Chicken.
Too bad Gary's too much of a coward to show his face at a party in his honor. But that's OK, since everybody else seems to be having a good time. And since Mark volunteered to defend Gary, I guess I'll have to settle for dueling with Gary's second.
I wasn't able to participate much yesterday, but the advantage is that everybody drew out Mark and gave him a chance to fully state the utterly clueless opinion he shares with Gary.
Basically it boils down to applying a breathtakingly broad and self-serving definition of "aid and comfort". Hey Mark, would you call yourself a "strict constructionist" when it comes to the Constitution? That would make you as hypocritical as the entire Right--y'all get behind whatever interpretion of the Constitution suits your immediate political purposes. If that happens to be a literal (i.e., "Fundamentalist") reading, fine; but you don't hesitate to read whatever you want into the Constitution when it's convenient.
The hypocrisy is impressive. Our revered Founding Fathers devoted tremendous effort and care in developing a system that would maximize free speech, and especially political discourse and dissent. And yet you and the other RightWingers have the unmitigated gall to maintain that the Founders then stupidly pissed it all away by defining "treason" in such a way that it could be used by political bullies to stifle political speech.
How many times do you have to read this before you can understand it?
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.
It's right there in remarkably plain English after two centuries: Treason is making war against the United States. Directly: "levying". In a supporting role: "aid and comfort", that is sheltering enemy soldiers, feeding them, supplying materiel, providing medical care. "Adhering" means switching sides. John Walker Lindh joined the Taliban and "adhered"--gave his loyalty to--the Taliban.
It's not rocket science, Mark. But maybe the cluelessness really is ignorance rather than a cognitive shortcoming. Ever dipped into the Federalist Papers? Even strict constructionists concede that the Papers are vital in answering the question "what the hell were they thinking?".
The Founders thought a lot about the definition of treason because they'd seen how England's treason statutes--defined as loosely as you only wish the Constitution defined treason--had been abused over the centuries by people just like you and Gary, as a weapon against political opponents and political dissent. They agonized over the wording of the definition, and their clear and unmistakable intent was to make it as narrow as possible and to require solid proof.
The Founders would tell you and Gary that you're full of shit. "BULLSHIT!" is their line, not yours.
And then there's all the miscellaneous handwaving to try and obscure the simple reality of the meaning of treason. Typical example:
Al-queda and the insurgents view every drop in Bush's approval ratings on the war as a victory. They know they can't beat our soldiers in battle barring a rare and unlikely event. They know however that all they have to do is win the war of public opinion to defeat us. Does that make us obligated to blindly support the presient? - NO!. But is does make us obligated to judiciously and with good support argue against his policies rather than playing political games based on the usual low accuracy level of political slanders common in our system. even if you feel the war was wrong from the start and unrelated to the war on terror and have a very valid basis for opposing the president you should still base your arguements on well supported facts rather than slanders.
Oh wahhhh! Gee, maybe if polls give "aid and comfort" to our enemies, they should be made illegal? No? Then should we all lie to the pollsters? No? So if a poll measures legitimate political opinion, how can you object to those polls unless your agenda is to stifle political speech?
Al Qaeda needs to win the war of public opinion? The only interpretion of that assertion that makes even a lick of sense is if Bush is losing the war on public opinion...well, OK, actually, he is. But it's not because Al Qaeda is even in the game. He's losing public support because he's losing public support. That's Bush's fault, and trying to characterize it as the fault of Bush's political opponents and implying that they're in league with Al Qaeda only once again reveals your purely partisan agenda.
You doth protest too much when you try to claim that you're not saying that we're blindly obligated to kiss Bush's ass. All of your arguments point the same way: Disagreement with Bush undermines the "war on terror" and thus is against the best interests of America; and thus anyone who disagrees with Bush is committing treason against the United States.
I love that concluding sentence, sounds so noble and above-the-fray. If only the Right didn't loudly and violently deny everything that doesn't kiss Bush's ass--a "well supported fact" to the Right means a fact that makes Bush look good; and a "slander" is simply bad news. Who gets to judge what's fact and what's slander, Mark? The Bush Administration itself?
Elsewhere (can't find it to pull a quote right now), you seemed to be trying to accuse me of stifling free speech by objecting to the irresponsible use of the charge of treason. Amazing, Mark, truly amazing. Blame the victim for objecting to the offense. That's just another variation of the same crap. Yeah, right, I should just keep quiet and let you stifle my freedom of speech in order to avoid stifling yours. Bullshit again, Mark.
Cripes, Al Qaeda involved in American politics through the proxy of Bush's political opponents...that is just plain stupid. Hey Mark (and Gary), do you know year this is? What century? It's 2005, not 1800. In case you missed it, we have these things called television and the Internet that let the whole world watch American politics in action. People everywhere know that they have a stake in the outcome of our political processes even if they don't have a vote. American politics has an audience of billions of people, each one of them cheering one side and booing the other. Half the world cheers when Bush's poll ratings drop, but the other half moans. No matter what happens in American politics, somebody gets what you call "aid and comfort", and somebody else is disapointed. So the hell what? That's life in the 21st century. Grow up; get used to it.
One last point: Ever hear of the phrase "misprision of treason"? It's the crime of knowing of treason and failing to report it. It is a real crime, on the books. For Gary to claim that treason is being commited on the HabitableZone without going all the way and naming the specific perpetrators and divulging the act commited is itself a Federal crime. There are only three ways out of an accusation of treason: Offering evidence to authorities that leads to a trial and conviction or acquittal; conviction of the accuser on the charge of misprision; or a suit for slander and libel against the accuser.