Fire in a Crowded Theatre

     The left does not have much imagination.  Once they latch on to some belabored phrase or slogan they won't let go of it until they realize that no one is impressed by it anymore or they find a new toy.  A current liberal mantra is 'fire in a crowded theatre'.  Whenever a lefty wants to squelch free speech he reminds us that a Supreme Court justice once opined that the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech does not protect a man who falsely yells 'fire' in a crowded theatre.  He will seek to squelch free speech through the 'fairness doctrine' or its equivalent by another name, and through campus speech codes which ban all expressions of politically incorrect views as racist, sexist, homophobic, and so on, whether or not such expressions have anything at all to do with those subjects.  If you argue the First Amendment to them they will remind you that it does not protect the yelling of 'fire' in a crowded theatre when there is no fire. They keep going until everything becomes the equivalent of fire in a crowded theatre.  If they could have their way even the Declaration of Independence would approximate 'fire' in a crowded theatre.  (After all, they might remind us, wasn't it a rather alarmist document)?
     One of their goals currently is to use the Fairness Doctrine to silence conservative talk show hosts.  This would occur, or so the left hopes, by causing local stations and advertisers  eventually to cancel current-events daytime talk shows by claiming that they aren't being "fair" with their conservative  broadcasting.  The idea is that stations and advertisers would decide that the game is not worth the candle and go exclusively to sports, music and local issues. It hardly matters to the left that the reason that conservatism predominates on daytime radio and Fox News is that conservatism gets the ratings and the ratings and public preferences are what they are in a free market.  The liberals retain massive quantities of liberal media outlets, but they want it all.  If you tell them that they ought to respect freedom of speech across the board and be consistent they may respond that the First Amendment is all well and good but it doesn't protect someone yelling 'fire' in a crowded theatre and, of course, anyone who goes around saying things they do not like is equivalent to a man who yells 'fire' in a crowded theatre.