How Patriotism Muzzles the Right to Dissent

The observations (personal as well as objective) on the following pages is quite clear:Justice and the rights she are guarantees may be blind, but she is neither mute nor deaf. By that one simply means that just as we are supposed to be blind to who is being judged, we should also be deaf in considering "unpatriotic" anyone with a viewpoint with which we don't agree. As Americans, under our Constitution, we have- or should have- every right to speak out, even if it is in dissent of a popular movement. Our system of justice- and by this one refers to a citizen's legal rights- holds that a citizen has a guarantee of freedom of speech. "The right to free speech and press means that individuals may publicly express ideas and information-including expressions generally considered to be unwise, untrue, or unpopular-without fear of punishment by the government. In this way, government officials may be criticized..." (Oxford Dictionary 1). Dissent is one thing, stifling that dissent or calling the dissenter unpatriotic or un-American is just wrong.

In the case of Michael Moore, the freedom affords him his Constitutional right to dissent, to argue, even to take a few things out of context in his basic purpose: to show that our leadership that has led us into the mess in Iraq is flawed.

Bowling for Columbine makes us realize, like it or not, that the massacre in Colorado perpetrated by two teen-agers has escalated into a conflagration thousands of miles from the U.S. We are seen, and Bowling helps that viewpoint, as a nation of gunslingers, shooting first and asking questions later. The world now sees us as predisposed to violence and we are hated for it. Moore makes the world see what many have long suspected: Many Americans are "gun-slingers who shoot first and ask questions later. It is as if George Bush is our present-day Wyatt Earp. And, so Moore has us believe, no one stands up against the powerful gun lobby to dissent.

So, first, let's discuss the basic idea and integrity of dissent and how 9/11 changed the government's view on the right to dissent. It is called "The Patriot Act" (an oxymoron if there ever was one). In the guise of fighting domestic terrorists, the act effectively abridges dissent- including what one reads: "Under a little-noted provision, Section 215, the USA Patriot Act....gives FBI agents authority to investigate the reading habits of citizens suspected of terrorism" (Marvel 1). The American Civil Liberties Union has been one of the most vocal opponents to some of these enhanced powers now legally enforceable by the FBI and other government agencies. "Ordinary citizens are more likely to become the victims of highly intrusive government surveillance, because meaningful judicial oversight has effectively been eliminated" (McCaffrey 4).

So, the idea of dissent, even disagreement with government policies can have the ordinary citizen spied on, and perhaps even prosecuted. And it is all done in the name of anti-terrorist security. This has turned the right to dissent, a First Amendment right, into government control under the guise of "Homeland security."

So, what does all this have to do with the very liberal, leftist approach Michael Moore took in Bowling for Columbine? Yes, the documentary is biased and in some instances flawed in its reasoning. Yet it is far milder in tone and far more "domestic" than Fahrenheit 9/11. However, Bowling For Columbine is seen as anti-Establishment, and worse, anti-American because whenever a gun-rights "patriot" is cornered he uses as his justification the Second Amendment and the citizen's right to bear arms. Moore's critics want to void the First Amendment to safeguard the Second. So, even if Moore chose what some people believe to be the "wrong" venue for his anti-Bush remarks, there is no doubt that legally he had every right to say what he did (just as those who booed had every right to do that as well). At least someone had toe nerve to stand up and speak, during a time when the use of the word "terrorists" seems to have stunned many Americans into silence. Gitlin calls this "a time when some people think loyalty must be demonstrated by a shut mouth" (Gitlin 1).

The night the Oscars are presented is usually the most watched television night, internationally. Moore was honored for his documentary. And, while other winners thanked their wives, children, parents, lawyers, agents and producers, Moore decided to use this huge international forum to make a political statement. Was Moore right to use the Oscars as a political platform for his dissent? Of course he was. And despite being booed by some stars, urged on, surely, by their press agents, what he said is in the minds of millions of Americans. Namely, what can we believe? And whom can we believe? And, if the heads of our government seem untrustworthy, why should we just shut up and shrug our shoulders and say "We're not interested in politics!" As more and more Americans are dissenting from the strategies our current Administration has set forth very few have done much in public that caused as much anger as Michael Moore's calling our elected President "fictitious" emphasizing that his Oscar was for a documentary where that very word implies "factual."

Dissent is never popular. It puts people in prison- from Nelson Mandela to, yes, even Adolf Hitler. However, in America, dissent should be seen as healthy (unless, of course, you're a member of the NRA or in the Bush cabinet). Americans need to remember that it was dissent- colonists angry about a new tax on tea- that made some of them dress as Indians and throw tea into Boston Harbor. Dissent went well beyond this Boston Tea Party, but ended up at Bunker Hill and the start of the American Revolution. Dissent helped create the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Dissent has a history in America's growth well before we heard Michael Moore in Hollywood say "We live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man who's sending us to war for fictitious reasons, whether it's the fiction of duct tape or the fiction of orange alerts" (Breznican 2).

Moore's was just one of a long line of dissenters in America, some of whom received the same mixed reception. Dissent also created the new federal laws concerning safety of bank accounts, unfair labor laws, and other work-projects of the New Deal in the 1930s. Of course, dissent from Rosa Parks in Montgomery to protest marches in Selma helped create the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Of course, it also jailed Hollywood "Reds" during the McCarthy era. It is interesting that the blacklist of the Nineteen Fifties reared its ugly head again following Moore's Oscar speech: "...it's time to bring back the Hollywood blacklist....It's time to silence these people. It's time to force them to get real jobs and perform real work and learn the unusual and undeserved blessings America has bestowed upon them" (Farah 3). America's blessings include the right to speak out on any subject. One can say the emperor has no clothes (or no weapons of mass destruction) and have every right to do so.

Moore makes an easy target, of course because there is little or no subtlety in his work. He hammers home his point of view instead of using a stiletto. In fact, as this essay is being edited, Moore again is making headlines, as a result of Rep. Murtha's call for withdrawal of troops from Iraq (Nov. 16). The White House response, delivered through the press secretary stated: "....it is baffling that he is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party" (Reynolds A28).

As much a diatribe as Bowling for Columbine is, using a disaster to make some sharp comments about gun laws and those who bear arms, it is a legal dissent from the position of the NRA. We have now entered that shadowy world in this country where the slightest dissent is seen as unpatriotic. What is more unpatriotic is to remain silent. Silence is not golden.

WORKS CITED:

Breznican, Anthony: "Michael Moore criticizes U.S. war in Iraq in Oscar speech" Assopciated Press, March 23, 2003

Farah, Joseph: "Bring Back the Hollywood Blacklist"

WorldNetDaily.com September 4, 2003

Gitlin T.: Patriotism Demands Questioning Authority" Los Angeles TIMES, November 11, 2001

Marvel, B.: "Booksellers, Librarians Nervous over FBI's Secret New Snooping" Dallas TX: Dallas Morning News, Aug. 23, 2002

McCaffrey, S.: "Court Ruling May Give Government More Surveillance Powers" Knight-Ridder Newspapers: KRT News Service, Nov. 18, 2002

Reynolds, Maura: "Democratic Hawk and War Veteran Wants U.S. Troops Out of Iraq Now" Los Angeles TIMES, November 18, 2005

No author listed: Freedom of Speech" Oxford Guide to the United States Government Oxford Reference Online (2005).