The alternative is worse. Ray Bradbury wrote a book on possible consequences of letting political correctness go too far, outlawing speech that offends somebody--Fahrenheit 451.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

I was not going to criticise or even comment on the replies, because I think each one is personal, but seeing Henrik's post I feel the need to balance it out a little bit:

I think this is a good thing about the U.S. I don't like the fad of anti-hate speech legislation (and attitudes) that has been sweeping certain countries. I think at best it's a diversion from the issues that truly matter, and at worst the start of a dangerous slippery slope.

If I were to criticise freedom of speech in the U.S., I would do it on entirely different grounds, but that's a discussion for another time.

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

One could view the Bill of Rights (most of it anyway) as a way of preventing the government from becoming a tyranny. Freedom of Speech is one such way--diluting free speech is a slippery slope to a situation similar to China/Iran/etc. where people get arrested for their blog posts--which, of course, makes it hard to reform government when needed. Each of the first ten Amendments can be interpreted under the philosophy of "preventing the government from getting too powerful".

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

I started to write up a list of what the US is best with or has the best of, and contrast that with a list of what other nations are the best with and have the best of -- but decided that "best" is often EXTREMELY subjective.

Let's all admit that most claims of "best" this and that are more feel-good rah-rah cheerleading rather than objective fact - especially if you have to consider a huge smorgasboard of factors.

While in absolute terms this is true, it is not accurate in terms of the percentage of gross national income that is donated. Chart 5 on page 16 of the 2007 Report on The Index of Global Philanthropy ranks USA in 7th position among OECD donor countries. Sweden, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark and Canada occupied positions 1 - 6.

I agree. Even with America's more liberal freedom of speech laws it has not encouraged an increase in racist violence compared to European countries that have much stricter freedom of speech laws. I dont know the stats but i bet there are as many neo-nazi groups in Europe as there are in the US.

Let us say that the etymology on that is very uncertain, and if they're stating it as a fact, someone needs to change the page to add the other half-dozen possibilities. (Such as that it stems from US soldiers in the Mexican-American was singing "Green Grow the Rushes.")

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

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Forming opinions as we speak