A2: Treason

Writing on the We! Magazine website, Jeff Alson of Ann Arbor responds to a previous writer who accused Republicans of treason for opposing President Obama’s economic stimulus plan. “I remember all too well, a few days after my young daughter and I marched in downtown Ann Arbor against the war in the winter of 2003, reading a letter to the editor in the local paper, calling us ‘traitors’ for not falling in line behind President Bush. I then responded with my own letter, also published, that mirrored Twain’s philosophy of ‘loving one’s country, not one’s government’ and citing Teddy Roosevelt’s famous quote supporting one’s right to criticize the President. I then used the two letters as a history and civics lesson for my daughter about the responsibility of citizens to dissent in a democracy. I feel just as passionately about the anti-democratic nature of using the ‘treason card’ now that my side is winning. Democracy demands dissent and dialog, not conformity and bullying-by-words like treason.” [Source]