Traditionally, an upside down American flag is used only as a sign of distress. With the recent events on Wall Street — and the bumbling attempts of our leaders to plug the holes in this sinking ship — the threat comes not from foreign enemies but internal ones.The lack of intelligent leadership started by the Bush administration and continued by the Obama administration has not gone unnoticed by the public. In recent weeks, a growing unrest has risen to the surface.Wednesday is a day that will strike fear into the hearts of many procrastinators. This year, though, there is a group of proactive people who hope to turn the tables on the government.Liberty lovers will gather together in cities around the country to demonstrate their displeasure with the policies of the current administration by hosting “Tea Parties.” One such demonstration will take place at the Capitol Building in downtown Baton Rouge from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.For many of us, the closest thing we have seen to populist dissent aimed at the government is a brief scene from “Forrest Gump.” We learned of the anti-war movement that swept college campuses in the 1960s, but we’ve never seen that kind of collective turmoil. Occasionally, we hear a news report about a protest in some urban city in some state in the Pacific Northwest or the East coast, but at LSU, we have been largely insulated from the infectious power of political dissent.Toleration of dissent should be an essential aspect of any institution created by man. Whether that institution is overtly political, social or religious doesn’t matter — there is always a need for someone to stand up and say, “This isn’t right.” Men are imperfect and so, by extension, are their institutions.But loyal dissent is not the hyper-idealized stuff of pop culture. It’s not a single demonstration with signs and songs carried out to its completion on a single day. Loyal dissent is something deeper.There can be no dissent unless there is a basic set of ideals held up by all members of a society.For the U. S., that underlying principle is freedom.When the first tea party took place in the waters of Boston     Harbor, the protest was not directed toward taxes, per se. Instead, the colonists had a problem with the idea that the British crown could tax them with no regard of colonial representation.It was a protest against the tyrannical power with which King George claimed to hold the colonies.The philosophy of the American Revolution placed a premium on the idea of freedom and liberty. These are our basic ideals.”Freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself,” Milton Friedman wrote in “Capitalism and Freedom.”This country is founded upon the lofty ideal of governance by the consent of the governed. With consent comes an implied acceptance of dissent when the will of the governed is subverted.The proposed demonstrations being called “tea parties” have as their fundamental basis this understanding. The dissent that will be carried out on Wednesday is good and necessary.But it must be remembered that the dissent is not against one administration or another. It is directed towards the growing legislative attack on our most fundamental beliefs.The “tea parties” are not about increased taxes or personal disdain for the political party or platform of a single politician.Instead, it is about the preservation of the rights of every man to be free.Drew Walker is a 24-year-old philosophy senior from Walker.—-Contact Drew Walker at [email protected]