Aging Well 2013 Americans Are Living Longer, And Aging Well Is A Challenge: Fill & Download for Free

1. Google's founders were willing to sell to Excite for under $1 million in 1999—but Excite turned them down.2. There was a third Apple founder. Ronald Wayne (pictured at home in 2010) sold his 10% stake for $800 in 1976.3. Nutella was invented during WWII, when an Italian pastry maker mixed hazelnuts into chocolate to extend his chocolate ration.4. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima for work when the first A-bomb hit, made it home to Nagasaki for the second, and lived to be 93.5. You can't see as many colors as a chicken. You'll also never see all the beautiful colors of a rainbow (They actually have over a million colors!)6. The weight of the ants on earth is just about the weight of humans on earth (At least used to be, around 100–200 years ago)7. On an average, someone in the United States is killed every 45 minutes by a drunk driver.8. Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts and worms like fried bacon (Yuck!!!)9. A person will create enough saliva to fill out two swimming pools during his/her lifetime.10. People say 'bless you' when you sneeze because this used to be one of the first symptoms of the bubonic plague, so Pope Gregory I suggested saying 'bless you' when someone sneezes in the hopes that the prayer would protect them from an otherwise certain death.11. A portion of water that you drink has already been drunk by someone, maybe several times over! (Ew!)12. Marie Currie's notebooks are still radioactive, researchers who want to view them must sign a disclaimer.13. Arnold Schwarzenegger was paid approximately $21,429 for every one of the 700 words he said in 'Terminator 2:The Judgement Day'.14. For Dr. Strangelove, Peter Sellers was paid $1 million, 55 percent of the film’s budget.15. The average person spends 6 months of their lifetime waiting on a red light to turn green.16. There are more lifeforms living on your skin than there are people on the planet.17. A single cloud can weight more than 1 million pounds.18. Bolts of lightning can shoot out of an erupting volcano.19. A sneeze travels about 100 miles per hour.20. Chewing gum while you cut an onion will help keep you from crying.21. Blueberries will not ripen until they are picked.22. About 150 people per year are killed by coconuts.23. About half of all Americans are on a diet on any given day.24. Chewing gum burns about 11 calories per hour.25. Prisoners in Canadian war camps during WWII were treated so well, that a lot of them didn’t’ want to leave when the war was over.26. In New York it is illegal to sell a haunted house without telling the buyer.27. Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.28. A waterfall in Hawaii goes up sometimes instead of down.29. A Church in the Czech Republic has a chandelier made entirely of human bones.30. The male ostrich can roar just like a lion.31. Mountain lions can whistle.32. In the last 3,000 years, there have only been 240 years of peace in the world.33. In ancient Egypt, servants were covered in honey so as to attract flies away from pharaoh.34. The average amount of time a woman can keep a secret is 47 hours and 15 minutes. (No offence meant.)35. In 86AD the Colosseum was filled with water to stage a full naval battle.36. Slovakia and Slovenia are mistaken to be each other so often that they meet once a month to exchange wrongly addressed mails.37. The stripes on each tiger are unique, like human fingerprints.38. Within three days of death, the enzymes that once digested your dinner begin to eat you.39. Bananas are slightly radioactive.40. An experiment in 1998 found that a bright light shone on the backs of human knees can reset the brain's sleep-wake clock.41. There's high-speed Internet on the way up to Mount Everest.42. On Mars, sunsets are blue.43. The Japanese who survived the Titanic crash was called a coward in his country for not dying with the other passengers.44. Scientists can turn peanut butter into diamonds.45. Mice and Human DNA are 97.5% similar.46. There's a hotel in Bolivia made almost entirely of salt, complete with salt beds and chairs.47. In Belarus, it is illegal to applaud in public.48. NASA scientists have discovered stars that are cool enough to touch.49. A kangaroo can't jump unless its tail is touching the ground.50. A chinese man sued his wife for beingtoo ugly...and the Court agreed awarding him US $115,000.51. Only female mosquitoes drink blood.Males are vegetarians.52. In the Bible, God sent two bears to murder 42 children because they had mocked a man for being bald.53. Only about 15% of the Sahara Desert is covered in sand.54. "Tinku" is a festival in Bolivia where people beat each other for 2 or 3 days straight.55. Egyptian Pyramid workers were paid with beer: 1 gallon (4L) per day.56. A man named Robert Lane namedhis two sons "Winner" and "Loser"....Winner grew up to be a criminal,and Loser became a detective.57. It's illegal to lie down and fall asleep with your shoes on in North Dakota.58. Samoa is 24 hours ahead of American Samoa, even though they are just 70 km (43 mi) apart.59. Iran arrested 14 squirrels for spying in 2007.60. Two actors have died playing Judas in live Biblical productions by accidentally hanging themselves for real during his death scene.61. When Louis Pasteur was working on the rabies vaccine, if he or his assistants got infected, they were to be shot in the head.62. In 2009, Nigerian Police arrested a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery.63. Charles Darwin ate every animal he discovered.64. Alexander the Great,Napoleon, Mussolini and Hitler, all suffered from ailurophobia, the fear of cats.65. In 2011, a monkey was arrested in Pakistan for crossing the border with India.66. Dreams get weirder as the night wears only.67. In Ancient Rome, the punishment for killing one's father was the death penalty, consisting of being sewn up in a sack along with a viper, a dog, and a cock.68. A cat has been the mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska for 15 years.69. Holding a vibrator against a person's throat relaxes the vocal muscles, there by improving their voice quality.70. Gold is edible.71. During the 18th century, you could pay your admission ticket to the zoo in London by bringing a cat or a dog to feed the lions.72. In older versions of Little Red Riding Hood, the girl and the wolf eat grandma together.73. The Mimic Octopus can impersonate up to15 marine species, including Sea Snakes, Stingrays, Lionfishes, and Jellyfishes.74. Animals avoid power lines because they see frightening ultraviolet flashes that are invisible to humans.75. Before trees were common, the Earth was covered with giant mushrooms.76. Red Wine Kills Cancer Cells.77. Goats have rectangular pupils.78. Baby Chicks are smarter than Baby Humans .79. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you might rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.80. There's a Spa in Jakarta using pythons to massage clients.81. Before the mid-19th century,dentures were commonly made with teeth pulled from the mouths of dead soldiers.82.Lake Hillier in Australia is a bright pink color and scientists aren't sure why.83. Albert Einstein's eyes remain in a safe box in NYC.84. A porcupine can fight off a pride of lions.85. Dynamite is made with peanuts.86. Every piece of plastic ever made still exists.87. Women can fly airplanes in Saudi Arabia, but can't drive cars.88. The common basilisk is also known as the"Jesus Christ Lizard" for its ability to run on the surface of water.89. In Ohio, it is against state law to get a fish drunk.90. Being annoying was against the law in Grand Rapids, Michigan, until 2014.91. 37% of Americans think global warming is a hoax.92. Scientists want to introduce global warming on Mars to make life habitable for colonization.93. Despite Global Warming, we're still technically in an Ice Age.94. At least 1 in 25 people sentenced to the death penalty in the U.S. are innocent.95. Iran sentences its citizens to the death penalty if they decide to change their religion from Islam.96. Possessing Bibles and watching South Korean movies may be punished with death in North Korea.97. If you have a pizza with radius Z and thickness A, its volume is =Pi*Z*Z*A98. Ancient Babylonians did math in base 60 instead of base 10. That's why we have 60 seconds in a minute and 360 degrees in a circle.99. 123 - 45 - 67 + 89 = 100.123 + 4 - 5 + 67 - 89 = 100.123 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 + 8 - 9 = 100.1 + 23 - 4 + 5 + 6 + 78 - 9 = 100.100. There are 177,147 ways to tie a tie, according to mathematicians.101. Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica contained a simple calculation error that went unnoticed for 300 years.102. Mathematician Paul Erdos could calculate in his head, given a person's age, how many seconds they had lived, when he was just 4 years old.103. Newton invented/discovered calculus in about the same amount of time the average student learns it.104. If you announce your goals to others, you are less likely to make them happen because you lose motivation, studies confirmed.105. Phobias may be memories passed down through generations in DNA, according to a new research.106. Einstein's great breakthroughs came from visual experiments performed in his head rather than the lab.107. Einstein was famousfor having a bad memory. He could not remember names, dates and phone numbers.108. Scientists finally concluded thatthe chicken came first, not the egg, because the protein which makes egg shells is produced by hens.Note: Technically speaking, the egg came first. Eggs were around since much before chickens, this is directed specifically at chicken eggs.109. A 10-Year-Old Accidentally Created in 2012 a New Molecule in Science Class: Tetranitratoxycarbon.110. Four Japanese scientists measured the amount of friction between a shoe, a banana skin and the floor: it's 0.07.111. Earthquakes turn water into gold.Edit: A little clarification on this since it’s a bit misleading by itself: When an earthquake strikes, it moves along a rupture in the ground — a fracture called a fault. During an earthquake, the fault jog suddenly opens wider. It's like pulling the lid off a pressure cooker: The water inside the void instantly vaporizes, flashing to steam and forcing silica, which forms the mineral quartz, and gold out of the fluids and onto nearby surfaces.Unfortunately it’s not as miraculous as the one sentence seems to claim, but interesting nevertheless.112. A bolt of lightning is 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun.113. Rain contains vitamin B12.114. During photosynthesis, plants emit light, called fluorescence, that humans can't see.115. If you could fold a piece of paper 50 times, it's thickness would exceed the distance from here to the Sun.116. The Big Bang Theory was actually first theorized by a Catholic priest.117. Ice melting in Antarctica has caused a small shift in gravity in the region.118. Bees can be trained to detect bombs.119. The earth's deepest known point equals to 24.5 Empire State Buildings end to end.120. Humans share 50% of their DNA with bananas.121. 