The Meaning and Importance of Dissent

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Michael Ratner and Margaret Ratner Kunstler

The Meaning and Importance of Dissent
In their new book, Ratner and Ratner Kunstler discuss Americans' right to protest -- and how those rights are often trampled on by the U.S. government.

September 26, 2011 |


The following is an excerpt from Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in Twenty-First Century America by Michael Ratner and Margaret Ratner Kunstler, published this spring by the New Press.


Many of us think of the constitutionally protected right to dissent as the right to speak our minds and write and publish what we think. But free speech is only one of three related rights protected by the First Amendment. Not only is Congress prohibited from passing a law “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” the amendment also protects “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” and their right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Taken together, the right to free speech, the right of assembly, and the explicit right to express grievances to the government add up to an expansive right to “dissent” enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Beyond written or spoken words, the right to dissent is the right of citizens to organize themselves, to associate, to make themselves heard in order to achieve political and social change and oppose government policies without fear of impediment or reprisal.

Despite these clear protections, the government has not always lived up to its constitutionally required mandate to protect our right to dissent. Indeed, it is this right that the government, whether federal, state, or local, has typically targeted for repression, especially in times of claimed “emergencies.” That has been true historically and it is true today. Often, federal agencies and state and city governments, at times of both war and relative quiescence, try through surveillance, infiltration, and limits on protest to suppress dissent. Most of these repressive efforts have ultimately been beaten back, but not before people were jailed, and often not until the effects of the claimed “emergency” that purportedly justified the restrictions had dissipated.

Since the founding of this nation, the government has made many efforts to restrict free speech and dissent. The list on page 8 is a cursory overview of major turning points in the history of attacks on dissent. The rest of this chapter provides a more in-depth look at the continued assault on our right to dissent over the past fifty years, with a special focus on the new post–9/11 legal framework. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/vision/152528/the_meaning_and_importance_of_dissent/

[ixion]

1. Dissent has a rich history in the US

it is, in fact, one of the primary characteristics of this nation's founding.

[Owlet]

2. There's a price to be paid for dissent, however

that many are unwilling to pay. Here on DU, for example, which is supposed to be a forum of open discussion among Democrats, I've learned to avoid expressing contrarian views on some 'sensitive' topics. I've got a fairly thick skin (and some would add a fairly thick head) but some arguments just aren't worth the effort. Dissent more often than not produces ad hominum attacks against the dissenter.

Interesting OP, though

[raccoon]

3. There are lots of dumbasses in my neck of the woods (SC) who think that dissent

is "unpatriotic" and view those who dissent as naughty schoolchildren doing something they shouldn't be doing.

Dumbasses...what can I say?

Rec'd.

[Fuddnik]

4. Oh yeah......

I remember back during the Vietnam fiasco, people would bitch, moan and complain about protesters with, "Where else in the world would they have the right to protest like that?" But to actually express those rights was considered treason.