Cliff – I’m afraid it’s not that Americans don’t value free speech it’s that people like your Pakistani General friend don’t understand it. The idea that a Pakistani official should be in the position of lecturing Americans about our commitment to free speech strikes me as absurd on its face. But beyond that, I find it absolutely bizarre how so many people — in America and abroad — find it so hard to understand that freedom of speech is not a universal writ to say whatever you want without any consequences. The First Amendment prevents the government from (unreasonably) restricting my speech, it does not restrict National Review from restricting it. There are all sorts of things I could say that might get me fired from NR (only a tiny fraction of them are things I actually believe!) and if NR fired me, my free speech rights would not have been violated one bit. Likewise, Hearst is not the federal government.

If Helen Thomas had been fired for disparaging Muslims, I suspect the Pakistani General would not be lecturing you about America’s weak commitment to free speech.