Freedom is when one may do whatever one pleases within reason and with proper regard for the rights and the well-being of others.

License is when one does whatever one pleases but without regard for the rights or the well-being of others, let alone reason.

Free speech is the freedom to register pretty much whatever opinions one chooses, without fear of restriction by or retribution from authorities.

Slander refers to the act of damaging someone's reputation by spreading falsehoods about them.

When some radio talk show host makes snide comments about liberals (real or imagined) or someone writes an editorial about a man who's dying from an easily-treatable illness because he cannot get health insurance, we might disagree with the fundamental premises of each speaker, but most of us agree that it is free speech and as such shouldn't be subject to censorship or other types of sanctions.

That being said, is it freedom of speech or is it slanderous for a television commentator to refer to a doctor as a killer, not once, but over and over again? How about if someone as a result decides that the best thing for him to do is to murder said doctor? What if it cannot be legally proven that the commentator's words may have incited the perpetrator to commit his crime? Is the commentator innocent of any wrongdoing?

Is it reasonable when a presidential aspirant admonishes followers to “reload”, and puts a map of the United States on a web site with rifle-scope cross-hairs on each area represented by members of congress of whom the aspirant disapproves? Suppose that someone takes the aspirant literally and commits an act of mayhem which kills several innocent people including a young child? Is the presidential aspirant blameless?

Is it freedom or is it license if certain mass media figures appear to be deliberately and calculatingly stirring up hatred which can easily translate into the commission of violent crimes, in order to promote a narrow and otherwise unpopular political and social agenda? Do the ends simply justify the means?

What do you think?