In every period of history, there seem to have been labels that got applied to statements to shoot them down before anyone had a chance to ask if they were true or not. “Blasphemy,” “sacrilege,” and “heresy” were such labels for a good part of Western history, as in more recent times “indecent,” “improper,” and “un-American” have been. By now these labels have lost their sting. They always do. By now they’re mostly used ironically. But in their time, they had real force.
