[hodgesrm]

> Oh? How successful do you think the US constitutional mechanism has really been in protecting free speech? And by "free speech" here, I mean exactly the broader sense, not constrained by a narrow constitutionalist view.

Overall quite successful, especially measured by longevity. It has not always been pretty. Politics in the US is a blood sport--sometimes quite literally. And the right to free speech has not been evenly distributed. But there aren't a lot of nations that have offered the level of protection from government suppression offered by the US since the late 1700s. Many of the nations you cite have not enjoyed these freedoms for very long. Nations like Japan and many in Europe also developed their current rights regime under the protection of the US during the post-war period. It's premature to conclude they have done better.

> That notwithstanding, my question to you is this: scanning down that list of countries, does it perhaps occur to you that the US may have something to learn from us, rather than the other way round?

Of course. Just as one example I'm impressed that many European nations do a better job of balancing free speech vs. harms than the US does. For example Germany does not permit Nazi speech, which seems reasonable. They also did a vastly better job of maintaining a civil dialogue about COVID at least early on. [0]

I'm not in any way arguing the US is perfect. You would have to be pretty blind to do that.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2020/03/31/823865329/das-coronavirus-pod...