“The duty of a true Patriot is to protect his country from its government.” – Thomas Paine.

Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. A person who commits treason is known in law as a traitor.

Sedition is also a serious felony in the United States, punishable by fines and up to 20 years in prison. Sedition refers to the act of inciting revolt or violence against a lawful authority to destroy or overthrow it.

I’m not a lawyer nor a constitutional scholar, but in recent days I have been wondering if the dishonest and rebellious members of the Republican Party and their supporters are not edging close to treason.

Day by day, lie by lie, I have come to see the people challenging the November election without cause as traitors to our country, not rebels. They are seditious.

I am a lifelong student and follower of Thomas Paine, a writer, and patriot who helped spark the American Revolution. I have absolutely no doubt he would consider Donald Trump and many of his Republican followers to be guilty of sedition at least and would see them as traitors to our country.

He would be a lot less restrained than me.

Paine was proud of the democracy he helped create; he was proudest of the tradition – the first country in the world ever to embrace it – of the new democracy to be centered on a peaceful transfer of power, and for the defeated to embrace the victors, and peacefully wait their turn.

That is the very foundation of the American Experiment. To destroy it is to gravely damage the foundation of our country.

The idea was that we are all Americans, not bound by one label or another.

“The sacrifice of common sense is the certain badge which distinguishes slavery from freedom,” Paine wrote, “for when men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.”

The people in power who deliberately falsify the truth for personal gain are sinking to the last, worst depth to which any politician, scholar, or artist can descend in life.

The congress members who willfully took action during the Civil War that damaged morale and undermined the government “are saboteurs,” said Abraham Lincoln,  “and should be arrested, exiled, or hung.”

This new kind of traitors – the founders could not have imagined Twitter –  transcends civil disagreement and diverse opinions.

They seek something much deeper; they mean to undermine freedom, democracy, and the law.  They do this out of no principle but wanting power.

There is no basis in law or decency or truth to support what they are trying to do to our democracy. Every patriot will be outraged by it. It is the very definition of lawless.

The citizens who support Trump’s effort to overturn an election have yielded up the privilege of being free to think. They are only free to follow. If they were to win –  they would be carrying out Paine’s nightmare –  the last shadow of liberty quitting the horizon.

I am proud to write this column in his honor and to evoke his spirit and his name.

Donald Trump will surely sail off into history as great an enemy of freedom as the country has known. Even Benedict Arnold gave more thought and courage to his treachery.

There is nothing more sacred in our democracy than the idea of the peaceful election – the people’s trust in it, the peaceful transfer of power, and the acceptance of defeat as well as victory.

That is what makes us unique and admired in the world, and here at home.

Our entire systems of freedoms are structured around this idea; everything depends upon it.

Undermining that trust is about the most dangerous thing one could do to our democracy can easily cause more harm than the Nazi’s and Japanese together cause in World War II. It probably already has.

How can a U.S. congressman or woman not know this? Didn’t they take an oath to defend and preserve the U.S. Constitution, not Donald Trump?

Treason, wrote John LeCarre in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, is very much a matter of habit. If it happens once, it will happen again.

Trump has no right to try to unilaterally override or undermines a legitimate election, ratified by 50 different federal judges, many Republicans, and by the U.S.Supreme Court. It is a gross violation of his oath of office.

In our country, conflicts are resolved by the courts, not by secret cabals of liars and conspiracists who refuse to accept even a legal, heavily scrutinized defeat and who seek only to retain power.

The courts have ruled. According to our Constitution, that’s the end of it.

Without those traditions, we are just another dysfunctional country, reverting to violence, treachery, and lies to seize power every time there is a new leader. Everything the founders did was to prevent our country from that fate.

Every single thing Trump and many of his followers are doing now is to undermine the state and incite unlawful and unfounded revolt.

The war on the November election is Alexander Putin’s dream. It’s what he and the Chinese, and lately, the Iranians, have been trying to achieve for years –  erode our trust in our democracy, and promote divisions that weaken us.

Why are our national government and members of congress aiding and abetting his campaign to destroy our faith in national elections?

Why is it not a crime? Why is that not aiding an enemy?

Trump is now an enemy of the United States, and extremist elements of the Republican Party are doing his blood work for him. Is that not a crime?

Yesterday, Republican Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas filed a federal lawsuit empowering Vice President Mike Pence in his “discretion” to unilaterally reject certain Electoral College votes – those in the swing states – and declare Donald Trump the winner of the November election.

That is nothing less than a coup, supported by nothing other than lies, cowardice, and no evidence of any kind. It has no chance of working other than to further divide us.

How can this be anything but seditious?

Sedition is literally a conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the legal authority of a state or head of state.

In their time, treason was meant to punish traitors who aided and abetted an enemy of the United States. Sedition was meant to protect the government from people like Louis Gohmert.

In our time, at least three countries – all seen to be enemies of the United States – have repeatedly worked to disrupt our elections, undermine faith in democracy, and divide our country – China, Iran, and especially Russia.

A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious, wrote Cicero.

“But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.”

I know not what treason is, said the Greek Philosopher Catius,  if sapping and betraying the liberties of a people, “be not treason.”

A patriot is not defined by the size of the truck you drive or the color of your hat, the giant flag you hang, or the number of death threats cowards send online.  A patriot is defined as a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors.

Donald Trump is not a patriot. Neither are those of his supporters who insist the election was stolen without evidence and support the overturning of a legitimate, legal, and heavily scrutinized election.

They seem to hate the America our founding fathers created; why else overturn their hard and bloody work?

That is treasonous to me. Trump does not love our country or its history or traditions. He undermines democracy every day.

“Out citizenship in the United States,” wrote Thomas Paine, “is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter, we are home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS.”

That moves me. I am not a Republican Or A Democrat, or a Liberal Or Conservative. I am very proud to be an American. I am proud of what the means. My family and other families know what it could mean.

Treason is defined as intentionally betraying one’s allegiance by levying war against the government or giving aid or comfort to its enemies.

It’s the most serious offense one can commit against the government and is punishable by imprisonment and death.

The Constitution requires both concrete action and an intent to betray the nation before a citizen can be convicted of treason; expressing traitorous thoughts or intentions alone does not suffice.

“Yes, we did produce a near-perfect Republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction.” – Thomas Jefferson.