The people of the United Kingdom and the countries of the European Union manifestly do not have greater free speech rights than Americans. It’s not even close.

Europeans argue otherwise by pointing to findings such as those from the World Press Freedom Index. But dig a little deeper, and you will see that the methodology of this index and others like it relies solely on journalists to assess the sense of freedom. That includes the freedom to report and from government intimidation/social media unpleasantness. It thus grants greatly excessive weight to American journalists’ penchant for self-importance. Too many journalists also revel in presenting President Donald Trump‘s taunts as mortal threats instead of as admittedly unseemly, unpresidential attempts to bully the media. Still, measured by law and action, it is patently obvious that the United States has freer speech than that of European states.