>>Randall Randall he do say
>>> Also, I do not believe that lying should be illegal, when
>>> it is not fraud (returning no value for value recieved.
too radical for me Randall ;-)
I think lieing is always fraud (bad information sold as good).
I am confused about the fire in a theatre example. I agree with you that it implies you have a contract with people that you may not have and i worry that enforcing the "no yelling fire" law makes it possible to enforce community standards laws like "no selling hustler magazine in our town".
The "yelling fire" example, however, is different from, say, selling "The Bell Curve" (reading of which might lead people to believe that so much of intelligence is genetic that they stop voting for failed head start programs) and thus violate a (purported) community standard.
So, I say
truth = always protected.
opinion = always protected.
lying = unprotected speech.
soliciting for a crime = unprotected.
cheers,
tim