100,000,000,000 solar neutrinos pass through every square centimeter of your body every second.122. If uncoiled, the DNA in all the cells in your body would stretch 10 billion miles, from here to Pluto and back.123. Due to the new discovery of many brain parasites, scientist now think a Zombie Apocalypse is actually possible.124. The "Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge" is offered to anyone who can demonstrate a supernatural ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. In 40 years, no one ever won.125. In 2013, two physicist managed to "tie" water into knots.126. The WW1 ended at 11 o'clock in the morning of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918.127. After World War I, there were so few men in Germany that only 1 in 3 women would find a husband.128. During First World War, a British soldier spared the life of a wounded German: Adolf Hitler.129. During WW1, the King of England, the Tsar of Russia, and the Emperor of Germany were all first cousins.130. WW1 allied soldiers would fire thousands of rounds at random over the German trenches to boil the water in their machine guns to make tea.131. In 1962, the U.S. blew up a hydrogen bomb in space that was 100 times more powerful than Hiroshima.132. During the Cold War, the U.S. seriously considered dropping an atomic bomb on the Moon to show off its military superiority.133. The atomic bomb explosion at Hiroshima was generated by matter weighing no more than a paper clip.134. Russia has over 8400 nuclear weapons, more than any other country.135. Laughing 100 times is equivalent to 15 minutes of exercise on a stationary bicycle.136. On average, people who complain live longer. Releasing the tension increases immunity and boosts their health.137. Bill Gates' Foundation spends more on global health each year than the World Health Organization of the United Nations.Sources - : 20 Mind Blowing Facts You Probably Didn't Know82 mind-blowing movies facts you probably didn't know100 Cool and Weird Fun Facts that you should know!28 Weird Facts That Almost Nobody Knows… #18 Blows EVERYONE Away.Unbelievable Facts83 Facts about Unbelievable Things ←FACTSlides→Hope this helps.Some of the facts may be slightly misleading (pretty sure not more than 2 or 3), I tried to correct every wrong one but in case I missed a few please let me know in the comments. I’ll verify it and update if the need arises.

Q. Are Korean-Americans generally wealthy?A. Koreans are the poorest Asians in America.The shocking truth about Korean-American wealthThe staggering difference between rich Asian Americans and poor Asian Americans (Washingtonpost.com)Korean Americans (Pew Research)The Rise of Asian AmericansTHE SHOCKING TRUTH ABOUT KOREAN-AMERICAN WEALTH (riseoftheasianmale.wordpress.com)If someone asked you who the most “successful” Asians in America are, which ethnic groups would you name?Chances are, Korean-Americans are somewhere near the top of your list.Your perception may have been based on statistics of wealth in Asia, where South Korean GDP per capita ($35,277) measures just behind Japan ($37,390) and far ahead of China ($15,424), the Philippines ($7,696), and Vietnam ($6,422).But the demographics of Asian-Americans are completely different than that of Asians in Asia.There are major disparities in wealth accumulation across various racial and ethnic groups in Los Angeles, which serves as a pretty good sample selection since it has the highest concentration of Asians in America.Let’s start with annual salary, or median family income.Median Korean-American household annual income is significantly lower than that of Filipino-American households ($60k vs $80k). And despite a much higher percentage of Korean Americans having obtained a Bachelor’s degree compared to Vietnamese Americans (57.1% vs. 36.5%), Korean-American median annual income is only $10k higher. Notice it is also only $6,500 higher than US black families.When measuring real money, you’re looking at wealth, defined by net worth across all assets including checking and savings accounts, stocks and mutual funds, retirement accounts, businesses, and equity in home values, all while factoring debt, NOT income.Out of the six largest ethnic Asian groups in the Los Angeles MSA, (in order by population: Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese, Japanese and Indians), Koreans have the lowest net worth by an enormous margin behind Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Indian families, and it’s lower than that of US black households.Chinese, Japanese and Filipinos have a much longer history of having an established presence in the US, which might explain why they have significantly higher median net asset values, due to a more robust support network and potential inter-generational transfers of wealth, compared to Koreans and Vietnamese, who have only established themselves in the US in large numbers relatively recently.However, Vietnamese are still ahead of Koreans in America in net worth. If you are familiar with the history of Asian immigration to the US, the fact that Korean-American net worth is lower than Vietnamese-American net worth is even more shocking. Whereas other immigrants who came after the 1965 Immigration Act were still largely screened for education and work skills, waves of Vietnamese immigrants came to America through the passing of the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act in 1975 and the Refugee Act of 1980, and many poor, uneducated and unskilled Vietnamese immigrants came to the US.Despite this fact, Vietnamese still possess higher total net worth than Koreans.In other words, there is no excuse for Koreans to be the poorest Asians in America.Grace ParkKorean AmericansHistoryEarly Korean immigrants mostly began their journey to the U.S. in Hawaii. Between 1903 and 1905, more than 7,000 Koreans were recruited for plantation labor work there. Korean immigrants, about 40% of whom were Christians, built many churches in Hawaii.Korean immigration to the mainland U.S. was sparse through World War II. The arrivals included about a thousand workers who came from Hawaii, about a hundred Korean mail-order “picture brides” and perhaps 900 students, many of whom fled because of their opposition to the Japanese annexation of their nation in 1910.A relatively small number of Koreans arrived in the U.S. in mid-century as brides of service members in the Korean War, orphans adopted by U.S. couples, or professionals and students.The majority of the present Korean population in the U.S. came after the 1965 immigration act was implemented. Educational attainment increased in Korea in the 1960s and 1970s, but few job opportunities for skilled workers were available. Skilled professionals moved to U.S. and many other countries. Some immigrants founded small businesses; Koreans have the highest self-employment rate among U.S. Asian groups.In 2010, an estimated 1.26 million adult Koreans Americans were in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Koreans are the fifth-largest group among Asian Americans and represent about 10% of the adult Asian population in the U.S.Daniel KimCharacteristics (2010 ACS)Nativity and citizenship. Nearly eight-in-ten (79%) adult Korean Americans in the United States are foreign born, compared with 74% of adult Asian Americans and 16% of adults in the U.S. A majority of Korean adults are U.S. citizens (67%), lower than the share among overall adult Asian population (70%) and the national share (91%).Language. Slightly more than half of Korean Americans (54%) speak English proficiently,43 compared with 63% of all Asian Americans and 90% of the U.S. population overall.Age. The median age of adult Korean Americans is 40, similar to that of all adult Asian Americans (41) and lower than the national median (45).Marital status. More than half of adult Korean Americans (56%) are married, a share slightly lower than for all Asian Americans (59%) but higher than the national share (51%).Fertility. The share of Korean-American women ages 18 to 44 who gave birth in the 12 months before the 2010 American Community Survey was 5.2%, lower than the comparable share among Asian-American women overall (6.8%) and the national share (7.1%). About 9% of Korean-American women who gave birth in the previous 12 months were unmarried, a share lower than for all comparable Asian-American women (15%) and all comparable U.S. women (37%).Educational attainment. Among Korean Americans ages 25 and older, more than half (53%) have obtained at least a bachelor’s degree; this is higher than the Asian-American share (49%) as well as the national share (28%).Income. Median annual personal earnings for Korean-American full-time, year-round workers are $45,000, lower than for all Asian Americans ($48,000) but higher