Treason & Waging War

Readers know that I have a fairly high opinion of treason. We celebrate it every year around here on the 4th of July. A great deal of positive progress in the history of our civilization was arguably treason at the time, and sometimes so clearly so that it isn't even arguable that it was not treason. Once in a while, treason is just what you need because -- as the Declaration of Independence puts it -- the powers that be have become hostile to the rights whose defense is their only legitimate purpose for existing. 

So, when I disagree with Cynical Publius here in asserting that this behavior is indeed a species of treason, I am not thereby making the point many others would be making if they said so. 

Having said that, I'd like to correct something I said on a Spaces where I commented that organizing with a foreign power to overthrow our government is "the very definition of treason."

I did some legal research and that's not quite true.

The federal law governing this is 18 U.S. Code § 2381, which reads as follows:

"Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."

The question then becomes, what is an "enemy" that must be "adhere[d]" to in order for it to be treason?

Like with most complex issues of law, there is not a 100% straightforward answer, but an 1863 SCOTUS case, U.S. v. Greathouse, suggests that an "enemy" in this context must be in an open state of armed conflict with the U.S. for a nation to be an "enemy."

So, technically, the Color Revolution plotters are likely not legally committing "treason" unless they are coordinating with Iran, the only nation we are currently in armed conflict with.  (And they may well be, who knows!)

To the contrary, both the statute and the Constitution's text on the subject contain the "or" operator. No foreign government and no foreign enemy is necessary for a behavior to constitute treason. Treason can be fully constituted by waging war against the United States. 

Attempting any sort of revolution against the government is a species of warfighting, 'color' revolution or not. The attempt to supplant the government by revolution, however often they proclaim that they are devoted to nonviolent means, is a species of warfighting. There is no way the nonviolence will prove to be more than rhetorical, but even supposing it were possible -- say, perhaps, by enlisting an AI swarm that effectively but nonviolently disabled the existing government so you could swoop in and impose another -- you would have destroyed a government without the consent of the governed, and replaced it with one to which they did not consent. 

Treason can be the right thing to do, and sometimes -- often! -- has been. It is a wager of battle, however, and losers of that wager pay with their lives. It should be undertaken only by those who honestly believe in it and are willing to gamble their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.