• rusticus1773@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

    Not sure what language you use, but taking a bribe from an enemy foreign government and voting in their favor is pretty much the definition of “giving them aid”. STFU.

    • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      Enemies there refers to during war in which the USA is not, and giving “Aid and Comfort” there means material aid and has literally no relation in the text to whether you receive something for such aid in return. By interpreting “giving them aid” as promoting foreign policy that helps a rival nation as “treason” using that text, you have to completely ignore the part about “bribes” and assume that it applies even in peacetime, which means that every foreign policy decision that helps a rival would be “treason”. I’m sure the USA has some other backwards law that prevents lobbying but only if the lobbyist is not white or is a foreigner (and would be happy to have anybody who actually reads laws send it to me), but it is not in the text of the constitution and to claim it is is just either blatantly false or some Ouija-board-level spirit of the law shit. You should definitely read before you write.