“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

It’s a phrase that was credited to Thomas Jefferson, but there’s no real evidence that he ever said or wrote this popular phrase used quite often by people on the left — when they feel the need to justify their often ludicrous actions against anyone in charge with an “R” next to their name.

The phrase (likely actually born in the ’60s) is one that I never truly agreed with. I don’t think dissent is a high form of patriotism, but it is a key element in a free society. The highest form of patriotism remains to serve, and possibly die for your country. Any leftist who used the phrase automatically made me think of them as a little high on their own supply. They aren’t that noble.

Funny enough, this cliché of a phrase used to pardon even the most bloody of protests seems to go from virtue to vice in the blink of an eye… when the Democrats are in charge. Now, all that dissent they were cheerleading a moment ago borders on treason.

It’s not and they know it, but if they can’t lock you up and shoot you for speaking out against them, they can try to silence you — and with your largest platform for dissent being your social media accounts, the Democrats know right where to hit you.

The idea is that if you spread misinformation on one platform, then that platform should ban you, and subsequently, so should all other social media platforms. What counts as misinformation is subject to the whims of the Democrats, of course.

Two days ago, Jacob Sullum wrote an article for the New York Post that summed up the nefariousness of the Biden administration’s attempts at silencing their critics:

This censorship by proxy is especially troubling, because the “misinformation” that offends Biden and Murthy isn’t limited to verifiably false statements about COVID-19 vaccines, such as claims that they cause infertility or alter human DNA. It also includes messages that are accurate but “misleading,” which could mean they discourage vaccination by emphasizing small risks, noting that vaccines aren’t completely effective or raising questions about the methodology of vaccine studies.

Nor is the “misinformation” targeted by the Biden administration confined to speech about vaccines. Murthy is also concerned about messages that might encourage people to “reject public-health measures such as masking and physical distancing,” which would encompass even good-faith skepticism about the effectiveness of those safeguards.

This is effectively saying that there will be no questioning at all. Expressing doubts may lead to questions, and those questions may lead to answers that inconvenience the established narrative.

Do not dissent. So much for patriotism, then.

If we’re actually going to count dissent as patriotism, then we need to exist in a country where free speech is a celebrated value from your neighborhood streets to the halls of Washington. The idea of dissenting against power should be as cherished as it is annoying to those who are being dissented against.

That’s not currently what the Democrats want. They want you censored, whether you’re an insane conspiracy theorist or just a person asking basic questions that run too close to exposing a reality they’d rather the people not see.

Nothing is more inconvenient to the powerful than dissent, and those who try their hardest to keep dissent from happening are the ones who truly aren’t the patriots. In this country, where free speech is literally the very first God-given right on the list of God-given rights, patriotism would be hating the dissent being thrown your way but appreciating the fact that the people can do it.