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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (70606)	11/20/2005 4:24:32 PM
From: TideGlider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

Misattributed: 'Dissent Is the Highest Form of Patriotism' Urban Legends and Folklore Blog « God Save the Queen! \| Main \| Save Toby? » From David Emery, Your Guide to Urban Legends and Folklore. FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now! February 15, 2005 Misattributed: 'Dissent Is the Highest Form of Patriotism' Google the phrase "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" along with the name "Thomas Jefferson" and you will find thousands of Web pages attributing the sentiment to the third president of the United States. The trouble is, says reader Dave Forsmark, who has been waging a one-man campaign to correct what he believes to be a blatant misattribution, "the quote is about two years old, not 200. It was made by [historian] Howard Zinn in an interview with TomPaine.com to justify his opposition to the War on Terror." Someone erroneously attributed the quote to Jefferson soon thereafter, and now seemingly everyone is doing it. Based on some rudimentary checking, it appears Mr. Forsmark is correct. Can anyone out there cite an original document or speech in which Thomas Jefferson actually wrote or uttered these words? urbanlegends.about.com

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (70606)	11/20/2005 4:27:53 PM
From: TideGlider	Respond to of 81568

Here is the man the made the statement regarding dissent. Dissent is the Highest Form of Patriotism - Howard Zinn Quantity in Basket: None Price: $2.99 stickeremporium.com irregulartimes.com 72.14.207.104 Dissent In Pursuit Of Equality, Life, Liberty And Happiness An Interview With Historian Howard Zinn Sharon Basco is executive producer of TomPaine.com. Howard Zinn is an historian and author of A People's History of the United States. Sharon Basco interviewed him for TomPaine.com. TomPaine.com: Dissent these days seems to be a dirty word. The Bush administration has, at least since September 11th, usually termed any criticism of its policies "unpatriotic." Howard Zinn: While some people think that dissent is unpatriotic, I would argue that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. In fact, if patriotism means being true to the principles for which your country is supposed to stand, then certainly the right to dissent is one of those principles. And if we're exercising that right to dissent, it's a patriotic act. One of the great mistakes made in discussing patriotism -- a very common mistake -- is to think that patriotism means support for your government. And that view of patriotism ignores the founding principles of the country expressed in the Declaration of Independence. That is: the Declaration of Independence makes it clear that governments are artificial creations set up to achieve certain ends -- equality, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness -- and when governments become destructive of those ends it is the right of the people in the words of the Declaration, to alter or abolish the government. In other words, obedience to government certainly is not a form of patriotism. Governments are the instruments to achieve certain ends. And if the government goes against those ends, if the government is not defending our liberties, but is diminishing our liberties, if the government is sending young people into war or making war which is unjustified, well then the government is not following the principles of caring about life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. When the government is taking huge sums of money from education and health, and using that money for military purposes, that's a violation of the principles of the Declaration of Independence. And a government like that cannot be obeyed. To obey a government like that is not being patriotic. At that point, when a government behaves like that, it is the most patriotic thing to disobey the government. 72.14.207.104