One of the many, many dangers of the future Trump regime, in my view, will be the erasure of the distinction between dissent and sedition. Though we are peaceful dissenters, we are going to hear a lot more of the word "sedition" in the times to come, and so I want to take a little time to address it pre-emptively.
Questions of sedition seem to generally boil down to the question of the state's monopoly power over political violence. A terrorist, for example, is a non-state actor who believes that they have a moral imperative which legitimizes their use of political violence.
When opponents of Trump are accused of sedition - which we will be - we will need to understand on what grounds we are so accused.
The opposition to Trump, as a foundational principle, holds that non-state actors do NOT have any grounds for political violence. Our position, which will be used as grounds for persecution, is rather that the Trump regime does not possess the authority to perpetrate political violence, on the grounds that Donald J. Trump is inherently unfit to wisely exercise this power. The fact that his election occurred fairly and legitimately under the principles set forth by the constitution is not relevant. The fact that his unfitness to exercise political violence has not been determined by US court of law is not relevant. Our argument is not a legal argument, but a moral argument.
The state, under the control of Donald J. Trump, has, essentially, every legal right to use those powers to commit moral outrages. Our argument is moral because every legal recourse has been removed from us. Each individual must, of his or her own accord, decide whether he or she shall support the moral and ethical principles this country was founded on, or whether he or she shall support the institution that bears the country's name, but is shorn of its founding principles.
Basically we're Anderson, Wakeman, and Rabin and they're the guys who have the legal right to call themselves Yes. If you feel like you can make the argument that "Heaven and Earth" is in any way acceptable as a Yes album, by all means, be my guest, but don't be surprised when the rest of us treat you as openly delusional.
