The less secure an entity is, the less it's able to tolerate differing views. The US is reasonably secure internally, I'm not in jail. It's less secure on the world scene. Powerful, big, but still insecure. My impression is that we don't understand why everyone isn't just like us, and assume everyone wants to be, and get puzzled and angry when out issues aren't adopted as priorities by other nationalities.

I have a friend whose life has been spent studying large organizations. Was a sociology professor in the US for 20 years, has lived in Europe for over 10.

He thinks the US, as Tom said, has stressed individual freedoms.

He thinks Europe he believes the governments are more structured for the society to get along. He believes that's because the Europeans have had to live closer and on less land for longer than the US.

His thought is that as the US gets more crowded, an underclass grows, and the attendant violence increases, personal freedoms will become more restrictive, too, in a manner similar to Europe. Even without the underclass it would necessarily get more crowded, with problems which are resolved in favor of people getting along rather than everyone being completely free to do what they want.

If you consider it, that's the way it is about everywhere. If you live in a family, you give up freedoms you might have as an individual.

Arf