Below is my column in USA Today on the revival of sedition as a speech crime in the United States. Despite my criticism of the Democratic members of Congress over their recent message to American military personnel, this is not a prosecutorial offense and would collapse quickly in court. More importantly, it is the return of a crime long ago criticized by James Madison as a “monster” that should not be prosecuted in the United States.
Here is the column:
Not since the Adams administration has there been more talk of sedition in the United States. After Democratic congressional members posted a video encouraging military personnel to refuse to follow illegal orders from the Trump administration, cries of sedition were again heard in the Capitol as many called for prosecution.
These lawmakers, however, are not guilty of any federal crimes, let alone sedition. However, the controversy should be a reminder that we have yet to break our sedition addiction, a crime that should be struck from our books as largely as a speech crime.
The video was reckless and worthy of criticism. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Michigan, later admitted that she did not know of any actual illegal orders given to the military. Even so, the video seemed to encourage military personnel to refuse to carry out orders and fueled the narrative on the left that the United States was in the grips of a “fascist” or authoritarian takeover.
The president has prevailed in many of the challenges to his authority, and he is likely to prevail in his use of force against alleged drug-smuggling boats outside the country.
Regardless of the outcome of these cases, they are being litigated in court, and the administration has complied with adverse decisions.
Trump joins a long tradition of noxious ‘sedition’ accusations
President Donald Trump and others had good cause to object, but then reached for the familiar and infamous crime of seditious speech. The president even raised the possibility of the death penalty, though he later insisted that he was not threatening the congressional members.
Any effort to prosecute these Democratic lawmakers would collapse immediately upon filing with a federal court. The video is protected speech. The military has long recognized that personnel may refuse illegal orders, and the United States helped establish this principle in the Nuremberg trials after World War II.
The government cannot punish members or any citizen for raising such rules or even suggesting that the president is engaged in unlawful conduct. I would expect the Supreme Court to unanimously uphold the equally unanimous lower courts in rejecting any such criminal charge based on this video.
Yet, sedition has always served as such as a political and legal purpose. As I discuss in my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,”sedition was a noxious import from Great Britain. British judges had balked at the effort to accuse citizens of treason for things like telling bawdy jokes about the queen in some pub.
The response of the crown was to create a new crime that was a type of treason-lite offense with equally heavy penalties. The charges were brought in a new secret court, the infamous Star Chamber. Figures were routinely charged with such offenses as giving “base and distracting speeches.”
Under British rule, a wide array of speech and even dress was prosecuted as sedition or other offenses. Jonathan White, the speaker of the Pennsylvania House, was charged with sedition after observing to guests in his home that “the proposed laws were cursed laws” and then expressing his exasperation by exclaiming, “Hang it, damn them all.”
Free speech is uniquely American, and precious
Once the United States was formed, such crimes ran against the grain of the First Amendment. The most uniquely American part of the Constitution was our sweeping protection for free speech. While many parts of the Constitution were adopted from the British system, this was a uniquely American protection. The British never protected free speech in such terms and still don’t.
James Madison would later refer to sedition prosecutions as “a monster that must forever disgrace its parents.” Indeed, it is. In every age of rage, we release that monster when we are very afraid or very angry. We release it on our neighbors to punish them for dangerous thoughts or views.
In my book, I call for the country to finally fulfill Madison’s call to eliminate sedition and break our sedition addiction once and for all. We can punish people for their conduct without criminalizing their speech.
The problem is that punishing people for their views or values is irresistible for many in government. I was highly critical of the return of sedition-based charges against a few of the defendants in the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol. The charges were virtually superfluous with the other charges, but the Biden administration clearly wanted to add the patina of sedition to the prosecution.
That is why it is so distressing to see the return of the cries of sedition now.
Again, these Democratic congressional members can be rightfully criticized for the video, but we can amplify those objections without resorting to the scourge of sedition.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of the best-selling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
The Democrat’s video was only superficially directed at the troops. It was actually meant for Democrats. It’s political theater, and Senator Kelly is using it to mug the camera to position himself for the Democrat nomination for President in 2028.
We better get used to over-the-top stunts like this.
George Will On The Boat Attack
The killing of the survivors by this moral slum of an administration should nauseate Americans. A nation incapable of shame is dangerous, not least to itself. As the recent “peace plan” for Ukraine demonstrated.
From George Will’s column today.
Would you be willing to research how the Philippines became overrun by vicious, armed drug cartels?
I’ll save you the time. Liberal judges there thought it best to treat them as petty criminals, rather than a militia challenging elected authority via violent intimidation. It was too weak a response to too large a threat. Soon, gangs took over entire islands, stripping ordinary, law-abiding Philippinos living there of their civil rights, businesses, incomes, safety and security.
Lesson: The Latin American cartels, in using their proceeds under Biden ($1 Billion / month from people smuggling ) to purchase military grade armaments, have implicitly declared war on any government that tries to crimp their expanding power. That makes the U.S. is their enemy #1.
