Is dissent still patriotic?

I stumbled across a great Denver Post column today. It picks up on many of the thoughts I've been having since the inauguration yesterday. Some highlights:

Is there anyone who still believes the Constitution was created to ensure each citizen liberty and the ability to pursue happiness rather than a guarantee of happiness — and a retirement fund, health care, a job, an education, a house ... ?

Obama challenges Americans to have "a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves." So if you find massive concentrated power in Washington a turn-on, you've found your higher purpose.

But surely, most of you have found meaning in something greater than yourselves long before some politician demanded it.

To require such fealty to power in the name of patriotism was once repugnant to the left. Now, with the right guy in charge, apparently it can once again be embraced.

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism

...or so we've been told over the last eight years. While I understand the sentiment, I don't hold to it, and I suspect that many of those who did have already done an about-face. However, it is important to engage on the issues of the day, and to take issue with those wielding political power when we disagree with them. That's what we're going to do here. Welcome to Hope and Change, a blog of the Obama Era that will not be blinded by over-the-top worship of the Dear Leader, nor by the deranged hatred of the President that we saw for the last eight years.