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104 Harv. L. Rev. 43 (1990-1991)
Foreword: Taking Freedom Seriously

handle is hein.journals/hlr104 and id is 61 raw text is: THE SUPREME COURT 1989 TERM FOREWORD: TAKING FREEDOM SERIOUSLY Robin West* There nothing goes and everything matters - here everything goes and nothing matters. Phillip Roth, contrasting the situation of Czechoslovak and American writers in the early '70S.1 In today's marketplace of ideas, the public burning of a Vietnam draft card is probably less provocative than lighting a cigarette. Justice Stevens, dissenting, in United States v. Eichman,2 in which the Court found the Flag Protection Act of I9893 unconstitutional. I. INTRODUCTION During the past year, while the ideals and institutions of liberal individualism dramatically gained ascendancy in Eastern and Central Europe, those same ideals and institutions came under attack in a number of decisions by the United States Supreme Court. Although the damage was not as great as it could have been, individual free- dom, the hallmark of liberal democracy, lost ground to state control. In remarkably easy-to-understand, jargon-free opinions, the conserv- ative Justices of the Supreme Court seemed to speak directly to as well as for the people who constitute both the state and the in- dividual interests at stake: the state has the power, the Court held, * Professor of Law, University of Maryland School of Law; Research Fellow, Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy. I would like to thank Samantha Forman, Robert Green, Tom Grey, Lynne Henderson, Cass Sunstein, David Strauss, Martha Minow, and Frank Michelman for comments and criticisms of early drafts of this Foreword. I Roth, A Conversation in Prague, N.Y. Rev. Books, Apr. 12, I99O, at 14, i6. 2 1xo S. Ct. 2404, 2412 (iggo) (Stevens, J., dissenting). 3 x8 U.S.C.A. § 7oo (West Supp. i9go).

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