Mad Dog had to Google the law which says advocating for the violent overthrow of the government is illegal.
It turns out, it's the Smith Act of 1940, Title 18.
Long before this law, Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes made it illegal to undermine the federal government by decrying the draft for World War 1, in that famous ringing phrase crystalizing the limits of free speech: "You cannot falsely cry 'Fire!' in a crowded theater causing a panic." He said that the printing (In Yiddish of all things!) of a pamphlet decrying the draft and distributed outside a factory encouraging workers to not support the draft, as the definition of a bayonet is a weapon with a worker at either end. He called this pamphlet a "clear and present danger" to the United States of America.
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| War At Kent State |
Holmes, at least when he wrote his opinion, was no friend of free speech.
But we all, or most of us, agree free speech is an ideal with some practical limitations.
Sometimes, however, men decide to ignore laws and to act, to do violent things and they feel justified in violently taking life on principle.
As a tool for revolution, for opposing despots, violence is often ineffective, or at best, inefficient.
My parents always told me: "Don't be a martyr. You can't win from the grave."
And this coming from the children of grandparents who participated in violent revolutions in Europe, personally, with guns.
But even a source as dubious as General George Patton said, "You don't win wars by dying for your country. You win wars by making that other dumb bastard, you enemy, die for his country."
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| Martyr |
On the other hand, once all other options have been tried without success, sometimes violence has a certain appeal.
There is a famous scene from the movie, "Mississippi Burning," between an FBI agent (William DaFoe) and the local sheriff assigned to help him (Gene Hackman). The Sheriff is the agent's native guide; he has grown up in the South and knows the local folks. When the car driven by the three Civil Rights workers is hauled out of a local swamp, it's apparent the three have been murdered and the agent orders up 100 police to search the location for the bodies.
"Don't do that. Don't do it." the sheriff warns the agent. "You'll start a war."
And the agent replies, "There's a war been going on here long before I arrived."
By that time in the movie, we have seen enough of Mississippi to know exactly what he means. It is a loathsome, fifth circle of Hell, populated by mean, ignorant, violent, haters.
The agent is willing to incite violence to meet violence.
After Renee Good was murdered by an ICE agent, even before federal agents murdered Alex Pretti as he tried to protect a woman agents had slammed to the ground, Mad Dog probed some of his local friends and members of the Democratic Club about at least beginning an academic discussion, a thought experiment, about what the options might be for resistance to the Trump terror.
We might begin with the simple, harmless things, like bringing food to immigrants who are afraid to leave their home, or blowing whistles when ICE shows up on the block or holding up protest signs on the corner.
When neighbors held up those signs, Mad Dog asked the leader if she had held any exercises about how to react if ICE arrived, the way those Freedom Riders and students who did sit ins at segregated lunch counters were trained in the sixties. She looked a little uncomprehending, and said, "Well, we'd get arrested."
Mad Dog thought, "But that's not training."
Do these folks with the protest signs know what to do when they are arrested? Do they have a plan for arrest? What if they are beaten? Do they have a plan?
When you are trained how to resuscitate someone, you are trained what your first step should be--establish an airway--then, the next--thump the chest--and if that doesn't work--start pumping. And if that doesn't work...And so on, for each failure, what is next.
And you are warned about how things can go wrong. Do not touch the metal bed rail when they put the electric paddles on the patient--when they go off you get the shock along with the patient.
Okay, you've tried the big marches with the balloons and pink hats with ears. None of that worked: What next?
Martin Luther King argued with Malcom X about peaceful resistance v Armed revolution.
Today, we think non violent resistance worked and was the smart choice.
But Mad Dog has always wondered: What if Gandhi had been protesting against Hitler? We'd never have heard of Gandhi, or at most, he'd have been a single news cycle.
Non violent protests only works against authorities who won't shoot you within seconds of arriving on the scene.
Watching Alex Pretti taking each step toward his own death, you could see he had a limited plan: video the ICE agents, back off as they approached him.
But then one of them slammed a woman to the ground near him and he had not planned or been trained for that moment and he dived in and died.
His death will not change anything any more than the death of that student in the famous photo from Kent State. That martyred student at Kent State did not end the war in Vietnam. The violent Tet Offensive ended the war in Vietnam.
So, maybe we'll talk some more about what we'll do, how far we'd be willing to go when ICE comes to Hampton.
And you have to walk it all the way through to the violence.
Do we organize a militia? We have guns in town. This is open carry New Hampshire.
Do we have a dozen men show up with their assault rifles shouldered?
What do we do when ICE calls in more troops with their assault rifles?
Do we level our rifles at them?
Do we shoot?
The Minutemen may or may not have had a plan at Lexington and Concord, but they actually wrecked havoc on the British and made them retreat.
But what happened then?
Do we want to engage in a full out fire fight in Hampton?
And if we did, would that not play into the hands of the Trump/Miller/Noem hands? Oh, look, see! We told you they were dangerous, murdering leftists!
Or are we already past that?
Has the war already begun, as in Mississippi?
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.
If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each 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.
As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.
