"Dissent is Patriotic" As seen in Quotes For Patriots By Famous Patriots

[WePurrsevere]

The following Patriotic quotes are just a few that I've collected over the years and are a part of why I know those who protest the things that we see are wrong with our country; the Democrats, "Liberals", "Progressives" and yes, even old style Republicans that take a stand and speak out against even the President; are true Patriots even when The American Legion, BushCo, Freepers, Neo-Cons and other RW extremists would have people believe differently. History and our forefathers and mothers are on our side.

Please add on your own favorites and consider using them as "ammo" in our fight against those who would silence us.

~*~

“May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.” Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), U.S. general, Republican politician & President

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within
limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add
'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's
will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." -
Thomas Jefferson

“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.” Theodore Roosevelt

“Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.” - ABRAHAM LINCOLN, speech in reply to Senator Stephen Douglas, Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854.—The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 2, p. 273 (1953)

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
-President Thomas Jefferson

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President.
-President Theodore Roosevelt

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
-President Theodore Roosevelt

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionist and rebel men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
-President Dwight Eisenhower

[slor]

1. Thanks for posting n/t

[laylah]

2. Thanks for the quotes...

I have sent them far and wide.

Jenn

Edited to add a belated welcome.

[WePurrsevere]

4. Thank you for the welcome... I've learned so much from DU...

and still am. B-)

[WePurrsevere]

3. YW :-) Here are a few more... (+ a mini-rant)

Even though I know that I'm very much in the right and in very good company (present compant INcluded :) ) I'm so darn sick and tired of our being called traitors or un-American by the apparently very ignorant because we dare to question BushCo.

Here are a few more rather appropriate quotes (I have more on my old computer that haven't been transferred yet).:
Thomas Jefferson:

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?

I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.

What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

~*~Misc~*~
"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human
history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to
improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends
forth a tiny ripple of hope; those ripples build a current that can
sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." - Robert
F. Kennedy

"Loyalty to the country always, loyalty to the government when it deserves it." - Mark Twain

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evilminded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. - Justice Louis D. Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 479 (1928)

"Peace is not passive, it is active. Peace is not appeasement, it is strength. Peace does not 'happen,' it requires work." ~ Hubert Humphrey

~*~

There are so many more quotes by famous Patriots about dissent, Patriotism, etc. I'd truly enjoy hearing other DU folks "favorites". B-)

[Sapphire Blue]

5. Theodore Roosevelt...

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiently or otherwise he fails I his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else."

- Theodore Roosevelt

[WePurrsevere]

6. Oh I don't remember that one... it's purr'fect thank you. :-) n/t