Yes folks you heard it here first! Democracy is the right to dissent. On June 12, 2008 the same group of folks that brought you the "no fly" list and the the free speech "zone" "explain[s] that dissent gave birth to the United States and that freedom of speech is a critical mechanism of democracy and therefore guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution."
So you say, why would I, liberal (leaning social democratic at heart) soul that I am, say that this particular government at this particular time promotes the right to dissent. Well, let me show you.
The transcript:
Snazzy music
Democracy is Right to Dissent
RY: Dissent is the theme of American History
MLK: "I have a dream."
RY: It’s written into the Constitution, it’s in the First Amendment. Dissent gave birth to the United States.
Guy 1: It’s the mechanism for change in America.
Guy 2: If there is something you don’t agree with you can actually be part of a group and implement that change.
RY: I’m Ralph Young and I am a senior lecturer of history at Temple University. I teach a course called Dissent in America. (To his students) It’s actually written into the Constitution that people can go out and yell and assemble and protest.
RY: You name it, almost every group out there has an organization that protests. This raises awareness that there is a problem.
Gal: People have the ability to speak their own minds and voice out discontent they have with their government.
RY: You shame the authorities into redressing something that basically they see that is wrong. It’s only through opposition that you get people examining the policies that we have.
Jefferson wrote "all men are created equal." Soon after the Constitution was written it was clear to lots of people that not everybody was having these rights. Martin Luther King said all we were saying is that American be true to what was put down on paper. The constitution is like a contract between the government and if people are not being covered by that, they are demanding the right to be covered.
Guy 3: If you can’t fight for those rights then you are like, under a controlled society and that is not what democracy is.
RY: Many dissenters are sort of ahead of their time. Susan B. Anthony went and voted at an election and was arrested. She was a woman. She went around the country giving a speech, - is it a crime for a US citizen to vote? and today, we think, now how could that have even been considered a crime?
Protesters: "Speak your mind, not a crime."
Protesters: "Shut it down! Shut it down!"
Guy 1: The positives of a democracy are that it’s something that is actually controlled by the people.
Guy 2: Having the ability to speak out against my government is something that other people all over the world don’t get to exercise.
Protesters: "We got to fight back."
Guy 2: Government changed in America changed when the people spoke up against the government.
RY: That phrase "all men are created equal" means something much broader now than it did when Jefferson wrote it.
Guy 4: Equality means that every single homo sapien on this planet deserves the same rights as everybody else.
RY: And that begs the question, are we there yet? Dissent will never stop, will it? I mean, there always will be people who are not feeling that they are getting what they should be getting from society and this is where dissenters are still pushing the envelope.
Our tax dollars at work. Are they really telling the truth?
While at the same time they are posting this video at the US Department of State website, it promotes everything the Bush's administration is trying to squelch. You can't get in to a republican political rally without the proper papers, your protests must be held out of their sight, you can not hold a sign that besmirches their reputation, you can not wear a tee shirt or have a bumper sticker on your car that tells the truth and god forbid the media should report any of the above. If you disagree, or maybe even dissent, you are unAmerican.
I found this video while looking a the US Embassy website for a country my son will soon be visiting. I happened to see the first frame of the video on a side bar, the frame that says "Democracy is Right to Dissent." And I was intrigued, so I watched it.
And then I was dismayed and amazed.
From the administration of a man that has fine-tuned lying, corruption, cronyism, greed and hubris, comes is a brief lesson on something that makes us, makes America great, "a nation of the people, by the people, for the people." And I agree, dissent is Democratic, and damn it, it is time to take our democracy back!
As they say, Yes We Can!