Fire!

("How Twitter Killed the First Amendment")

We now reside in a time of a war of words, attacked internally and incessantly by Mr. Trump and his minions and externally by those who would misdirect and misinform. Speech used as a weapon to exploit rather than a tool to educate. 

And in these moments it is hard to discern wheat from chaff and harder still to draw the line between what is permitted and what is punishable. This is no longer yelling fire in a theatre. 

The danger lies in the level of restraint we impose in keeping foreign players and our own President from exercising untrammeled reign to manipulate and maneuver with distortions and distractions. Our democracy depends on protecting our rights as zealously as we protect our children. And if, in the process, we allow ourselves to place undue constraints on our press, on our dissent, on the very freedom that makes us the nation we are, then we have indeed incurred defeat at the hands of our oppressors.

So yes, we cannot be blind to attack and must be vigilant in our defense. But we must remain equally vigilant to guard against chipping away at the most fundamental of our freedoms. No, strike that. More vigilant.