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Flame » in reply to Legal terms are what we are talking about. Because that is what treason is.

No That's What You're Claiming It Is
ID — (archived)

So you go to a source of legal definitions instead of one for a word definition. It's called cooking the books. Unfortunately for you even your legal source doesn't back you up. How is it a librarian can get away with ignoring the meaning of the word consist and a period?

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." See the period. That's the definition. The next sentence decribes what is prosecutable. It is not the same as the definition. Now this is clearly debatable, because we are talking about language conventions which may have changed. And it's not totally unreasonable to claim the second sentence is part of the definition. On the other hand you wish to claim it is unreasonable to claim that a single sentence means what it says.

Furthermore the US constitution is American law. English is an international language. The legal definition of treason isn't the same in other countries many of which inlcude reference to the sovereign. The proper way to define and to determine the proper use of the word treason is through evaluating it's definition in several dictionaries. Use of constitutions is fine supportive evidence, but hardly definitive.

It's so funny that you guys don't get this whole issue of providing aid and conmfort to the enemy when common sense leads people to rally around the president during war time through the feeling that it's wrong to help out the enemy side by siding against the president. Most people inately sense that they should err on the side of caution in such instances, because they don't want to risk being on the wrong side of an argument if they have any doubt when it might result in helping the enemy. Most people inately feel it is wrong to side with the enemies of your country. I'm setting the bar for treason higher than that however.

My point from the beginning has been that disagreeing is not treason, but deliberate attempts to mislead to the benefit of the enemy are even if the intent is personal gain rather than actual support for the terrorists. That is debatable based on your interpretation of the word adhere if you use the one sentence definition above, but the problem with you guys is that you want to stifle debate on the issue.

see ya

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