>>Or maybe it is because nowadays dissent is >>being painted as treason and unpatriotic. �When >>for the life of me, I can't understand how the >>right has turned the practice of First >>Amendment freedoms into something dirty. �

But they'll never take your freedom of thought. After 3000 dead in about 90 minutes, now isn't neccesarily the time to be "feeling the pain" of those who carried out these evils.

Freedom of thought isn't dirty, it's sometimes
arrogant and inappropriate... I think the powers that be know that dissenters were the ones who helped America loose the struggle in Vietnam - so they don't want to let the country be slapped round the face and then stroll away in  surrender.    

rms