All very jingoistic and chest-thumping, as expected. However...

*Freedom to* self actualise requires *freedom from* burden.

If that burden comes from how others choose to exercise their freedom and you have no recourse because (as with Trump) they choose not to recognise norms of behaviour or even agreed-upon facts, you end up back with bloodied noses and bruised fists.

The proof of this is in America itself:

American exceptionalism is in their being first (or near the top) in all of the hallmarks of a failed society: citizen imprisonment, personal debt, generational poverty, anti-depressant usage (both prescribed and illegal), the list really does go on and on. America is also nowhere near where it wants (and often claims) to be in indicators of an exceptional society: health, education, happiness.

American exceptionalism is a thought-terminating cliché.

So, tell me how you square the circle(jerk) of being *free to* when, as I said "*Freedom to* self actualise requires *freedom from* [the] burden [of other people's freedom]."