Author Ernest Hebert titled a book Live Free or Die. If I say 'Live Free or Die,' people interpret that according to their own politics. Some people are fearful and suspicious of it - it sounds like a conservative call to arms. The theme of his book is misunderstanding, and a young woman dies because of it. We all die, and it sounds like we live forever.
Freedom is worth dying for and thousands have done so.
Activist Arnie Alpert at the American Friends Service Committee used to associate the motto with Thomson and ultra right-wing politics. Then in the mid-1980s he attended a conference at Dartmouth against South African apartheid. It's not a wishy-washy slogan.