It is disagreement, openly expressed, and it is not a flaw in a free society but a feature of one. The right to dissent is what separates a democracy from a regime that demands silence.
Dissent is the open expression of disagreement with a prevailing opinion, policy, or authority. The word comes from the Latin dissentire, to feel differently. To dissent is to say, publicly, I do not agree.
It is woven into the American system. The First Amendment protects speech, press, assembly, and petition precisely so that citizens can dissent from their government without fear. A nation founded by people who dissented from a king built protection for dissent into its core.
It has a formal home in the courts. When Supreme Court justices disagree with a ruling, they write a dissent, a dissenting opinion. Famous dissents, once in the minority, have sometimes become the law of the land decades later, showing that today's dissent can be tomorrow's wisdom.
It is the lifeblood of progress. Nearly every advance in rights began as dissent, a minority view, often mocked or punished, that insisted the majority was wrong. Abolition, suffrage, and civil rights all began as dissent before they became consensus.
