The US is also unusual in the enormous scale of religious fundamentalism. The impact on understanding of the world is extraordinary. In national polls almost half of those surveyed have reported that they believe that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago (or less) and that man shares no common ancestor with the ape. There are similar beliefs about the Second Coming.

The rise of what's called Islamic fundamentalism is to a significant extent a result of the collapse of secular nationalist alternatives which were either discredited internally or destroyed, leaving few other options. Something like that may be true of American society.

U.S. has no feudal background, so institutions that remained in place in Europe did not remain in place here.

When something isn't constantly drummed-up by the media, [people] just don't know about it.

Technology provides means for expression and interchange and so on, so yes it should be free and open, but there are a lot of constraints on how its used.

All media depend on advertisement to survive.

There are two parties, so-called, but they're really factions of the same party, the Business Party.