Treason!

Senate Republican Tom Cotton Commits Treason Against America For The Second Time

I always thought that treason was doing stuff like aiding and abetting the enemy, so I couldn't resist when I saw the headline.  Turns out, it's worse than I thought.

Apparently, the left thinks that treason consists of disagreeing with the President, at least so long as the President is also on the left.  Or maybe they think it's okay to disagree so long as you don't actually say you disagree, and certainly so long as you don't actually take any action based on that disagreement.  Action meaning doing stuff like voting to block the President from making a deal, or lobbying your colleagues in the Senate to vote with you.  After all, our government isn't meant to have actual checks and balances; it's only meant to have the appearance of checks and balances.  That way, we can have a dictator while maintaining the appearance of having a democracy.  Cuz, you know, appearances are everything.

So, this article claims that Cotton "[swore] a pledge of allegiance" to Israel.  Um, no.  He did promise to stand by our ally, which, call me silly but this is something that I think we should do, otherwise we're not allies.  At any rate, here is the quote that apparently constitutes a "pledge of allegiance" to the left:

“Today’s meeting only reaffirms my opposition to this deal,” Cotton said in a statement after the meeting. “I will stand with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel and work with my colleagues in Congress to stop this deal and to ensure that Israel has the means to defend itself against Iran and its terrorist surrogates.”

I suppose that technically you could, in fact, call this a "pledge of allegiance," but the linked article only used those words to put a spin on the actual words, to make it sound as if Cotton were just about denouncing his U.S. citizenship.  Instead, though, he was promising to use the power of his office to work to stand by our ally.  Hardly what I would call treason, but then, I'm not exactly a progressive.

Well, this article is full of nonsense, like this:

"[T]his is an executive agreement and not technically a treaty"

That quote actually links to this article, which explains what the difference between an executive agreement and a treaty is.  I'll save you the click; there is no difference except in the name.  The term executive agreement was devised to come up with a way for the President to not have to get Senate approval for a treaty, by calling it something else.  So, um, technically, it is a treaty.  A treaty by any other name... well, you know.  Except here in the U.S. of course.

Given the foolishness demonstrated by the author of the linked article, it isn't surprising that the comments are even more foolish.  For example:

"Arrest and try the Idiot for treason. Iam sick of our elected officials giving aid to foreign countries."

 Apparently, this individual thinks that any kind of foreign aid is treason.  I may not really like how much foreign aid we give, but I wouldn't call it treason.  If it were, then every one of our government officials is probably guilty of treason.  Hmm, maybe that guy is on to something...

Here's another good one:

"Mr. Cotton and his "cohorts" in congress should be charged with treason no matter what. This is a huge embarrassment to the USA. Its high time we charge people with treason..... Our forefathers would have done it already."

They should be charged with treason no matter what.  That's an interesting thought: charge them regardless of whether they committed actual treason.  Cuz, you know, they embarrassed us.  Okay, they didn't embarrass me, but it looks like they embarrassed some people.  Clearly treasonous.  But if embarrassment is truly equivalent to treason, then perhaps Obama, and those that chose to elect him twice, are equally guilty of treason.  That last part of the quote is particularly interesting in that our forefathers were also guilty of treason.  It's also interesting that someone that probably doesn't know much about the history of our country deigns to know what our forefathers would have done.  Worse than that, this is probably also a person that insists that it isn't important what our forefathers would have done, since this is definitely a different world than the one our forefathers lived in.

And then, there's actually a comment that questions the validity of the claim that Cotton actually committed treason.  Unfortunately the poster hasn't yet learned that you won't get a good response to that kind of question in the comments section.  Here is the response:

"Was he or was he not in that country? Did he and a few other senators invite Him to our country to disgrace our president?"

Sounds like a lawyer wannabe.  Last I heard, visiting Israel (that country) doesn't constitute treason.  And, did inviting the leader of one of our allies to speak to Congress actually disgrace our President?  Nope.  I actually doubt that disgracing the President was the intended outcome.  Personally, I think our President does a pretty fine job of disgracing himself.  Again, maybe we should lock him up, if we're going to be locking anyone up.  Making a case to support an opinion that differs from the President's opinion does not constitute treason.

This isn't rocket science here.  This isn't treason either.  For the record, so long as we as a country insist that we don't negotiate with terrorists, I think we shouldn't negotiate with state sponsors of terrorism either.  So, it follows that I am against the deal with Iran.  And while I don't necessarily know enough about Israel to form an opinion as to whether we should be allies with them, I do know that since we are allies with them we should be committed to that relationship and promise to aid them should they need it.  Otherwise, what exactly is an ally?