3. TIL a WWII Congressman publicly mentioned that US submarines escaped typically s...

TIL a WWII Congressman publicly mentioned that US submarines escaped typically shallow Japanese depth charges, likely leading the Japanese to adjust and sink 10 additional subs and 800 service men.

I know you're just messing around but I really see the word treason thrown around way too much these days and it worries the shit out of me. For such an enlightened and liberal populace we sure use that word pretty frequently and I worry that means we are too tolerant or welcoming of what it could bring.

I don't know everything but I thought this country was founded on a few ideals, one of them being that no one should be accused of "treason" without the highest and most clear-cut of reasoning and certainty and that such standards are necessary to be considered a free society. Being accused of treason (or heresy or blasphemy) is very old world and was used as a tool of subjugation and really to crush dissent for so damn long and this should be a serious consideration whenever we want to use that word. We are a country founded on dissent, a zeal for casting others as absolute enemies does not seem inline with our beliefs.

I know when most people use the word they likely don't understand the power it has, they tend to just mean "that person has damaged his country in some way". Okay maybe he has damaged his country, maybe many of us have in some way or another burdened our society, but I worry about the idea that it is okay to use violence when one of it's members fails to perform in some arbitrarily defined manner. Isn't that the very opposite of our liberal ideals?

Treason isn't being a fucking idiot, treason isn't being a corrupt asshole, treason isn't even having the absolute worst vision for our country as possible, treason is deliberately casting yourself as an enemy of all your countrymen and their institutions and not leaving any ambiguity about it. Treason is picking up the sword against your family or carrying the shield of it's enemy. Treason is setting out to destroy your homeland. I worry when accusations of such are thrown around.

We in America haven't ever really had to deal with the power and danger that word has but in the old world they did and it was all fresh in our forefathers minds when they were founding this country, it may be wise for us to try to understand why they felt it so important that treason be strictly defined and not something to ever cast around accusations of carelessly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason#United_States

/r/todayilearned Thread Parent Link - en.wikipedia.org
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