Interesting. I was viewing the US’ record on this front as a rather favorable one. Now we do have this problem with cancel culture, but that is a bottom up phenomenon that operates without government force. And, from these passages of Alexis De Tocqueville‘s Democracy in America in 1840, I can only gather that we’ve been at the canceling business a long time: “I know no country where in general there reigns less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion than in America.” “In America, the majority draws a formidable circle around thought. Within these limits, the writer is free, but woe to him if he dares to go beyond them. It isn’t as if he has to fear an Auto-da-fe, but he is exposed to all types of distasteful things and to everyday personal persecutions.”
