#dissent

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 inefficiency or otherwise he fails in 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

#dissent #patriotism #truth-telling #president

In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot. ↗

— Czesław Miłosz

#dissent #heroes #honesty #integrity #truth

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority. ↗

— Benjamin Franklin

#duty #independent-thought #independence

I am often described to my irritation as a 'contrarian' and even had the title inflicted on me by the publisher of one of my early books. (At least on that occasion I lived up to the title by ridiculing the word in my introduction to the book's first chapter.) It is actually a pity that our culture doesn't have a good vernacular word for an oppositionist or even for someone who tries to do his own thinking: the word 'dissident' can't be self-conferred because it is really a title of honor that has to be won or earned, while terms like 'gadfly' or 'maverick' are somehow trivial and condescending as well as over-full of self-regard. And I've lost count of the number of memoirs by old comrades or ex-comrades that have titles like 'Against the Stream,' 'Against the Current,' 'Minority of One,' 'Breaking Ranks' and so forth—all of them lending point to Harold Rosenberg's withering remark about 'the herd of independent minds.' Even when I was quite young I disliked being called a 'rebel': it seemed to make the patronizing suggestion that 'questioning authority' was part of a 'phase' through which I would naturally go. On the contrary, I was a relatively well-behaved and well-mannered boy, and chose my battles with some deliberation rather than just thinking with my hormones. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#contrarianism #dissent #dissidents #free-thought #harold-rosenberg

Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly. ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#complicity #dissent #protest #truth-telling #silence

The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent. ↗

— Gore Vidal

#country #dissent #eliminate #entirely #ever

In the end it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy. ↗

— Learned Hand

#end #heresy #in the end #risk #run

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. ↗

— Theodore Roosevelt

#freedom-of-speech #truth-telling #freedom

The often cruel behavior of Christians toward unbelievers and even toward dissenters among themselves is shocking evidence of the function of that image in relation to values and behavior. ↗

— Carol P. Christ

#behavior #christians #cruel #dissenters #even

When a man fails to see the truth of certain generally accepted views, there is no law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent. ↗

— George Henry Lewes

#animosity #announcing #certain #compelling #dissent