Mark Kleiman has been kicking major Republibutt lately

His recent posts are so excellent that my man Kevin (who once linked to me in the first person) made a post out of 4 links to Kleiman. I'll just send all of you over to his homepage (that means you too Anne).

I have only one objection. He used a word that I'm not really sure is a word (unlike the standard term Republibutt)

Governments always have ways of getting their side of the story to the public. Freedom of the press, like freedom of religion, is partly a means of providing safe platforms for dissentient voices. So insofar as the BBC is persistently bucking the government, even at times unfairly, that seems to me preferable to the opposite case.

I absolutely agree with Kleiman on this (and the fact that the BBC is not only independent of the government of the day but reliably detested by the government everyday is one of the most wonderful things about the UK (competing with Monty Python's Flying Circus for first place)).

However, I am not sure that "dissentient" is English (the ending sure seems gasp French to me).
Can we be sure whether Kleiman longs for "dissenting" voices (ing is the English translation of ent) or whether he would settle for "sentient" voices as I would.