Belial,

Freedom of speech/expression is not an absolute. My freedom to shout “Fire!” stops well before I am seated in a crowded cinema.

There is, I grant you, an unavoidable tension – a give and take if you will – between the freedoms customarily extended to our political leaders and their responsibilities to be honest and forthright about their policies.

In order to be effective they must be afforded sufficient room in which to maneuver into some consensus the various and sometime contradictory constituents they represent. At the same time, I will grant that they cannot expect the electorate to accept back room deals done at night in obscurity.

I do think we differ in how we see the role of the military in a democracy. I point again to 20th century history to emphasize the importance of segregating the military from politics.

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Eudaimonia