As we write this introduction, in early 2011, our home countries, Hungary and theUnited States, are both preoccupied (convulsed would be too strong a term) withconcerns over appropriate limits on public discourse. On January 8, 2011,several people were killed and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords severely woundedby a gunman who opened fire on a crowd in Tucson, Arizona. That state has beenriven by debates over immigration policy, gun control, abortion, and otherdivisive issues that have been at least sharp and often hostile and abusive. Theshooting produced a great deal of soul-searching and hand-wringing over whetherthe corrosive terms and rhetoric of the political debate had produced suchviolence. There were many calls to tone down the rhetoric. At a memorialservice, President Obama urged: “[A]t a time when our discourse hasbecome so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay theblame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to thinkdifferently than we do, it's important for us to pause for a moment and makesure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way thatwounds.” Yet it is not at all clear that the rhetoric, abhorrent as itoften is, in fact produced this particular act of violence, and the rhetoricitself grows out of deeply held beliefs and is very well received by those whoview the world the same way, so fundamental change seems unlikely.