than for all U.S. adults ($40,000). Among households, the median annual income for Koreans is $50,000, lower than for all Asians ($66,000) but slightly higher than for the U.S. population ($49,800).Homeownership. Close to half of Korean Americans (48%) own a home, compared with 58% of all Asian Americans and 65% of the U.S. population overall.Poverty status. The share of adult Korean Americans who live in poverty is 15%, higher than the shares of all Asian Americans (12%) and of the U.S. population overall (13%).Regional dispersion. More than four-in-ten (45%) adult Korean Americans live in the West, compared with 47% of Asian Americans and 23% of the U.S. population overall.AttitudesHere are a few key findings from the 2012 Asian-American survey about Korean Americans compared with other major U.S. Asian groups:Across U.S. Asian groups, Korean Americans seem to be more strongly connected to their intra-ethnic communities. They are the most likely to say that all or most of their friends share the same ethnic heritage (58%).Compared with other U.S. Asian groups, Korean Americans are among the most likely to say that it is very important to them that future generations of Koreans living in the U.S. speak their ancestral language (62%).Korean Americans are more likely than U.S. Asians from other groups to say that parents from their country of origin put too much academic pressure on their children (60%); only 30% say Korean American parents put the right amount of pressure on their children; and 5% say they do not put enough pressure on children.Korean Americans stand out for their negative views on their group’s relations with blacks. Fully half say these two groups don’t get along well; while 39% say they get along pretty well and just 4% say they get along very well.The staggering difference between rich Asian Americans and poor Asian AmericansNot all Asian Americans have fancy kitchens and flawless families. (iStock)If you only looked at the most basic data, you might get the impression that Asian Americans are thriving. They earn more, on average, than white Americans, and they’re catching up in terms of average household wealth. These kinds of simple statistics are one reason that Asian Americans are still stereotyped as a “model minority.”But Asian Americans have tremendously divergent experiences. Some are upwardly mobile, but many others struggle with poverty. The differences are hard to see in the average numbers.A new report from the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, highlights the problem with lumping Asian Americans together. According to economists Christian Weller and Jeffrey Thompson, Asian Americans are such an economically diverse group that wealth inequality is actually worse among Asian Americans than among white Americans.The economists used hard-to-obtain government data to provide a clearer look at Asian American wealth. Census figures already show that income inequality is higher among Asian Americans. Indian American households, for example, earn nearly twice the national average, while Bangladeshi and Cambodian Americans have lower-than-average household incomes. Asian Americans earn more than whites on average, but they also have higher rates of poverty.The new report suggests that for Asian Americans, wealth inequality is also more pronounced.There are many ways to measure inequality — in this case, the economists compared different wealth thresholds. According to the data, white families in the top 10 percent each had more than $1.26 million in 2010-2013, while white families in the bottom 20 percent each had less than $10,468. In other words, a typical rich white family was about 120 times wealthier than a typical poor white family.Among Asian Americans, the cutoff to make it into the top 10 percent was actually higher — about $1.44 million. And the families at the bottom end seemed to be worse off — the poorest 20 percent of families were each worth less than $9,319. So a rich Asian household was about 168 times richer than a poor Asian household.Such disparities are completely invisible according to the usual way we consider racial differences, which focuses on averages, not levels of inequality. Asian American households and white American households in fact have about the same amount of mean wealth — about $680,000, according to CAP’s calculations. That creates the illusion that Asians are about as well off as whites. But as the report suggests, the richest Asian Americans are far more affluent than the poorest Asian Americans — so much so that they skew the data and obscure the problems of the people at the bottom.“The communities that we know aren’t doing so well — people from countries like Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia — they make up close to 40 [percent] to 45 percent of the Asian American population,” said Weller, a professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and a senior fellow at CAP. “By only looking at averages, you’re papering over the substantial struggles of a huge chunk of lower-income, less wealthy Asian Americans.”“The problem is that ‘Asian American’ doesn’t hold together as a category,” said Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland. “The group is too diverse. It doesn’t really make sense to compare recent Chinese, Korean or Pakistani immigrants who are working in tech and engineering jobs to people who came as refugees in the 1980s and their working-class descendants.”It’s hard to collect data on Asian Americans because they are still only about 5 percent to 6 percent of the population, so some parts of the CAP report should be taken with caution. The conclusions are based on national surveys conducted every three years by the Federal Reserve, each covering several thousand Americans, including a few hundred Asian Americans. The economists say that the recent differences in wealth inequality are large enough to be statistically significant at the 10 percent level. So this is suggestive, but not slam-dunk evidence.The CAP report also contains some good news. In terms of mean wealth, Asian Americans seem to have more or less closed the gap with white Americans, largely because the richest Asians have become richer. In terms of median wealth, Asian Americans may have even surpassed white Americans in the years between 2001 and 2007. (These trends square with similar data from the Census Bureau, which has a much larger, but in some ways perhaps less accurate, survey on American wealth.)Source: Center for American Progress calculations using FRB Survey of Consumer FinancesThe housing boom and bust explains a lot of the patterns in inequality. Homes tend to be the most expensive asset a family owns, and although the Asian American homeownership rate (about 60 percent) is lower than the white homeownership rate (about 74 percent), Asian Americans also tend to live in coastal metropolises where homes are expensive. In the early 2000s, the Asian Americans who were fortunate enough to own homes had their net worth skyrocket, increasing wealth inequality between Asian American homeowners and Asian American renters, as well as helping Asian Americans catch up to white Americans.Source: Center for American Progress calculations using FRB Survey of Consumer FinancesAnother reason that Asian American wealth has been creeping upward is that the Asian American population is getting older on average. In 2015, the median age for Asian Americans was 36.3, up from 32.7 in 2000. (Whites, in contrast, are the oldest on average — their median age in 2015 was 43.) People in their 50s and 60s, of course, tend to be the wealthiest because they’ve been saving for retirement.It’s important to keep all of these findings in perspective. Compared with whites and Asians, African Americans and Hispanics are much less wealthy, and they don’t seem to be making much progress. Data from the same survey shows that both groups have actually been losing ground relative to whites in recent years. Part of the problem is that these groups earn less on average. But they also seem to suffer from inferior opportunities.“It appears that the returns that African Americans and Hispanics get on similar assets are lower,” said Ray Boshara, director of the Center for Household Financial Stability at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “So buying a home or pursuing an education does not yield the same amount of wealth.”Taken in that light, the gains in wealth among Asian Americans seem all the more remarkable. As the CAP report shows, this is mostly a phenomenon of the richest Asians pulling away from the rest. Even so, hasn’t inequality been the story of the United States recently? In that sense, at least, Asian Americans really have been a model minority.Korean Americans(migrationpolicy.org)Jamie ChungKorean Americans - WikipediaThe Rise of Asian AmericansUpdated Edition, April 04, 2013: This new edition of our 2012 report on Asian Americans provides data on 14 smaller Asian origin groups with population counts below 500,000 in the 2010 Census, along with detailed data on the economic and demographic characteristics of adults in nine of these groups. Our original 2012 report contained survey and Census data on all Asian Americans as well as specific information on the six largest Asian origin groups.Asian Americans are the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the United States. They are more satisfied than the general public with their lives, finances and the direction of the country, and they place more value than other Americans do on marriage, parenthood, hard work and career success, according to a comprehensive new nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center.A century ago, most Asian Americans were low-skilled, low-wage laborers crowded into ethnic enclaves and targets of official discrimination. Today they are the most likely of any major racial or ethnic group in America to live in mixed neighborhoods and to marry across racial lines. When newly minted medical school graduate Priscilla Chan married Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg last month, she joined the 37% of all recent Asian-American brides who wed a non-Asian groom.These milestones of economic success and social assimilation have come to a group that is still majority immigrant. