A filmmaker named Robert Goldstein was imprisoned for showing the British in a bad light in a movie about the American War of Independence. The judge allowed that such a depiction would be “permissible or even commendable” in ordinary times, but “in this hour of national emergency” Goldstein enjoyed “no right to subvert the purposes and destiny of the nation.” For insulting a foreign army from 150 years earlier, Goldstein was sentenced to twelve years in prison.
