and overheated reaches of Fox News punditry – itself designed for those of impaired intellect – would accuse of criminal wrongdoing. It’s no crime to be dumber than a doornail, I guess, and there have probably been some successful criminal defences based on impaired mental capacity (as long as the offender isn’t poor or black, or, God-forbid, both).
Dunnegan thinks the publicity attendant on her little act of sedition will actually help her in her re-election bid. And this is the sad part. Based on the events of the past few years, she’s probably right.
