| About 20 years ago, I knew a French couple visiting the States, staying with a friend, the wife having majored in English in college, and being quite articulate. I volunteered to guide them around Washington one day. The wife went on and on about how much freer the atmosphere was in America. At first, I chalked it off to being on vacation. But one of the places I took them was the Mazza Galleria, and upscale mall on the border with Bethesda. We ran into a women who had come from France a number of years before, as an immigrant, and who was now running a boutique in the mall, and she agreed that the United States was incomparably free. What struck me is that they were not exactly coming from a police state, but noticed the greater social mobility and ease with which people comported themselves, the sense of opportunity and even opulence, the air of confidence and expansiveness of expression........ |