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of Asian-American adults were born abroad; of these, about half say they speak English very well and half say they don’t.Asians recently passed Hispanics as the largest group of new immigrants to the United States. The educational credentials of these recent arrivals are striking. More than six-in-ten (61%) adults ages 25 to 64 who have come from Asia in recent years have at least a bachelor’s degree. This is double the share among recent non-Asian arrivals, and almost surely makes the recent Asian arrivals the most highly educated cohort of immigrants in U.S. history.Compared with the educational attainment of the population in their country of origin, recent Asian immigrants also stand out as a select group. For example, about 27% of adults ages 25 to 64 in South Korea and 25% in Japan have a bachelor’s degree or more.In contrast, nearly 70% of comparably aged recent immigrants from these two countries have at least a bachelor’s degree.Recent Asian immigrants are also about three times as likely as recent immigrants from other parts of the world to receive their green cards—or permanent resident status—on the basis of employer rather than family sponsorship (though family reunification remains the most common legal gateway to the U.S. for Asian immigrants, as it is for all immigrants).The modern immigration wave from Asia is nearly a half century old and has pushed the total population of Asian Americans—foreign born and U.S born, adults and children—to a record 18.2 million in 2011, or 5.8% of the total U.S. population, up from less than 1% in 1965.By comparison, non-Hispanic whites are 197.5 million and 63.3%, Hispanics 52.0 million and 16.7% and non-Hispanic blacks 38.3 million and 12.3%.Asian Americans trace their roots to any of dozens of countries in the Far East, Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Each country of origin subgroup has its own unique history, culture, language, religious beliefs, economic and demographic traits, social and political values, and pathways into America.But despite often sizable subgroup differences, Asian Americans are distinctive as a whole, especially when compared with all U.S. adults, whom they exceed not just in the share with a college degree (49% vs. 28%), but also in median annual household income ($66,000 versus $49,800) and median household wealth ($83,500 vs. $68,529).They are noteworthy in other ways, too. According to the Pew Research Center survey of a nationally representative sample of 3,511 Asian Americans, conducted by telephone from Jan. 3 to March 27, 2012, in English and seven Asian languages, they are more satisfied than the general public with their lives overall (82% vs. 75%), their personal finances (51% vs. 35%) and the general direction of the country (43% vs. 21%).They also stand out for their strong emphasis on family. More than half (54%) say that having a successful marriage is one of the most important things in life; just 34% of all American adults agree. Two-thirds of Asian-American adults (67%) say that being a good parent is one of the most important things in life; just 50% of all adults agree.John ChoTheir living arrangements align with these values. They are more likely than all American adults to be married (59% vs. 51%); their newborns are less likely than all U.S. newborns to have an unmarried mother (16% vs. 41%); and their children are more likely than all U.S. children to be raised in a household with two married parents (80% vs. 63%).They are more likely than the general public to live in multi-generational family households. Some 28% live with at least two adult generations under the same roof, twice the share of whites and slightly more than the share of blacks and Hispanics who live in such households. U.S. Asians also have a strong sense of filial respect; about two-thirds say parents should have a lot or some influence in choosing one’s profession (66%) and spouse (61%).Asian Americans have a pervasive belief in the rewards of hard work. Nearly seven-in-ten (69%) say people can get ahead if they are willing to work hard, a view shared by a somewhat smaller share of the American public as a whole (58%). And fully 93% of Asian Americans describe members of their country of origin group as “very hardworking”; just 57% say the same about Americans as a whole.By their own lights, Asian Americans sometimes go overboard in stressing hard work. Nearly four-in-ten (39%) say that Asian-American parents from their country of origin subgroup put too much pressure on their children to do well in school. Just 9% say the same about all American parents. On the flip-side of the same coin, about six-in-ten Asian Americans say American parents put too little pressure on their children to succeed in school, while just 9% say the same about Asian-American parents. (The publication last year of “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” a comic memoir about strict parenting by Yale Law Professor Amy Chua, the daughter of immigrants, triggered a spirited debate about cultural differences in parenting norms.)The immigration wave from Asia has occurred at a time when the largest sending countries have experienced dramatic gains in their standards of living. But few Asian immigrants are looking over their shoulders with regret. Just 12% say that if they had to do it all over again, they would remain in their country of origin. And by lopsided margins, Asian Americans say the U.S. is preferable to their country of origin in such realms as providing economic opportunity, political and religious freedoms, and good conditions for raising children. Respondents rated their country of origin as being superior on just one of seven measures tested in the survey—strength of family ties.(The survey was conducted only among Asian Americans currently living in the U.S. As is the case with all immigration waves, a portion of those who came to the U.S. from Asia in recent decades have chosen to return to their country of origin. However, return migration rates are estimated to be lower for immigrants from Asia than for other immigrants, and naturalization rates—that is, the share of eligible immigrants who become U.S. citizens—are higher. For more details, see Chapter 1.)Asians in the U.S. and in AsiaWhen findings from this survey are compared with recent surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project among Asians in major Asian countries, a mixed picture emerges. For example, adults living in China are more satisfied with the way things are going in their country than Chinese Americans are with the way things are going in the United States. By contrast, the publics of India and Japan have a more downbeat view of the way things are going in their countries than their counterpart groups do about the U.S.Across the board, however, U.S. Asians are more likely than Asians in Asia to say their standard of living is better than that of their parents at a similar stage of life. U.S. Asians also exceed Asians in their belief that hard work leads to success in life. And while many U.S. Asians say that Asian-American parents place too much pressure on their children to do well in school, even more Chinese and Japanese say this about parents in their countries. (For more details on these and other cross-national comparisons, see Chapter 4.)Differences among Asian-American SubgroupsThe Pew Research Center survey was designed to contain a nationally representative sample of each of the six largest Asian-American groups by country of origin—Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Indian Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Korean Americans and Japanese Americans. Together these groups comprise at least 83% of the total Asian population in the U.S.The basic demographics of these groups are different on many measures. For example, Indian Americans lead all other groups by a significant margin in their levels of income and education. Seven-in-ten Indian-American adults ages 25 and older have a college degree, compared with about half of Americans of Korean, Chinese, Filipino and Japanese ancestry, and about a quarter of Vietnamese Americans.On the other side of the socio-economic ledger, Americans with Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese and “other U.S. Asian” origins have higher shares in poverty than does the U.S. general public, while those with Indian, Japanese and Filipino origins have lower shares.Their geographic settlement patterns also differ. More than seven-in-ten Japanese and two-thirds of Filipinos live in the West, compared with fewer than half of Chinese, Vietnamese and Koreans, and only about a quarter of Indians.The religious identities of Asian Americans are quite varied. According to the Pew Research survey, about half of Chinese are unaffiliated, most Filipinos are Catholic, about half of Indians are Hindu, most Koreans are Protestant and a plurality of Vietnamese are Buddhist. Among Japanese Americans, no one group is dominant: 38% are Christian, 32% are unaffiliated and 25% are Buddhist. In total, 26% of Asian Americans are unaffiliated, 22% are Protestant (13% evangelical; 9% mainline), 19% are Catholic, 14% are Buddhist, 10% are Hindu, 4% are Muslim and 1% are Sikh. Overall, 39% of Asian Americans say religion is very important in their lives, compared with 58% of the U.S. general public.There are subgroup differences in social and cultural realms as well. Japanese and Filipino Americans are the most accepting of interracial and intergroup marriage; Koreans, Vietnamese and Indians are less comfortable. Koreans are the most likely to say