Dissent - It is the ESSENCE of being American
There has been a lot of commentary about citizens disagreeing with heathcare reform and the White House asking people to 'report' them. Wow!
Has the KGB, NKVD, Cheka, Mao's secret police, etc... and an 'informer' mentality come to the United States of America????
Some well respected, famous, or influential people have commented about 'dissent' and the rights of free people to disagree with what their elected representatives and federal employees (people who work for 'The People'). Here is a small selection:
Justice Louis D. Brandeis:
The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war. In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need reforming.
Henry Steele Commager:
Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.
Sheila Fitzpatrick:
The mission of the Gestapo expanded steadily as, from 1933 onward, “political criminality” was given a much broader definition than ever before and most forms of dissent and criticism were gradually criminalized. The result was that more “laws” or lawlike measures were put on the books than ever.
Sidney Hook:
To silence criticism is to silence freedom.
James Russell Lowell:
Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold-bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of opinion.
Archbald Macleish:
The dissenter is every human being at those times of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.
Has the KGB, NKVD, Cheka, Mao's secret police, etc... and an 'informer' mentality come to the United States of America????
Some well respected, famous, or influential people have commented about 'dissent' and the rights of free people to disagree with what their elected representatives and federal employees (people who work for 'The People'). Here is a small selection:
Justice Louis D. Brandeis:
The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war. In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need reforming.
Henry Steele Commager:
Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.
Sheila Fitzpatrick:
The mission of the Gestapo expanded steadily as, from 1933 onward, “political criminality” was given a much broader definition than ever before and most forms of dissent and criticism were gradually criminalized. The result was that more “laws” or lawlike measures were put on the books than ever.
Sidney Hook:
To silence criticism is to silence freedom.
James Russell Lowell:
Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold-bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of opinion.
Archbald Macleish:
The dissenter is every human being at those times of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.
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