KILL DISSENT AND ALL WI'BE WELL?

Senator Durbin knows what this is all about. Newsweek does, too. Maybe Karl Rove is getting a bit of it, now, too. Donald Rumseld tried to pitch out some of this on his Meet the Press appearance this past Sunday. It has become abundantly clear that a dominant strain among vocal conservatives is utter contempt for dissenting viewpoints. If we all just thought alike, there'd never be any problems. Everyone would just get along.

If there were no dissent, or if dissent were effectively quelled at key times in world history, perhaps we'd be chatting about this over tea and crumpets at 4 this afternoon. Or speaking German. Maybe Cairo would be the greatest city in the Eastern Hemisphere, as it would have enjoyed the benefits of centuries more low-cost Israelite slave labor. There might have been no Christianity, because nobody would have listened to Jesus -- he was a system-bucking rule-bender, too.

We'd have saved all that money going to the moon and exploring space because, after all, The earth would still be viewed as the flat center of the universe. What need would we have to go anywhere else? Oh, and without dissent in the scientific community - that willingness to reject "its not possible" as the right answer, our average life expectancy would be about 30 something, as we stoically accepted our deaths at the hands of strep throat, smallpox, measles, polio, or any one of a thousand other diseases now held medically in check. To those on the right of the spectrum who wish to demonize dissent, to wish it away, take a moment and reflect upon the ways the World has benefited from dissenters throughout history. No one can calculate the value of unchallenged ideas.