Re: CHAT: cultural interpretation [was Re: THEORY: language and the brain]

Quoting "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>:

> On Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 11:14:04AM -0700, Stone Gordonssen wrote:
> > From my personal experience: because far too many Americans believe that
> > the USA is the only truly free and democratic nation in the world.
>
> Yeah!  First and still the best, baybee!  U-S-A!  U-S-A!  U-S-A!
>
> Ahem.  Sorry, got a bit carried away. :)
>
> But seriously, you must admit that the US is at least the prototype of the
> "free" state, with all that entails - some combination of "gold standard"
> and "beta release".  We're still working out the bugs, and freedomwise
> we unfortunately seem to be tending in the direction of less freedom
> in the interest of (the illusion of) more safety, Ben Franklin be damned,
> but we still, by and large, have more liberties than most people
> elsewhere in the world.  For instance, compare the Scandinavian practice
> of requiring that babies be given first names chosen from a church-approved
> list with the U.S.'s mandatory separation of church and state and complete
> governmental apathy toward what and how people are named.
Not that it matters alot, but at least Sweden does not have a such practice.
Allowing a church control over something like that would be quite alien to
Swedish political culture. That said, secular authorities can and do stop
parents from giving names that they can argue would be demetrial to the
child's social life - a while ago they stop a couple naming their
daughter 'Tequila'.

Spain under Franco had a law similar to what you describe, IIRC.

                                                      Andreas

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