Should Governments Tolerate the Actions of Dissent Groups?
By Jai Cummins I believe that governments should tolerate the actions of dissident groups, but only to a certain point. When dissident groups commit acts of violence, they have made themselves terrorists and the government should do all that it can to remove them and provide the most severe punishment available under the law for their members. I think that it is important that a clear distinction is made between dissent, subversion, terrorism and civil disobedience — all terms which have become synonymous with dissident groups, and how they are used in this essay. In the strictest sense of the word, dissent is nothing more than disagreement with the government and on its own, is something that everyone does, openly or not. Subversion is “…[activities] directed towards the undermining by covert unlawful acts, or directed toward or intended ultimately to lead to the destruction or overthrow… [the] government in Canada.” [1] Terrorism is the use of terror and violence against the gov
