Nice, started of with an insult, pretty much you broke plenty of HN rules. Try to be civil please. This isn't about a political disagreement. It is a universal

Nice, started of with an insult, pretty much you broke plenty of HN rules. Try to be civil please. This isn't about a political disagreement. It is a universal fact in any country or form of government that betraying your country is considered equivalent to condemning its people and is one of the highest crimes a person can commit. I didn't make that up, nor do I deserve to be insulted for stating that fact. Political enemies and enemies of the country are different things, you're conflating the two for rage-bait reasons I suppose, so you can feel anger at someone. Sorry, I am neither a trump supporter, an authoritarian, or someone who supports criminalizing political disagreements. You just made that up so you can insult someone. A person is not a traitor because someone calls them a traitor, that is purely childish. Treason and rebellion are well defined under the laws of every single country in existence. It is a crime that must be proven in court. If you believe the courts can adjudicate crimes like murder then they are also capable of doing the same for treason and rebellion. Therefore, standing by my earlier statement, if a person is proven in court as supporting rebellion and treason against his country, they should be punished accordingly with punishment that fits the crime. > "we should not let the state decide -based on often ideological, nationalistic or simply corrupt criteria- what thoughts, symbols or expressions of opinion by people are suddenly treason. " Wow! rarely do I see text-book examples of a straw man argument, but there it is! who in this thread claimed that should be the case? an enemy of a country is not declared as such because of those reasons but because they intend to cause harm to its people. There is no grey area here, if a group wants to kill americans, that's why they're the enemy, it's that simple. it isn't "democrats" or "people we don't like" , it is "nazis who want to murder americans" or "isis who want to destroy america", "the confederate army who led a bloody civil war against america", there is no slippery slope or grey area as you would like there for it to be. don't support people who want to murder us, it is that simple. It is possible to have laws that define specific parameters of their enforcement.