There's a tradition in the history of dissent in authoritarian countries of a certain kind of dissident, and their form of dissent is to live their lives as normally as possible.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Once people sense their own power, no authoritarian government can stand against the people who are determined to be free.
In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.
Authoritarianism is not pretending anymore to be a real alternative to democracy, but we can see many more authoritarian practices and styles basically being smuggled into democratic governments.
I lived in a dictatorship in Brazil, and I was arrested three times. I felt in my flesh what it is to live under such a regime and experience deprivation of freedom.
Bring it on. Dissent is central to any democracy.
Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
In any authoritarian society, the possessor of power dictates, and if you try and step outside, he will come after you. This is equally true of Sovietism, of China and of Iran, and in our time it has happened a lot in Islam. The point is that it's worse when the authoritarianism is supported by something supernatural.
Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died of conformity in our lifetime.
Peoples do not defy repression and death, nor do they remain for nights on end protesting energetically, just because of merely formal matters.
Those who abhors democracy would rarely immigrate to an authoritarian state if they have to.