SEDITION? REALLY? A Worrisome Historical Parallel

Sedition? Really? I want to talk about the: “Parallels with the time before the American Revolution and today.”

TIME Magazine’s columnist Joe Klein accused Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck of coming lose to committing sedition against the United States Government. This is especially asinine when you try to apply this to Sarah Palin. The right that we have to protest when we see government doing things that are unconstitutional is being taken away. If we complain, then we become guilty of sedition. Free speech is taken away. The right to “peaceful protest” is being taken away.

It reminded me of the way that the British Crown was treating American Colonists just before the American Revolution. Laws were made to make certain British Wealth wealthier, while it made life harder on the colonists. The British officials who found it easy to break their own rules when it suited them, but enforce unfair ones on colonists became insufferable to the people who were carving a life out of the wilderness. And when they dared to say that the authorities were being unfair, that word, “sedition” was often used to shut them up in fear. Fear soon turned to frustration, and frustration turned to anger, and anger turned into a revolution.

A series of acts such as The Proclamation of 1763 and the Currency Act made life more difficult and destabilized the colonies. A series of Taxes from the Sugar Tax to the Stamp Tax to the infamous Tea Tax made hard colonial life many, many times harder than it already was. It was like taking from the poor in order to pay for the forces that were oppressing them (as the Quartering Tax directly did).

There are a number of incidents as the British fail to understand the temperament, attitudes, feelings, and lives of the colonists. They would not listen. British Rule became more and more oppressive and the colonists were pushed more and more into a corner. Laws and taxes were enacted without any regard of what it was doing to the colonies or what they thought at all. Does this sound familiar at all?

Think about the recent American Health Care Reform Law, and how the majority of Americans asked and even begged Congress and the President NOT to make it into law in its present form. Oh, we need health care reform, but not this! Think about the anger and frustration that has arisen. Think about how anyone from the middle to the Conservative Right has been polarized into a single group because their government is no longer working for the people, but is acting more and more like some other kind of government than the Republic we know and love.

See, people who are connected to the TEA PARTY on the most part are good people who are frustrated with not being represented by their Representatives and for out of control government and spending, and our Constitution being trampled on. They are not just the ultra-conservative Right and white middle class, but you will find all races and many social groups represented. This is becoming quickly a grassroots movement that is threatening to become a majority in this country. It certainly isn't some little isolated group. They represent a large portion of our country.

The liberal news propaganda machine is fighting tooth and toenail trying to make it look like some reactionary dangerous movement. The truth is that the current administration has birthed the Tea Party in protest. Our President and the majority of a liberal Congress, through their actions, have brought “the people” together to oppose their arrogance and stubbornness. They are to blame for the Tea Party. Oppression has always rallied the people in a desire for liberty. It is only now beginning to be understood that it is our liberty that is being attacked.

Not only does the majority already want a change in most of Congress and our President, but a new poll shows that 4 out of 5 Americans do not trust their government. Things certainly have changed in a year's time, hasn't it?

It isn’t sedition. It is reality. Many of us do not trust our government because they have shown themselves capable of moving in ways totally against the will of the people. That is not their function or place.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S : "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."?

When the people rise up and say, “NO, do not make this law!”, and you use every dirty political trick to see pass it into law anyway, what has happened? When the checks and balances of Congress and the President does not work and laws totally against what the people are calling for are brought into being in the midst of great protest, what has happened? When people who dare to question a government that has taken on the traits of an oppressive state are said to be seditious, then what has happened?

This is not the same United States of America that I grew up in. This is not the same USA of the American Constitution. This is not Lincoln’s Union. Something dark has occurred and people are now waking up to it, and they are not pleased.

When someone DARES to SPEAK THE TRUTH, then are they indeed guilty of sedition? If it is sedition, then sedition against who? It is certainly not sedition against this country which is built upon the Constitution of the United States. There are no calls for armed revolt or attacking the government. But an administration that uses disinformation and propaganda and lies is afraid of those who speak truth.

Truth is only the enemy of someone who clothes themselves and their actions in lies.

There are heartbreaking parallels to the way that the people of the United States are coming together and the way that the colonists did in Pre-Revolutionary America. When the people recognize that they are being lied to, and they are attacked by both government and media when they dare to speak their minds, then they will not stand for it. This country has a long history of the people shaking themselves off and making stands for good causes in the face of tyranny. Is it tyranny yet? Hmmmm… I shall let the reader decide for themselves. But it does not look good if things continue as they are going now. The sheer amount of U.N. troops on U.S. soil, and the arrogant way that the administration treats the common citizen who disagrees with them is reminiscent of the British Empire in Colonial America.

Those who live in lies will hate the bringer of truth. And they will cry “sedition” when someone dares to expose them. It would seem that America has become a place where you can get away with such attacks against people who point out truth. THIS IS NOT SEDITION. There is no armed revolt being called for… but there is a call back to sanity. I love my country. I love what the United States was founded on… liberty! Where is it today?

Is it sedition to ask for our country back?

-James Dale Coldiron

Tuesday, April 20, 2010