Treason: A Matter of Dates

UPDATE: Thanks to Kurt Schlichter for yet another Schlichter-lanche! While ya’ll are here, be sure to bookmark the main page and come back often, y’hear?

Since we suddenly find outselves on the subject of Domestic Terrorism, I find myself thinking of a quote by Alexandre Dumas… or, at least, the version delivered by Colonel Stewart in DIE HARD 2…

“Treason is a matter of dates.”

What he meant by this is that a particular action undertaken on a Monday may well be called treason, while that same action undertaken on Tuesday could be called an act of Patriotism.

You could, for instance, be in Portland or Seattle or Minneapolis in the Summer of 2020 and find yourself planting car bombs and IEDs outside Government buildings in hopes of blowing them up or burning them down with Government officials still inside and be told by all the best people on the Left, that your actions are heroic. You could find one of the world’s most famous TV News personailites saying, of your attempted mass-murder of Government officials, “show me in the Constitution where protests are supposed to be peaceful.” You could have the Mayor of one of America’s largest cities, a city where Government Officials are actually in the process of being attacked, describe your actions as part of a “Summer of Love.” You might even find the soon-to-be Vice President of the United States raising money for your bail while publicly announcing that not only is what you are doing important and patriotic, but that you “should not let up” until your demands are met.

Or… you could be in Oklahoma City on April 19th, 1995 planting an IED outside a Federal Building and be… Timothy McVeigh.

Like the man said, it’s all in the dates…

Let’s play a little game I call “Who Said It… ANTIFA or McVeigh?” As you play, try to imagine an ANTIFA leader and a re-animated Timothy McVeigh sitting in a bar discussing politics (what is the drink of choice of the violent Revolutionary?) and understand that they would agree on policy goals a lot more often than they would disagree.

1. “All my heroes kill cops”
2. “Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system?”
3. “After living on the egde, the adrenaline, some people in the Military get addicted… they have to have the excitement.”
4. “All Cops are Bastards”
5. “Become ungovernable. This is war!”
6. “When an aggressor force continually launches attacks from a particular base of operations, it is sound military strategy to take the flight to the enemy.”
7. “Pigs in a blanket, Fry ’em like bacon”
8. “It takes a bullet”

My hope is that you found this game easier than I expected. My fear is that you did not. Either way, the fact that sentiments expressed during events separated by 25 years of history and political evolution could be this similar is further proof of an argument I made in this essay that the continuum of political ideology is not a line, but a circle.

What I see is a group (ANTIFA) and a person (McVeigh) who, by their words and deeds, are in complete agreement with each other… that the only way to bring down a system they view as iredeemably corrupt and replace it with something that fits their own twisted ideology, is to murder as many cops and Government officials as possble. And if innocent civilians should happen to die or have their lives destroyed along the way… so be it.

The only real difference, it seems to me, is that while McVeigh thought the Government (and the cops) were trying to install Socialism, ANTIFA believes they’re trying to install Fascism. Beyond that, I think 2021 ANTIFA would encourage 1995 McVeigh to pick up a molotov cocktail and join the fight.

But George, I can hear you saying, ANTIFA’s bombs didn’t kill 168 people… to which I would respond that “Yes, we’re terrorists, but we’re highly incompetent terrorists” is a pretty poor defense. And in any case, the decade is young… give them time.

“Treason doth never prosper: What’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it Treason” – John Harrington

(Answers: 1.A 2.M 3.M 4.A 5.A 6.M 7.A 8.A)