discrimination against their group is a major problem, and they are the least likely to say that their group gets along very well with other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. In contrast, Filipinos have the most upbeat view of intergroup relations in the U.S.The Japanese are the only group that is majority U.S. born (73% of the total population and 68% of adults); all other subgroups are majority foreign born.Their pathways into the U.S. are different. About half of all Korean and Indian immigrants who received green cards in 2011 got them on the basis of employer sponsorship, compared with about a third of Japanese, a fifth of Chinese, one-in-eight Filipinos and just 1% of Vietnamese. The Vietnamese are the only major subgroup to have come to the U.S. in large numbers as political refugees; the others say they have come mostly for economic, educational and family reasons.Asian Americans have varying degrees of attachment to relatives in their home countries—likely reflecting differences in the timing and circumstances of their immigration. For example, though they are among the least well-off financially, Vietnamese Americans are among the most likely (58%) to say they have sent money to someone in Vietnam in the past year. About half of Filipinos (52%) also say they sent remittances home in the past year. By contrast, Japanese (12%) and Koreans (16%) are much less likely to have done this.They have different naturalization rates. Fully three-quarters of the foreign-born Vietnamese are naturalized U.S. citizens, compared with two-thirds of Filipinos, about six-in-ten Chinese and Koreans, half of Indians and only a third of Japanese.Korean-Americans gain top U.S. Army, Coast Guard ranksBy Korea HeraldHistoryAsian immigrants first came to the U.S. in significant numbers more than a century and a half ago—mainly as low-skilled male laborers who mined, farmed and built the railroads. They endured generations of officially sanctioned racial prejudice—including regulations that prohibited the immigration of Asian women; the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred all new immigration from China; the Immigration Act of 1917 and the National Origins Act of 1924, which extended the immigration ban to include virtually all of Asia; and the forced relocation and internment of about 120,000 Japanese Americans after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.Large-scale immigration from Asia did not take off until the passage of the landmark Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. Over the decades, this modern wave of immigrants from Asia has increasingly become more skilled and educated. Today, recent arrivals from Asia are nearly twice as likely as those who came three decades ago to have a college degree, and many go into high-paying fields such as science, engineering, medicine and finance. This evolution has been spurred by changes in U.S. immigration policies and labor markets; by political liberalization and economic growth in the sending countries; and by the forces of globalization in an ever-more digitally interconnected world.These trends have raised the education levels of immigrants of all races in recent years, but Asian immigrants exceed other race and ethnic groups in the share who are either college students or college graduates.Native Born and Foreign BornThroughout the long history of immigration waves to the U.S., the typical pattern has been that over time the second generation (i.e., the children of immigrants) surpasses the immigrant generation in key measures of socio-economic well-being and assimilation, such as household income, educational attainment and English fluency.It is not yet possible to make any full intergenerational accounting of the modern Asian-American immigration wave; the immigrants themselves are still by far the dominant group and the second generation has only recently begun to come into adulthood in significant numbers. (Among all second-generation Asians, the median age is just 17; in other words, about half are still children.)But on the basis of the evidence so far, this immigrant generation has set a bar of success that will be a challenge for the next generation to surpass. As of now, there is no difference in the share of native- and foreign-born Asian Americans ages 25 and older who have a college degree (49% for each group), and there is only a modest difference in the median annual earnings of full-time workers in each group ($50,000 for the native born; $47,000 for the foreign born). The two groups also have similar shares in poverty and homeownership rates.Not surprisingly, when it comes to language fluency, there are significant differences between the native- and foreign-born adults. Only about half (53%) of the foreign born say they speak English very well, compared with 95% of the U.S. born. Family formation patterns are also quite different. The U.S. born are much less likely than the foreign born to be married (35% vs. 67%), a difference largely driven by the fact that they are a much younger group. (Among adults, the median age is 30, versus 44 for the foreign born.)There are also differences between the native born and foreign born in the share of recent mothers who are unmarried. About three-in-ten (31%) U.S.-born Asian women who had children recently are unmarried, compared with just 10% of all recent foreign-born Asian-American mothers. Among the U.S. population as a whole, about four-in-ten recent American mothers are unmarried. Even as births to single mothers have become more widespread in recent decades, Pew Research surveys find that a sizable majority of Americans believe this growing phenomenon has been bad for society. So in the eyes of the public, this appears to be a case of “downward assimilation” by second generation and later generations of Asian Americans to an increasingly prevalent—but still frowned upon—U.S. pattern of behavior.On a more positive note, U.S.-born Asians are more upbeat than the foreign born about their relations with other racial and ethnic groups, and they are more receptive to the growing practice of racial and ethnic intermarriage.Perceptions of DiscriminationFor the most part, today’s Asian Americans do not feel the sting of racial discrimination or the burden of culturally imposed “otherness” that was so much a part of the experience of their predecessors who came in the 19th and early 20th centuries.About one-in-five Asian Americans say they have personally been treated unfairly in the past year because they are Asian, and one-in-ten say they have been called an offensive name. Older adults are less likely than young and middle-aged adults to report negative personal experience with bias.Compared with the nation’s two largest minority groups—Hispanics and blacks—Asian Americans appear to be less inclined to view discrimination against their group as a major problem. Just 13% of Asian Americans say it is, while about half (48%) say it is a minor problem, and a third (35%) say it is not a problem.About six-in-ten say that being Asian American makes no difference when it comes to getting a job or gaining admission to college. Of those who do say it makes a difference, a slightly higher share say that members of their group are helped rather than hurt by their race. Those with less education are more prone than those with more education to say that being an Asian American is an advantage.Group RelationsOverall, more than eight-in-ten Asian Americans say their group gets along either very or pretty well with whites; roughly seven-in-ten say the same about relations with Hispanics and just over six-in-ten say that about their relations with blacks. Korean Americans stand out for their negative views on their group’s relations with blacks. Fully half say these two groups don’t get along well; while 39% say they get along pretty well and just 4% say they get along very well. In several cities across the country, there has been a history of tension between Koreans and blacks, often arising from friction between Korean shopkeepers and black customers in predominantly black neighborhoods.About four-in-ten Asian Americans say their circle of friends is dominated by Asians from the same country of origin, while 58% say it is not. Among U.S.-born Asians, however, just 17% say that all of most of their friends are from their same country of origin group.Asian-American newlyweds are more likely than any other major racial or ethnic group to be intermarried. From 2008 to 2010, 29% of all Asian newlyweds married someone of a different race, compared with 26% of Hispanics, 17% of blacks and 9% of whites. There are notable gender differences. Asian women are twice as likely as Asian men to marry out. Among blacks, the gender pattern runs the other way—men are more than twice as likely as women to marry out. Among whites and Hispanics, there are no differences by gender.Among Asian-American newlyweds, Japanese have the highest rate of intermarriage and Indians have the lowest. More than half of recent Japanese newlyweds married a non-Asian; among recent Indian newlyweds, just one-in-eight did.Asian Americans were once highly concentrated into residential enclaves, exemplified by the establishment of “Chinatowns” and other Asian communities in cities across the country. Today, however, Asian Americans are much more likely than any other racial group to live in a racially mixed neighborhood. Just 11% currently live in a census tract in which Asian Americans are a majority.The comparable figures are 41% for blacks, 43% for Hispanics and 90% for whites. (This comparison should be treated with caution: Each of the other groups is more numerous than Asians, thereby creating larger potential pools for racial enclaves.)IdentityDespite high levels of residential integration and out-marriage, many Asian Americans continue to feel a degree of cultural separation from other Americans. Not surprisingly, these feelings are highly correlated with nativity and duration of time in the U.S.Among U.S.