Re: CHAT: cultural interpretation [was Re: THEORY: language and the brain]
| From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, July 3, 2003, 18:59 |
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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.
On the other hand, we can't show nipples on public TV over here. Go
figure. :)
-Mark
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