"Cub Driver" a écrit dans le message de
...

Aren't freedom of speech and democracy the very concepts your country was
built upon?

Many Americans don't understand the concept of free speech, so I'm not
surprised that the concept should elude a Frenchman.

Freedom of speech is not a concept known and practiced only by Americans.
Don't be so self-centered.

The U.S. Constitution imposes upon me the duty to give another man the
freedom to speak his mind. It does not, however, impose upon me a
duty to listen.

Last time I checked, the US constitution had not been adopted yet as the new
UN chart, not even as the new Usenet one. Anyway, I get your point and
you're right, but the other poster seemed to raise conditions to that
freedom to speak, a sort of "you want to talk? Then you have to got a GDP or
a gun at least as big as mine"... Have we learn nothing from the previous
century?

As for democracy--ayuh! That's what Americans for more than a hundred
years have bled for, bringing democracy to Cuba, France, Iraq, and
other unfortunate places. But loving democracy does not oblige us to
treat M. Chirac with respect. Quite the contrary, in fact. The
American brand of democracy has always had a strong vein of
irreverance built into it.

Irreverance and objective criticism are fine. You can say whatever you want
about Chirac's policy or even the man himself, I don't care. He's a public
man, a politician, and therefore is exposed to that kind of treatment as it
goes with the job. What I can't stand is the concept of bashing an entire
country and its population with specious and tasteless arguments just
because you don't agree (or not even understand) its position.


ArVa