-born Asian Americans, about two-thirds (65%) say they feel like “a typical American.” Among immigrants, just 30% say the same, and this figure falls to 22% among immigrants who have arrived since 2000.The Asian-American label itself doesn’t hold much sway with Asian Americans. Only about one-in-five (19%) say they most often describe themselves as Asian American or Asian. A majority (62%) say they most often describe themselves by their country of origin (e.g., Chinese or Chinese American; Vietnamese or Vietnamese American, and so on), while just 14% say they most often simply call themselves American. Among U.S.-born Asians, the share who most often call themselves American rises to 28%.In these identity preferences, Asian Americans are similar to Hispanics, the other group that has been driving the modern immigration wave. Hispanics are more likely to identify themselves using their country of origin than to identify as a Hispanic or as an American.Perceptions of SuccessAbout four-in-ten Asian Americans (43%) say Asian Americans are more successful than other racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. A similar share of Asian Americans (45%) say they are about as successful, and just 5% say they are less successful.Native-born and foreign-born Asian Americans have similar views about their groups’ success relative to other minorities. Recent immigrants, however, tend to be somewhat less upbeat in these assessments than are immigrants who came before 2000: 36% of the former versus 48% of the latter say their group has been more successful than other minority groups in the U.S.Members of the nation’s other large immigrant group—Hispanics—are less than half as likely as Asian Americans to say their group is more successful than other racial and ethnic minorities, and they are four times as likely to say they are less successful.On a personal level, Asian Americans are more satisfied than the general public with their financial situations and their standard of living. When measured against how well their parents were doing at the same stage of life, about half (49%) say they are doing much better, and a quarter say they are doing somewhat better. By contrast, only about a third of all Americans say they are doing much better than their parents at a similar stage of life.There are only minor differences between Asian Americans and the general public in their expectations about the upward mobility of their children. Some 31% of Asian Americans believe that when their children are the age they are now, their children will have a much better standard of living, 22% say somewhat better, 19% say about the same, and 19% say somewhat or much worse.On this measure, there are sizable differences among U.S. Asian subgroups. Nearly half of Vietnamese Americans (48%) say they expect their children eventually to have a much better standard of living than they themselves have now. About a third of Koreans and Indians feel this way, as do one-in-four Chinese and Filipinos, and just one-in-five Japanese. Overall, the foreign born are more optimistic than the native born about their children’s future standard of living relative to their own at the present.Political and Social AttitudesCompared with the general public, Asian Americans are more likely to support an activist government and less likely to identify as Republicans. Half are Democrats or lean Democratic, while only 28% identify with or lean toward the GOP. Among all American adults, 49% fall in the Democratic camp and 39% identify with or lean toward the Republican Party. Indian Americans are the most heavily Democratic Asian subgroup (65%), while Filipino Americans and Vietnamese Americans are the most evenly split between the two parties.President Obama gets higher ratings from Asian Americans than from the general public —54% approve of the way he is handling his job as president, compared with 44% of the general public. In 2008, Asian-American voters supported Obama over Republican John McCain by 62% to 35%, according to Election Day exit polls.On balance, Asian Americans prefer a big government that provides more services (55%) over a smaller government than provides fewer services (36%). In contrast, the general public prefers a smaller government over a bigger government, by 52% to 39%.While they differ on the role of government, Asian Americans are close to the public in their opinions about two key social issues. By a ratio of 53% to 35%, Asian Americans say homosexuality should be accepted by society rather than discouraged. And on the issue of abortion, 54% of Asian Americans say it should be legal in all or most cases, while 37% say it should be illegal.About the SurveyThe Pew Research Center’s 2012 Asian-American Survey is based on telephone interviews conducted by landline and cell phone with a nationally representative sample of 3,511 Asian adults ages 18 and older living in the United States. The survey was conducted in all 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii, and the District of Columbia. The survey was designed to include representative subsamples of the six largest Asian groups in the U.S. population: Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. The survey also included Asians from other Asian subgroups.Respondents who identified as “Asian or Asian American, such as Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese” were eligible to complete the survey interview, including those who identified with more than one race and regardless of Hispanic ethnicity. The question on racial identity also offered the following categories: white, black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.Classification into U.S. Asian groups is based on self-identification of respondent’s “specific Asian group.” Asian groups named in this open-ended question were “Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, or of some other Asian background.” Respondents self-identified with more than 22 specific Asian groups. Those who identified with more than one Asian group were classified based on the group with which “they identify most.” Respondents who identified their specific Asian group as Taiwanese or Chinese Taipei are classified as Chinese Americans for this report.The survey was conducted using a probability sample from multiple sources. The data are weighted to produce a final sample that is representative of Asian adults in the United States. Survey interviews were conducted under the direction of Abt SRBI, in English and Cantonese, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Tagalog and Vietnamese. For more details on the methodology, see Appendix 1.The survey was conducted Jan. 3-March 27, 2012 in all 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii, and the District of Columbia.3,511 interviews including 728 interviews with Chinese Americans, 504 interviews with Filipino Americans, 580 interviews with Indian Americans, 515 interviews with Japanese Americans, 504 interviews with Korean Americans, 504 interviews with Vietnamese Americans and 176 interviews with Asians of other backgrounds.Margin of error is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points for results based on the total sample at the 95% confidence level. Margins of error for results based on subgroups of Asian Americans, ranging from 3.1 to 7.8 percentage points, are included in Appendix 1.Notes on TerminologyUnless otherwise noted, survey results for “Asian Americans” and “U.S. Asians” refer to adults living in the United States, whether U.S. citizens or not U.S. citizens and regardless of immigration status. Both terms are used interchangeably. Adults refers to those ages 18 and older.U.S. Asian groups, subgroups, heritage groups and country of origin groups are used interchangeably to reference respondent’s self-classification into “specific Asian groups.” This self-identification may or may not match a respondent’s country of birth or their parent’s country of birth.Unless otherwise noted, whites include only non-Hispanic whites. Blacks include only non-Hispanic blacks. Hispanics are of any race. Asians can also be Hispanic.Poverty is calculated based on the total population. For this and other reasons, the share in poverty in this report is not comparable with the Census Bureau’s official poverty rate. (Note: The report was revised July 12, 2012 to change “poverty rate” to “% in poverty” or “share in poverty,” and to add a definition to Notes on Terminology.)Ken Jeong

