ABSTRACT
In wartime, the rights of free speech tend to become even more fragile than at other times. Protections for pure speech must be inherent in a democracy, for without freedom of thought and expression, tyranny is just a step away. At certain periods in US history, the right to free speech was on particularly shaky ground. During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, free speech was threatened when Reagan handlers made it appear unpatriotic to criticize his conservative administration. The Supreme Court has held that certain forms of speech are never "pure," and because of this, they are never protected by the First Amendment. Traditionally, those unprotected forms of speech were identified as slander and libel, "fighting words," obscenity, and sedition. The Court tried out Justice Holmes's clear-and-present-danger test in Schenck in 1919, deciding that seditious speech must be weighed against the immediate dangers that follow the speech.
