Free Republic

Eighty-five years ago, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes authored the Supreme Court's opinion condemning a man named Debs for causing and inciting "insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces of the United States and with intent so to do delivered, to an assembly of people, a public speech ..."[1] Under the Espionage Act of 1917[2], it mattered most that Mr. Debs prosecuted his anti-war message while his countrymen were fighting World War I in Europe. Mr. Debs gave his speech on June 16, 1918, three months after the U.S. joined Allied Forces heavily engaged in...

How would Hollywood respond if a group were formed called Christians United for Repentance and Education (CURE), with a mission to hand out awards for those TV programs doing the best job of promoting a religious or socially conservative viewpoint on homosexuality? Yes, yes: We know that finding programs to honor would be nearly impossible. We also know that virtually no one in the industry would rush to accept these awards. With that idea in mind, now consider the opposite. Consider the libertine lobby that suggests that traditional religion and social conservatism are poisonous to enlightened thinking, ideologies of "defamation"...

For those who haven't heard, a chill wind is blowing through our nation. So sayeth actor Tim Robbins, significant other and parenting partner of fellow actor Susan Sarandon, speaking a few days ago at the National Press Club. Robbins was expressing his concern about the increasingly fragile First Amendment - the same one that was protecting his speech that day - particularly as he and Sarandon have noted their popularity plummeting in certain quarters. "A chill wind is blowing in this nation," Robbins intoned. "A message is being sent through the White House and its allies in talk radio and...