{"id":287,"date":"2009-09-20T13:06:19","date_gmt":"2009-09-20T17:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=287"},"modified":"2009-09-20T16:35:11","modified_gmt":"2009-09-20T20:35:11","slug":"his-anger-and-frustration-was-never-directed-at-the-united-states-%e2%80%94-at-us-agents-perhaps-but-never-the-government-itself-that-was-very-impressive-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=287","title":{"rendered":"“His anger and frustration was never directed at the United States \u2014 at U.S. agents, perhaps, but never the government itself. That was very impressive to me.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

That’s a quote from<\/a> a former attorney for Hmong leader General Vang Pao, against whom the federal government has finally dropped its charges for allegedly plotting the violent overthrow of the communist regime in Laos. (H\/T Ann Althouse<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

I’m sorry, but as much as I approve of the dismissal of these charges against General Pao, I think his patriotism (if reported accurately by his former attorney) is misplaced. The U.S. “government itself” does not exist<\/a> apart from U.S. agents. The government is what the government does. U.S. “agents” have no “principals.”<\/a><\/p>\n

In this earlier post<\/a>, Ann Althouse linked to background on the case which quoted Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Twiss as saying in federal court: “We’re looking at conspiracy to murder thousands and thousands of people at one time.” I commented:<\/p>\n

The U.S. tolerates no competition with its monopoly on the power to conspire to commit mass murder.<\/p>\n

I don’t know much about the Laotian communist government, but I assume it oppresses the Laotian people and violates their rights, along the same lines as the regime of Saddam Hussein from which the U.S. has endeavored to liberate the Iraqi people. I assume the thousands of people that the U.S. attorney was speaking of as the target of General Vang are the communist government oppressors, not ordinary citizens.<\/p>\n

If for pragmatic foreign relation reasons the U.S. can’t allow someone from within our borders without U.S. government approval to exercise the natural right recognized in our Declaration of Independence to revolt against oppressive regimes, then maybe the appropriate “punishment” is exile. It’s certainly hypocritical for the U.S. to portray General Vang as a would-be “murderer.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

. . . [P]lotting the violent overthrow of a foreign regime that may or may not be evil and oppressive is fundamentally different than plotting the violent overthrow of one’s own government, and merits a different response from one’s own government. It’s certainly not the same as attempted mass murder. Plenty of U.S. citizens have gone abroad throughout our history to fight in foreign civil wars (e.g. the French Revolution, the Spanish Civil War) without legal repurcussions. The fact that in General Vang’s case certain preparations happened to be made on our soil doesn’t seem like a major distinction (though I could well be wrong as a matter of current law). I’m sure that those who went to fight in the Spanish Civil War made preparations and associated and “conspired” here as well.<\/p>\n

This is one area where the traditional conception of “trial by jury,” where juries judge not only the facts but the justice of the law as applied to the defendant before it, makes even more sense than it already does. Obviously, some attempted violent overthrows of foreigh regimes are morally reprehensible, and a jury could treat them as such on a case by case basis. Apart from that, the government may have national security or foreign relations reasons for taking action to prevent such plots (e.g. exile), but apart from what a jury determines would have no inherent interest in “punishing” such behavior.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Come to think of it, what would be our criminal liability if we just sent money (i.e. a “charitable contribution”) to an organization plotting or engaging in a civil war against an oppressive foreign government (assuming we were well aware it was thus plotting or engaging)? Where would you (or where does the U.S. currently) draw the line between that kind of support and what General Vang was engaged in?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That’s a quote from a former attorney for Hmong leader General Vang Pao, against whom the federal government has finally dropped its charges for allegedly plotting the violent overthrow of the communist regime in Laos. (H\/T Ann Althouse.) I’m sorry, but as much as I approve of the dismissal of these charges against General Pao, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions\/291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}