Commentary Some of us are old enough to recall a time when freedom of speech was regarded as essential to the maintenance of a functional democracy. In democratic nations like Canada and the United States, we once understood that in contests of cultural or political will, all citizens, especially candidates for political office and other leadership positions, should be permitted to have their say and test their ideas against the arguments of others. Throughout our national history, government censorship was generally limited to preventing the disclosure of sensitive military secrets or forbidding the publication of pornographic material that violated customary moral standards and had no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. In schools, universities, and public forums, we once sought to examine all sides of civic issues. We regarded it as unfair and counter-productive to collude with some in order to exclude the opinion of others. As free citizens, …