After fifty years of 'progessivist' enigineering there is hardly anyone left who questions the authorrity of the State as the leading institution in every sphere of life. Leftists were great believers from the beginning of course, but 'conservatives' have been tainted with the idea too, and real conservatism consequently is moribund all over the west
Indeed – the fight on tobacco and firearms were a clear sign of mischief, and should have given everybody pause: statists and tyrants always start their strangulation of individual freedom and human dignity by doing good works.
They start by protecting 'others' from your smoke, then they protect you from yourself 'for your own good' and ban or tax fat, sugar and salt, and they end by protecting a greater good from your words. They take away your rights, your freedom, your property and even your individuality.
The state can have no role to play in morality, other than by protecting the life, property and limbs of the people, but getting rid of the intellectual and spiritual pollution from the last century is going to prove almost impossible

Thank goodness for the Constitution and the theorizing of your Founders – it's the only crutch the west has left if and when it will ever decide to rebuild, or to start anew. Otherwise we would have to reinvent the wheel and start from scratch

"In the 1971 Pentagon Papers case, a 6-3 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a prior restraint prohibiting the New York Times and Washington Post from publishing classified documents on the Vietnam war.

But even the justices in the majority acknowledged at the time that criminal prosecutions after publication would still be possible. "If a criminal prosecution is instituted, it will be the responsibility of the courts to decide the applicability of the criminal law under which the charge is brought," wrote Justice Potter Stewart."

They concluded that the law had yet to be judged as to it's applicability. The Nixon administration declined to prosecute so what does that say, Calvin? More or less exactly what I said, they had no case and dared not lose the Espionage Act as a threat to hold over the heads of publishers. As long as the law's constitutionality was not ruled upon (other cases did not involve American newspapers) the government had the threat of legal action. Once declared an unconstitutional attack on free speech the threat would become useless.

You know all of that, but you lie about me anyway because you have no character or ethics.

I hope you have a Merry Christmas, too. I hope that this holiday season, you're treated with more basic human decency than you treat those around you with.

Stop pretending that you are anything but a Christian Talibanist. Liberty offends you. You spend time attacking libertarians that you could spend attacking the enemies of liberty, however no foes of liberty ever sends you into the paroxysms of fury that libertarians do.

You may think that you have me dead (I'm quite sure that the words "to rights" was an after thought) but all you have done is shown yourself repeatedly to despise liberty.

By the way, Merry Christmas.

The private committed a crime by violating his oath, unless it turns out that what he released proves criminal activity by the government. In that case he was obligated both morally and legally to disseminate the information. Under military law no personnel can be punished for refusing to obey an illegal order. The order to assist in the cover up of criminal activity is illegal and therefore not enforceable.

The publisher of such information cannot be held responsible or tried for criminal acts. The 1st Amendment is clear about this and even the authoritarian Nixon regime did not attempt to arrest and try the reporters and editorial staff of the New York Times or the Washington Post when they published the "Pentagon Papers".

This is why no one take you seriously, Calvin