Be Grateful For What Free Speech We Still Have
Here's how it works for the Brits, per Christina Odone in the Telegraph/UK:

I have lived in this country for 25 years now, yet still fail to grasp some basic rules. I was amazed, for instance, when I was threatened with a lawsuit earlier this year. On Question Time, I dismissed a protester against unpaid apprenticeship as "an ungrateful creature". A lawyer gleefully tweeted that my "insult" was potentially a criminal offence.

I'd been living under two misapprehensions: first, that "creature" was an acceptable rebuke here; second, that I had a right to be rude. That right is under threat. I read with horror that a woman who told off a Muslim gentleman at a supermarket checkout was arrested. Cinnamon Heathcote-Drury, a photographer, watched as the man let his wife unload their trolley on her own, and informed him in no uncertain terms that his behaviour was un-British. She even offered to help the wife herself.

Miss Heathcote-Drury, cleared last weekend, admits that her words could have offended the couple. But it seems extraordinary that under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, "insulting words or behaviour" constitute a criminal offence. This leaves too much room for personal score-settling, not to mention paranoia: had this law been in place in the Thirties, a thin-skinned citizen of Slough could have sued John Betjeman. As it is, a teenager was arrested in 2008 for holding up a placard that called Scientology a cult.

I've always prized British rudeness. I relish the vicious attacks in the press on grandees from Bob Diamond to John Bercow; I love to watch Paxo pummelling a politician; and happily trade put-downs with friends, family and foes. Sometimes, it can slide into gratuitous humiliation - but that seems a small price to pay for the intoxicating freedom of rubbishing the powerful.

Thank goodness, an unlikely alliance of David Davis MP, Peter Tatchell and the Christian Institute are campaigning to change Section 5. Until they win, I'll steer clear of calling anyone a "creature" again.