Popular opinions do not need protection, the first amendment exists only to protect unpopular or marginalized opinions.Free speech is a complex topic with no easy answer. I think people get confused about some things so it is worth clarifying a couple of key points.The first amendment is misunderstood. If you go into your job tomorrow and call your boss a (insert horrible word) and he fires you, that was not an illegal firing. The first amendment is the law that protects free speech and it only says that congress shall not impede your freedom of speech. It stands as a protection from a government so that all viewpoints can be allowed to reach the public eye.While the first amendment is a law that protects speech I think the value of free speech is another thing altogether. As a society, we must value our ability to speak freely and express our ideals without fear.Freedom is speech does not mean freedom from consequences…. So then what does the “free” in freedom of speech mean? To me, free speech means being able to express yourself and your ideas without fear of severe consequences.Using AOCs logic North Koreans have free speech. A North Korean can say whatever they please- Kim Jung Un cannot control their minds after all. But there will be consequences for what they say.So if the cost of your speech is that you lose your job, lose your home, face death threats and harassment, and endure public humiliation, do you have free speech?I do not think death threats are free speech. I do no think doxxing is free speech. But I do think insulting terms and offensive language is free speech. Free speech protections were not designed to protect mainstream popular opinions- they were designed to protect unpopular opinions.I always get the same example to defend. A man walks into work and calls his boss the N-word, shouldn’t he be fired? If I defend the man I defined anarchy. If I defend his boss, I am not defending free speech- or so people think.I do think the man who said that should be fired but not for practicing his free speech. In a workplace setting, you are expected to conduct yourself in a respectful and reasonable manner. If you violate said policy you can (and should) be terminated. That man’s job isn’t saying “you can never say that thing” by firing our racist friend they are saying “you are not allowed to be hostile and disrespectful to your co-workers and you violated that rule” by firing him.I do not think we should live in a nation where people run around screaming whatever horrid language they can think of. I think we should be polite, respectful, and kind. But you should have the right to express yourself publically or otherwise in your private life however you see fit.Anyway, this got long so feel free to scroll down to the bottom for my summary.Social Media:The most obvious free speech battleground right now is 100% social media. In recent years Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube have shown themselves to be extremely biased in 1 direction.At first, this claim that tech giants were after conservatives seemed conspiratorial but now it is practically fact. Take the following examplesLearn to code:After a large number of journalists were laid off the hashtag “learn to code” started trending. Left-wing publications had operated under the premise that coal miners and truck drivers need to be trained in modern professions, like coding, instead of clinging to their soon-to-be irrelevant jobs. This was obviously patronizing and showcased the prevalent elitism among mainstream journalists. So when these same left-wing journalists were fired from their jobs and as journalism becomes irrelevant, conservatives started commenting on their posts with learn to code as an ironic insult. For this thousands of twitter users using the hashtag were banned.Covington kids:A couple of years ago a picture and short video emerged of a native American man playing drums in the personal space of a MAGA hat-wearing high-schooler who sported a smirk on his face. The media began to attack this kid and his MAGA hat-wearing classmates without mercy. They were called racist bigots and mocked endlessly.Nathan Phillips, the native American man, then did interviews where he explained his side of the story. He claimed the students were attacking some innocent African Americans and that he intervened in order to keep the peace. Nathan Phillips is a known liar with a history of falsifying his military service records, his tribal affiliation, and now his recounting of events as well. Yet the media bought into it.Despite the warning signs the media bought into this story further and many of the 14-year-old students began receiving death threats as their names became public.Well, then the full story emerged. Turns out these kids were on a field trip to a memorial and while there a group of “Black Israelites” began shouting EXTREMELY graphic, violent, sexist, and racist things at the students. The students then got into a group and began their school chant to drown out the insults. At this point, Nathan Phillips approached the under-age minors and began playing his drums in their face.While all of this was happening Twitter was ablaze with people commenting on the developing story. There were constant death threats, insults, and even doxxing as the names and addresses of these minors were published. Twitter took NO ACTION as children were threatened and attacked. Yet learn to code was met with an instant banHere’s Illhan Omar publishing fake information. Freedom of consequences you say AOC?Zuby:Recently rapper Zuby was banned from twitter for making the following horrible statement.“ok dude”I know, shocking right. Since the person he said dude to was trans it was considered misgendering which means banned.Disregarding the trans movement and the immense amount of unknowns in terms of the medical situation for being trans twitter has taken to being extremely aggressive when it comes to this topic. Even famous feminists are banned for “deadnaming” trans people.Facebook Protests:Recently the whole world has been… nuts.We all know about COVID and I won’t go into that but COVID did expose another case of bias in silicon valley.Mark Zuckerberg in an interview about 2 months ago said that all events organized on Facebook would be banned for violating government lockdown measures. As protestors tried to organize their peaceful rallies they were hampered by Facebook every step of the way.Then we get to today- where a horrible murder took place in the US when George Floyd was killed by police for nothing. Protests followed and many protests turned into riots. Were these protests allowed on Facebook? Absolutely.You see the issue was never “social distancing” but instead was “Republicans”. The right-wing in the US has been anti-lock down so what Facebook did was use their power to ban what they perceived as right-wing protests under the guise of protecting the public.Youtube WHO:Youtube is a known offender when it comes to censorship. They rig their algorithm so that right-wing content is suppressed in favor of left wing-content.But recently they made a serious mistake when they began to act on all mentions of COVID.The CEO of Youtube explained that all claims and information that disagrees with the world health organizations findings would be banned. Sounds good right?Well not really. First the WHO said that COVID did not spread person to person, then they said masks would not help, then they said Trump was racist for halting travel from China, and then they refused to talk about Taiwan because China is infiltrated their organization. The WHO is not the standard for accuracy or truth by any standard.So when 2 ER doctors from California publish a video discussing their findings, the lower mortality rate they found compared to what was expected and discussed if the lockdown was worth it- they were banned. 2 doctors- not reporters, not conspiracy nuts, not politicians- 2 DOCTORS were censored for openly discussing their experience and ideas.Twitter Trump Tweets:Look you can love or hate Trump I do not care. I neither love nor hate him and personally try to avoid the toxic and all-consuming current political climate in the US.Twitter has again shown its bias as it flagged Trump’s tweets as false or misleading. Politicians tweet EVERY DAY and most of them tweet false stuff- welcome to US politics. Yet Twitter has NEVER flagged anyone tweet before- they started with this.This tweet and its flagging are important. Twitter is very left-wing, we know this and Twitter openly admits it. The left-wing of the US has wanted mail-in ballots for everyone for a while now and this is a major goal of the democratic party.If you “get the facts” you are taken to a study that says mail-in voter fraud is extremely rare with only 400 cases in the last 10 years (or something like that).But this is 1 study. There are many studies and many of them say that mail-in voter fraud is extremely common.For instance, in the most recent election in the US for a New Jersey council member 3,000 of the mail-in ballots (20% of all the votes) were found to be fraudulent and had to be thrown out. In addition a postal worker was arrested for voter fraud as he began to tamper with ballots.In Las Vegas the mail-in ballot issue has become a serious problem. The Democrats in that city want to remove all forms if identification verification and send ballots to inactive and unregistered voters. The postal service does not want this AT ALL as most of the inactive voters no longer live at their address- so what happens is 100,000 ballots stack up in the post office just sitting there with nowhere to go. How easy would it be for those 100,000 dead ballots to find a new life in the hands of a political operative?Maybe mail-in voter fraud is rare, but it is not cut and dry. There is a debate here and Twitter has decided we should not have the debate.Wrapping up social mediaThere are so many more cases of this happening. It is a constant factor that is often reported.But Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube are private companies and they have the right to censor or allow whatever they want on their platform.In there lies the issue. Social media is not the government and thus has no obligation to protect free speech. But in this modern era where social media has replaced all forms of in-person communication, this is an issue.Social media is the primary tool we use to communicate and discuss politics in modern America. If the primary tool for discussing, fundraising, rallying, organizing, theorizing, and engaging in politics is operated by one political party that is willing to act unethically than what hope do we have to find objectivity? How can a fair and balanced democracy exist when 1 party controls the primary means of communication?Imagine the day when Facebook only promotes left-wing stories and censors every single right-wing opinion. Imagine a day where only Democrats are allowed on Twitter or a day when Google news and search results only display pre-approved opinions. These corporations would effectively control our democracy. We are giving them the keys to the kingdom.I should also mention I am not a Republican. Many people here think I am because I frequently debate people who hate Republicans or insult people. I am a contrarian politically deep down and I tend to debate whoever is being the most irrational. Back in 2014, I was telling Republicans to