Unsolicited, probably unwanted critique: Assuming you want to affect a change in perspective among US citizens who don't already agree with your comment (which

Unsolicited, probably unwanted critique: Assuming you want to affect a change in perspective among US citizens who don't already agree with your comment (which I really hope you do, needed now more than ever etc) maybe leave out the trite, cheeky "land of the free is actually X" slight in the first paragraph (however grating it is ) and consider changing the tone in the second ("the thing is..." never leads to someone changing their mind). It encompasses the archetypal Western European opinion on American "X" to the T, and is more easily dismissed as Internet comments often are. Reminiscent of Americans commenting on German matters in a stereotypical way, it sometimes just goes straight into the mind trash. Very unsolicited I'm sorry, but since there are loads of American techies here and Germany has a good image among them, your perspective can have more power than you think and it really is needed these days.