The Bernoulli Effect

Your first quote is awfully dismissive of the idea that dissent may serve the country far more than that to which the affrieved party is dissenting.

Wow. I really meant to type "aggrieved." I promise.

I linked to this because I think there should be a disconnect between the act of dissent and the subject. I think a lot of folks on the Left are enamored of the idea of dissent and therefore fail to consider each situation independently. One of my good Lefty friends considers himself "skeptical". I'm pretty sure if I asked him to define his skepticism he'd say it involves "questioning authority". He'd be half right, and wholly wrong: skepticism is questioning everything, not just authority. As soon as authority is added in, you've pre-judged the question and become biased, because you've limited the scope of your skepticism. (The government is sometimes right, and the questioners wrong.) Also implicit in the definition is an acceptance of an answer: if you question (or dissent), then you have an obligation to think rationally in good faith about the answers you receive, and accept them if they make sense.

You're absolutely correct in that dissent, properly applied and in good faith, is part of the essence of what makes this country great. See Rosa Parks for example. Do not see the Weather Underground.