Anti-American exceptionalism: If America is alone, is it therefore in the wrong?

There are many policies in the United States that are radically different from those in other countries. For instance — and for the moment — when we talk about freedom of speech, we really mean freedom of speech, at least until Harry Reid and the Democrats get around to repealing the First Amendment. Canada and the United Kingdom talk a pretty good game about freedom of speech, but, as Charles C. W. Cooke and others have reported here, theirs is a hollow commitment. If you are a Canadian churchman whose sermon hurts the wrong set of privileged feelings, you can go to jail. Certain political ideas are officially verboten in Germany.

So the United States is practically alone in the world in not suppressing unpopular political views and religious ideas. Should we change that, and become more like Venezuela or Singapore? Ms. Longoria might consider that the United States really is practically the only nation in the civilized world that would accept tens of millions of illegal immigrants with the level of docility on display for the past several decades. Perhaps she’d prefer a more German response?