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I haven't yet read all the replies on this thread so I may be repeating but I'll risk it...

Would you use the "free speech" argument to defend a person who yelled: "FIRE", in a crowded theatre, when there was none?

I ask because it seems that you, and many here, believe that a person's right to "free speech" extends even to the point of harm to others.

It would be very interesting to see how different the reaction of many, who would have no limits on free speech, would be if their favorite web site, and its membership, were slandered (or libeled, if you prefer) with the obvious intent of causing it, and them, irreparable harm.

Thia came out in France and it was signed by mainstream (and mostly on the left and Jewish) historians.

France: Call by 19 Historians for the Repeal of Several Statutory Clauses
Agence France Presse release of December 12, 2005

Paris — In a text sent today to the AFP headed “Liberté pour l’histoire!” (Freedom for history!), nineteen leading historians have come out for the repeal of several statutory clauses concerning “events of the past”, legislation that, according to them, is “unworthy of a democratic regime”.
They refer to articles of the laws of July 13, 1990 (editor’s note: aiming to punish any racist, anti-Semitic or xenophobic act, ) January 29, 2001 (editor’s note: relating to the acknowledgement of the 1915 Armenian genocide), May 21, 2001 (editor’s note: aiming to acknowledge the slave trade as a crime against humanity) and February 23, 2005.

The last mentioned law’s controversial article 4 (in favour of repatriated French citizens) stipulates that “the school curricula shall recognise in particular the positive role of the French presence overseas, notably in North Africa”.

The text is signed by Jean-Pierre Azéma, Elisabeth Badinter, Jean-Jacques Becker, Françoise Chandernagor, Alain Decaux, Marc Ferro, Jacques Julliard, Jean Leclant, Pierre Milza, Pierre Nora, Mona Ozouf, Jean-Claude Perrot, Antoine Prost, René Rémond, Maurice Vaïsse, Jean-Pierre Vernant, Paul Veyne, Pierre Vidal-Naquet and Michel Winock.

“Moved by the ever more frequent political interventions in the assessment of events of the past and by the legal proceedings affecting historians and thinkers, we see fit to recall the following principles”, they write.
According to them, “history is not a religion. The historian accepts no dogma, respects no prohibition, knows no taboos. History is not morality. The historian’s role is not to exalt or to condemn: he explains. History is not the slave of current affairs. The historian does not stick contemporary ideological outlines onto the past and does not bring today’s sensitivity into the events of former times”.

“History is not remembrance”, they continue. “The historian, in a scientific procedure, collects people’s memories, compares them with each other, confronts them with documents, objects, traces, and establishes the facts. History takes remembrance into account, it does not amount merely to remembrance. History is not a juridical object. The State’s policy, albeit motivated by the best intentions, is not the policy of history”.

“It is in violation of these principles that clauses of successive laws — notably those of July 13, 1990, January 29, 2001, May 21, 2001 and February 23, 2005 — have restricted the historian’s freedom, have told him, on pain of sanctions, what he must look for and what he must find, have prescribed him his methods and set down limits. We call for the repeal of these legislative provisions that are unworthy of a democratic regime”, they conclude.

I'll do my best to answer. Would you use the "free speech" argument to defend a person who yelled: "FIRE", in a crowded theatre, when there was none?

No, of course not. The difference is that in this example, which is based on a popular misquote from Oliver Wendell Holmes' opinion in Schenk v. United States, panic would, understandably, be immediate, and there would be no chance for anyone to rebut our panic-mongerer and point out that there was no fire before the predictable damage had been done.

In the case of Holocaust deniers or Islamofascist firebrands, their ideas, which I despise as much as you do, are expressed in an open and ongoing public discussion. People who disagree with Zundel's version of history have had ample time to rebut him, and besides, no reasonable person could say that any sort of violence MUST predictably follow from the publishing of his books. Likewise with the Koran, or our hypothetical Islamofascist imam. If he says it is God's command that all Muslims kill the infidel wherever he can be found, that's a general statement that is exposed, at least in free countries, to ample public rebuttal and rightful ridicule. Now, if he tells one or more of his followers specifically to find a crowded area and blow themselves up on Tuesday, that's quite a different matter. The difference should be clear.

It would be very interesting to see how different the reaction of many, who would have no limits on free speech, would be if their favorite web site, and its membership, were slandered (or libeled, if you prefer) with the obvious intent of causing it, and them, irreparable harm.

As has been said here before, the victims of slander and libel have access to civil redress for damages. We don't jail or criminally prosecute those who engage in slander or libel in this country, or use the police power of the state to engage in prior restraint of their speech, and for good reason. So no, I would not wish to throw liberty out the window in order to protect my favorite web site (of all things) from slander.