occasional messiness........................

 

     Modern election campaigns are often criticized for being negative, and today's press is slammed for being scurrilous.  But the most brutal of modern attack ads pale in comparison to the barrage of pamphlets in the 1764 Assembly election.  Pennsylvania survived them, as did Franklin, and American democracy learned it could thrive in an atmosphere of unrestrained, even intemperate, free-expression.  As the election of 1764 showed, American democracy was built on a foundation of unbridled free speech.  In the centuries since then, the nations that have thrived have been those, like America, that are most comfortable with the cacophony, and even occasional messiness, that comes from robust discussion.

Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life