calm down and stop asking for that stupid birth certificate.In terms of politics- When I am with my family I am a communist, when I am with my neighbors I am a socialist, when I vote in my city I am a Democrat, when I vote in my state I am a Republican, and when I vote federally (if I vote) I am a libertarian. A fancy way of saying I am everything and nothing, what can I say- I have commitment issues.the Hate MobFreedom from consequences argument is often employed when someone's life is ruined due to something they said. As if a single statement could be bad enough as to warrant your life being destroyed.On December 20th 2013 Justine Sacco sitting at an airport waiting to board her plane for Africa. While waiting around she tweeted the followingGoing to Africa! Hope I don’t get AIDS! Just Kidding! I am White!By the time her plane landed she had lost her job, had her personal information exposed to the world, and was being hounded by the press to explain her joke. Her friends turned on her, her co-workers distanced themselves from her, and her entire career ended with this one moment. It took her years to get another job and rebuild her life from this incident.Now was her joke good? No. Was it offensive and wrong? Kinda. Humor is not meant to be subjective and offensive jokes are part of comedy. I will get into this later but the point remains.She made a weak joke on Twitter than had racial undertones and her ENTIRE life was destroyed. She did not hurt anyone, she did not affect anyone’s life, nor did she cause harm through her joke. It was not ok.Chick Fil A is a popular American restaurant. I frequent it in my town as it is always good food, the service is quick, and the staff is friendly.Adam Smith, A CFO of an up-and-coming cooperation decided to visit a Chick Fil A in August of 2012. He didn’t want to eat though- he had other goals.He ordered water via the drive-through and when he approached the window he berated, harassed, and insulted the young lady who was trying to help him out. He was angry about Chick Fil As Christian and anti-gay stance. He filmed the whole thing and uploaded it to the internet thinking he was the hero of this story.Now there are issues with what he did. The young lady was nice and has no control over what the guy who started the company thinks. She is just trying to earn some money and live her life and this guy treated her like she directly was the cause of Chick Fil A’s homophobic stance. The lady remained friendly and helpful and was really trying to be nice. Having worked in customer service, and thus been exposed to the depth of human depravity, I feel for her plight. This guy was a jerk and there is no doubt about that.He too received hate though- and lots of it. Just like Justine his entire life was ruined over this and it was unfair.First, he lost his job and his friends. Then as he tried to find a new job nobody would hire him. Adam is a well-educated man with lots of executive experience- thus he was overqualified for most jobs and had to find another executive-level position. Companies vet their execs thoroughly though and every time they found the video and did not hire him.Years later he is working odd jobs when he can find work. He could not pay his mortgage and was foreclosed on. He moved into a small place and his wife had to go to work to help support the family. He was on food stamps, government assistance, and his life was over.He has since recovered but for years all of Adam’s hard work fell to ash as his entire world imploded.Was what he did mean? Ya. Should his life be destroyed over it? No.This is the case so many times in this modern age. Every day there is a new celebrity who makes a statement and gets harassed until he apologizes. Nearly every celebrity and even thousands of normal non-celebrities are harassed for statements they make that are against the mob mentality of Twitter and Facebook.Personally I think there are a lot of people who lack hobbies and have found that if they get really upset over something they are given power they never earned. Even yesterday on my wife’s Facebook a gaggle of her “friends” were doxxing and harassing some lady who made a statement that was like “if you don’t like American than leave”.There is no statement that you can make that should result in your entire life being destroyed. The ONLY exception to this is a call to violence.Yet an old joke, stupid statement, or even just a bland political statement and result in your entire life being destroyed. It’s not just regular Twitter trolls doing this either.Trump published a meme that had him breathing up CNN in a WWE wrestling GIF. It was pretty popular and everyone got a laugh out of it- except CNN- they were FURIOUS.CNN was so furious they dug deep and found the personal information of the Reddit user who made the meme. Then they basically gave him a choice- apologize or we publish your information.The man apologized and CNN agreed not to publish his private details. However “should any of that change we reserve the right to publish his personal information at a later date”.You would think that a mainstream media company would want to support people’s right to express themselves, but not CNN I guess.Comedy:Humor is subjective and an important part of human expression. Humor creates joy and exposes the ridiculous nature of the human condition. The best humor examines dark things and makes us look at them differently. Great comics are champions at making us laugh at the horrible and offensive.George Carlin is perhaps the greatest comic ever. His routines were offensive, aggressive, hostile, and hilarious. You would walk away from a Carlin routine not only laughing but also thinking about things differently.Today there are jokes you cannot say- period. Comedians like Dave Chapelle, Chris Rock, Bill Burr, Joe Rogan, and many others refuse to play on college campuses because the students get offended and cause conflict.In my humble opinion, the most incredible example of this is not from the US but instead from the UK.This is Count Dankula.He is a goofy youtube and amateur comedian.He made a video a few years ago with his girlfriend's pug. He explained that he hated the dog and in order to make his girlfriend hate the dog he would teach it to be a Nazi. He then trained the dog to get excited over the Nazi salute.Every time he made the Nazi sault and said “hail Hitler” the dog would get all excited and jump around. Thus he turned the hated pug into a Nazi, the worst thing he could think of.Well for this offense Count Dankula was charged with a crime. He had to appear in court, pay a fine, and fight for his freedom over A JOKE. It’s insane.The BCC and the Guardian, both horribly biased unreliable news sources piled on him. They declared him alt-right they called him a Nazi and they said he hates Jews.I guess they didn’t get the joke. In Jordan Peterson’s GQ interview the journalist interviewing Jordan tried to find common ground by saying she did not support the censorship of comedy. Yet when this example was brought up she supported the criminal charges brought against Count Dankula. She said she did not think it was a joke and that it was a dog whistle.This is the problem. Most people say they want comics to be able to make whatever jokes they want but if they find the joke offensive or if they don’t get it than they want the comic to be banned from events or harassed out of the public eye.Count Dankula was not a Nazi trying to indoctrinate people. It was a joke- and honestly, I found it kinda funny. A dog getting excited over “hail Hitler” I mean that’s pretty goofy to me at least.Summary:Many people see free speech as legal protection and only legal protection. The most popular answer to this question in fact expresses this view- that freedom of speech is merely a constitutional provision that protects people from censorship by the government and only the government.I disagree strongly. Freedom of speech is not merely a constitutional provision. Freedom of speech a cultural ideal. It’s a culture that supports those who speak and express themselves. It is a powerful cultural element that creates an open discourse that we all benefit from. Great movies, great books, great paintings, and great video games are all forms of speech that dared to be different- that risked offending the pursuit of something powerful.Martin Luther King, one of the most important Americans ever to live, risked being offensive. He risked using his speech to express a view that challenged the status quo, that challenged the structures and ideals of his contemporaries. His ideas were not universally popular but the first amendment protected his right to assemble and speak.His speech came at a cost- the cost was his own life. He was killed for what he said and I think that is far too high of a price. Yet his speech saved countless millions and made for a better world. This reveals the power of free speech and also exposes why we should not demand a high price of speech alone.Martin Luther King Jr should have been able to speak freely and express his ideals without it costing him his life.If the government does not censor people but the phone companies, internet providers, social media platforms, colleges, and citizens do censor people than do we really have free speech? If I cannot express my views on social media, if I cannot discuss my views on a college campus, and if the consequences of an old joke could be the end of my life am I really free to express myself?In this world it is not the government that prevents free speech- it is everything else.In the words of the Great Trey Parker and Matt Stone (south park guys) either everything is ok or none of it is ok.You cannot pick which ideologies, ideas, and concepts are allowed to have a platform. That is not how the world works. Maybe you are the one deciding who gets to express themselves today but when the goals posts move tomorrow it may be you who censored or harassed for their views.Update 6/11/2020