This is war, not in the classical sense of nation states, but one which no nation state can afford to lose.
It got so bad in Philippines, the People chose to elect Duterte, who got tough and employed extra-legal arrests and murders to isolate and defang the cartels — to restore government authority in the contested islands. Yes, innocent people were swept up by accident (or malice) in this ugly war.
That’s what lies ahead for the U.S. if we don’t respond forcefully and creatively to organized, transnational crime in realtime. We’ve already let gangs terrorize parts of our cities — that threat also has to be eradicated. It takes tough leadership, so maybe appreciate it considering the alternative of not addressing these threats and letting the cancer grow.
Well shut my mouth wide open. The same socialist on this forum who said that censorship on twitter and facebook was a good thing are now saying that kelly has the right to speak freely. They think that us MAGA types are stupid and don’t have a long memory. It seems to me that they are the ones suffering from a loss of memory.
The request not to broadcast injurious and unsupported medical advice to uninformed people is hardly comparable to seeing a force led by a guy who liked how Hitler’s generals were so supportive of Hitler and has said similar things about the dictator Kim Jong Un.
“They think that us MAGA types are stupid and don’t have a long memory.”
Still awaiting to be proved wrong.
WOW. how many posts have you made today, hoping one will strike a home run? Keep hoping.
“. . . is hardly comparable . . .”
You’re right. The former is far worse because it means government control of science and medicine.
Those of us with a “long memory” grasp the horrors of that tyrannical ideology.
“They think that us MAGA types are stupid and don’t have a long memory.”
Yes your memory IS faulty. They don’t think you’re stupid. They know you’re stupid and it shows.
I don’t know about long memory, but ad-hominem forms of argumentation are a “tell” of stupidity. Form your own conclusion.
Please remember the dims are unhinged, without education or training, immoral, unethical, greedy and envious, robbers and other before you speak.
Wishing everyone a merry Christmas.
*. After viewing the drug speed boats, they aren’t fishermen. It does cause deep concern that Kelley and others are avoiding that.
That military is pretty good. The helmets are 2 hundred thousand , 200,000 dollars and fire missiles when head is turned. The cartels and the disgraceful 6 must be upset. There’s no fishing gear, folks.
If you were a thirteen year old girl brought into the country given drugs to get you hooked and passed around from man to man you might feel terrorized. Not a tear to be found in a Democratic Socialists eye.
Terrorism is simply black mail. The common denominator is that hostages are always taken for pleasure and ransom. The drugs are just a tool of the slave trader. Yet we have people on this forum who are defending the drug lord terrorist and saying that they should not be deported or killed if necessary. The drugs are just lords are not stupid. They know the power of propaganda both in their country and ours.
Just to get Trump these politicians are willing to defend the drug traffickers and the prostitution of underage girls. If it means keeping their jobs and power let the sacrificial lambs be brought to the alter.
Once upon a time it was alcohol and prostitution that was protected by the bought out politicians but the cause of death due to alcohol was a tiny fraction of the deaths caused by fentanyl. Don’t forget it was just the poor poor fisherman bringing fentanyl to a town near you.
TiT,
Right? There was a time when nearly every American supported the use of military force on the drug cartels. Now? Democrats support illegals, cartels running human trafficking to include under aged children for prostitution rings. Then we have the Seditious Six who, while they do have the right to exercise the 1stA rights, are calling on the military to disobey illegal orders when they cannot name a single one. If a service person, in uniform were to spit on Mark Kelly, I would buy that service person a drink.
Personally I think it is funny all those people who were saying, “Oh! Those poor fishermen!” And then the video comes out of a speed boat, no fishing gear, trying to out run the USCG. Where are those fools now?
Rabble:
Sign me up for paying the second round for that brother. All that video does is undermine the stupid public’s faith and support in the military. We are taught about that provision, but it would never happen like it does in the movies. Those kind of decisions are made behind closed doors by people who get paid way more than us enlisted, and not without insane levels of consideration and fear. Even so, we’ve had 16 years of administrative officers rising the ranks, not warfighters. They’d likely go along with any order they’re given.
It just pisses me off, because that video combined with the shooting of the NG within the Capitol not even a week after (shooter connections notwithstanding), paints an insane picture for the future of the country.
“Thinkitthrough says:December 2, 2025 at 2:48 PM
If you were a thirteen year old girl brought into the country given drugs to get you hooked and passed around from man to man you might feel terrorized.”
Are you claiming that the thirteen year old girl would be entirely safe anywhere except the USA?
As noted above about the MAGA short memory, Trump just pardoned a drug trafficker. MAGA cult members forget somethings are fundamentally wrong when Trump does them.
Regarding child rape for profit, is that your standard?….that the U.S. be no worse than other countries? I thought we were better. I thought we cared about eradicating child rape for profit.