Politics and patriotism

Isn't it just as, if not more, patriotic and American to stand up to your government on something you believe strongly in rather than comply? Isn't that one of the said areas that the United States is based on: freedom to criticize and change the government. It is not the government hampering people's criticism, although they do deflect it with no backup of their own, it is society. Though no doubt the government does play a role in keeping their policies wishfully un-scrutinized, often the people will help them to accomplish that. For example, people opposing many of the counterterrorism policies used in the 'war on terror' are called unpatriotic, or terrorist-sympathizers. You don't agree with the official government stance? You get shunned as the 'enemy'.

Even the United States government and other heads of state have gone far enough as to say a victory for the political opposition in their country (e.g. Democrats winning in US) is a win for the terrorists. Bush has used the fact he presided over 9/11, and, though the government still uses fear of terrorism to garner voters, there has been no attack since.

In addition, there have been a number of cases where the government hyped up a story about a wannabe terrorist, even if no hard evidence gave that implication. In those cases either the suspect would be detained for an indefinite amount of time, or they would be brought to trial and the charges would be steadily dropped (e.g. terrorism to conspiracy to possession of illegal arms or unregistered firearms). In some recent instances, detainees have plead guilty, but not to a court of law and/or probably not in a fit mental state.