That is a great quote---rather scary, actually.

BTW, how did the week on MSN Spaces impact your hit count?  I went from a few thousand to more than 10,000 in a week.

He makes one very serious error in his comments.  He disregards the "pendulum swing" nature of the United States.  I has been, is now, and always will be such with our country.  De Tocqueville attempts to say that free speech is not free because of the constraints established by the majority.  But he ignores that the marjority can change in a very short period of time.  At the will of the people.

 

There is a lot of discussion about the supposed trampling of our rights under the Bush administration.  Yet if you remove the Bush administration and put in a different leader, rights will still be trampled.  Just different rights.  The only change will be who is upset at the supposed loss of liberty.  Some people tout religious freedom and the ability to pray wherever you want.  Others, who voice loud and strenuous objection to that practice have no concern about allowing pornography to be accessed from just about anywhere, including public libraries where children can view it.  Groups who are fine with restrictions on pornography scream bloody murder when music or video games are restricted.

 

The neatest thing about the United States is that any administration or Congress who ignores the voice of the people and infringes too far into the people's freedoms will not long remain in the majority.  The barriers they erected will quickly fall.  And the new majority will start to build new barriers, and the cycle begins again.

 

As for the first comment, why do you suppose that the United States has long been one of the wealthiest nations in the world, and has long been one of the most powerful economic forces in the world?  Does the capitalist mentality ingrained in its culture have anything to do with it?