The creepy thing about the left (one of many) is the way that its members turn on a dime when the messaging shifts. Dissent became patriotic under Bush. Then it became treason under Obama. Now on the cusp of a new era, the left is still throwing out treason accusations even as it's transitioning back to "dissent is the highest form of patriotism, especially when it involves burning police cars" mode.
But some hypocrisies are just too absurdly hilarious. Like a former top ACLU man accusing Trump of treason.
Donald Trump raises specter of treason
By John Shattuck
A specter of treason hovers over Donald Trump. He has brought it on himself by dismissing a bipartisan call for an investigation of Russia’s hacking of the Democratic National Committee as a “ridiculous” political attack on the legitimacy of his election as president.
I don't know what the best part of this is.
That Shattuck is cribbing shamelessly from a foundational Marxist text while hurling accusations of treason. Or that Shattuck used to be the ACLU's point man on warning that the evil righties would bring back HUAC and is now doing the full McCarthy.
It's all so hilariously shameless.
In each case the president-elect is inviting an interpretation that his behavior is treasonous. The federal crime of treason is committed by a person “owing allegiance to the United States who . . . adheres to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort,”...
We need a lecture on treason from the former Executive Director of the Washington office of an organization co-founded by a traitor seeking to overthrow the United States.
In 1934, Roger Nash Baldwin, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the ACLU, wrote an article for "Soviet Russia", in which he quite clearly explained why he was fighting for civil liberties.
"I believe in non-violent methods of struggle as most effective in the long run for building up successful working class power. Where they cannot be followed or where they are not even permitted by the ruling class, obviously only violent tactics remain. I champion civil liberty as the best of the non-violent means of building the power on which worker's rule must be based. If I aid the reactionaries to get free speech now and then, if I go outside the class struggle to fight against censorship, it is only because those liberties help to create a more hospitable atmosphere for working class liberties. The class struggle is the central conflict of the world; all others are incidental. When that power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatever."
Reread that last sentence again. And here's some more.
Baldwin pragmatically viewed “repressions in Soviet Russia” as “weapons of struggle in a transition period to socialism.” That is, he saw such repressions as necessary avenues to a desirable end. “I accepted the fact that civil liberties were not suitable for Russia,” he once averred.
But back to Shattuck.
There is no direct evidence that the president-elect was involved or knew in advance about the Russian government’s actions. But the circumstances underscore the nation’s need for a full investigation.
Okay. Let's have an investigation.
Let's start with investigating every fellow traveler in the government for treason. Let's drag out every dirty act of collaboration with the USSR, Communist China and, oh yes, Cuba, dating back to Obama's recent embrace of his fellow leftist regime.
If the left suddenly wants HUAC, then by all means let's bring it back and open up the Big Book of Treason. That should be loads of fun. Every public official who gave aid or comfort to the enemies of the United States. We can start with Obama's people and go back all the way to anyone still living who collaborated with the Soviet Union and the rest of the Communist red sphere.
If the left wants to toss out accusations of treason, it ought to spend 5 minutes recalling its own ugly history and recent past. Very recent past.