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@Leo still finishing up the podcast but wanted to say even though it doesn’t affect me, I did appreciate you taking the time to call out that resource for people who may not have realized it was available. I was very happy to see you take the seriously and not laugh it off as many other folks do.
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Great show, as ever. Really interesting talk about the ACLU cases. Living in a not so litigious country, it always amazes me what gets taken to court in the USA and how kleinkariert (German for pettifogging or narrow minded) many people in official positions are in the USA.
Germans might be renowned for being officious and regulating everything… But they tend to regulate more what you can do (your rights) and not what you can’t do.
I had a German friend who went to California in the 80s on a school exchange trip. He was 16 and a chain smoker, which didn’t go down well. The guest family, understandably, didn’t want him smoking in the house, so he went outside for a walk, only he was quickly stopped by the police for walking on the sidewalk! It made the local residents nervous, having a teenager (in white jeans and a white blazer) strolling down the sidewalk… (It was a posh neighbourhood near Bel Air, I believe.) He explained the situation about the smoking in the guest family’s home and the officers told him to go walk in the woods behind the houses (but be sure to put out the cigarettes, when throwing them away).
He did that, 2 days later, he was surprised by a policeman riding a horse. He looked down at my friend and said, “oh, you must be the German exchange student!,” then wished him a good evening and carried on his patrol.
At school, the principal let him leave the school grounds during the breaks to smoke. A couple of days later, he was called inside the principal’s office. Could he please not smoke in front of the Synagoge, as that was offensive. Where should he smoke then, he inquired. “Oh, you can smoke on the steps to the Catholic Church on the other side of the street,” was the straight faced answer! How on Earth is that any less offensive? 
He was also surprised by many of the other restrictions, in the “Land of the Free”, on the freedoms he used to, coming from the land of regulations: No drinking beer or wine, couldn’t buy cigarettes or alcohol, attitudes to sex and nudity etc. especially with the under 18s.
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we love to put asterisks on freedom here