Reply to Mr. Gary Morrison (letters, Nov. 10):
Websters defines treason as the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign (in our case the president) or the sovereign’s family. Advocating the overthrow of the government — U.S. Code § 2385 is the code covering this.
At the time of the Jan. 6 riots, Donald Trump was “The Sovereign” since Joe Biden had yet to be officially announced as the winner of the election, so obviously the riots were not designed to kill or injure Trump or his family. They were attempting to stop the process under the idea that this would invalidate the election and declare Trump as the winner. Constitutional scholars can and will argue both sides of this stupid move for decades but it was what it was.
I would hope that everyone reading this, as well as my original submission, will note that I have continually used the term “riot” to describe what took place on Jan. 6. I condemned it then and still do.
Were there also planted “provocateurs” in that crowd? Of course there were, but there were also a very large number of self-proclaimed Trump supporters assaulting police and damaging property, and I do not feel the least bit sorry for any of them who were arrested and/or are still sitting in jail. And I’m sorry for the family of the young lady who was shot and killed, but people violently rioting should be aware that there just might be a bad outcome to what they are doing and people can get hurt and/or killed in riots — especially when idiots like the man who shot her are around.
However, getting back to my original statements and Mr. Morrison’s reply: Jan. 6 was hardly the only politically motivated riot that took place in this country over the last few years and in fact was far less violent, damaging to property and lethal than all of the other riots that took place all around the country that were fully supported by the Democrats and the far left, up to and including numerous Democrat politicians and the current vice president who praised the rioters, ignored the devastating loss of life and trashing of government buildings, and violent attacks on police, and even helped get the violent rioters bailed out of jail so they could continue with their rioting.
This was the basis of the article I wrote that Mr. Morrison objected to when I stated that violence, stupidity and anarchy was far from being something exclusive to one side of the political spectrum.
Mr. Morrison only feels outrage at Republicans/conservatives, and like many liberals, justifies the exact same behavior, or even worse behavior, when people he likes and agrees with do it. “Do like I say NOT like I do” fits Mr. Morrison and his fellow liberals to a T.
Rick Barker
Valencia
