re: "words mean what I want them to mean"
Get out your dictionary, Robert and look at the definition of treason.
That is soooo whacky, gb. A law book trumps a dictionary any day. If you're accused of a crime, how far do you think you'd get defending yourself by challenging the law's definition of the crime with a definition you found in a dictionary?
This matters in this case because it's the most-significant definition of the word that takes precedence. "Treason", in its most powerful and precise meaning describes a crime and implies the death penalty; that power overwhelms all the weaker definitions you might try to fall back on.
It's like I tried to explain to Mark: You don't get to use the names of crimes metaphorically. The dictionary doesn't specify that "pedophilia" is a crime, either, but that doesn't mean you can get away with falsely accusing somebody of pedophilia by claiming you were using the term metaphorically and didn't really mean to accuse them of a crime. Oh yeah, right.