Richard Bridge wrote:

I do get rather fed up with the assumption that American is best. I did not expect to find it here.

The only "assumption that American is best" that I would expect a reasonable individual would get fed up with is the proposition:

P1: that an American practice is superior to all others solely by virtue of being American, entirely without regard to intrinsic merit.

Since proposition P1 is nowhere implied or expressed in this thread, Richard Bridge's statement is rather puzzling. The confusion could be removed by assuming that Richard Bridge holds to the proposition:

P2: that an American practice is inferior to all others solely by virtue of being American, entirely without regard to intrinsic merit.

but since P2 is as unreasonable a proposition as P1, I will refrain from reading it into Mr. Bridge's statement.

T.