Dissent Quotes - Page 14

• This kind of totalization of security consciousness [after tragedy of 9/11] has the effect within classrooms (and beyond) of constraining the imagination and reinforcing attitudes that privilege the forces of law and order as against the crosscurrents of freedom and dissent.

  Richard A. Falk

  Attitude, Order, Law

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• It is easier to silence scientific dissent by utilizing the politics of personal destruction, than to actually debate them on the merits of their arguments. That should tell you something about the global warming debate...there is none right now....it's either you believe, or you are to be discredited.

  Mike Thompson

  Believe, Silence, Merit

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• Not only is the Kyoto approach to global warming wrong-headed, the climate change establishment's suppression of dissent and criticism is little short of a scandal. The IPCC should be shut down.

  Nigel Lawson

  Kyoto, Criticism, Climate

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• No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it. It is only with your own knowledge that you can deal. It is only your own knowledge that you can claim to possess or ask others to consider. Your mind is your only judge of truth - and if others dissent from your verdict, reality is the court of final appeal. Nothing but a man's mind can perform that complex, delicate, crucial process of identification which is thinking. Nothing can direct the process but his own judgment. Nothing can direct his judgment but his moral integrity.

  Ayn Rand

  Integrity, Thinking, Reality

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.260, Penguin

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• [The] erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardised citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

  H. L. Mencken

  Knowledge, Independent, Science

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• Unlike top management at Enron, exemplary leaders reward dissent. They encourage it. They understand that, whatever momentary discomfort they experience as a result of being told they might be wrong, it is more than offset by the fact that the information will help them make better decisions.

  Warren G. Bennis

  Top Management, Decision, Leader

  Warren G. Bennis, Patricia Ward Biederman (2009). “The Essential Bennis”, p.182, John Wiley & Sons

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• To add to the confusion, some of the court's decisions involved multiple concurrences and dissents, making it hard even for lawyers and judges to figure out what the law is and why.

  Mike DeWine

  Law, Confusion, Judging

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• ...Sean Penn claimed to be 'serv[ing] the country' by giving aid and comfort to an enemy about to be attacked by the US. He said it made him feel more patriotic to dissent from the war aims of his nation. It is at least a counterintuitive position. Most people would not instantly grasp how it is more patriotic to always root against America. White supremacists should try claiming that burning crosses is more supportive of civil rights than not burning them.

  Ann Coulter

  Country, War, Patriotic

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