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Is America the greatest nation on earth?

Is America the greatest country on earth?

  • Yes

    Votes: 45 45.9%
  • No

    Votes: 53 54.1%

  • Total voters
    98
For those that don't think America is the greatest country, tell us which country is and why.
 
For those that don't think America is the greatest country, tell us which country is and why.

Why does there have to be one at all? Is there a leaderboard where we rank all the countries based on "greatness points"?
 
Why does there have to be one at all? Is there a leaderboard where we rank all the countries based on "greatness points"?

Yeah, there's a leaderboard. So who do you think is the greatest?
 
For those that don't think America is the greatest country, tell us which country is and why.

With pleasure - there is none - the entire concept is a nonsense. I am sure my ancestors thought Great Britain was the greatest nation on earth, just because they got to boss a third of the world about, and had better grenadiers and men o' war than the French and the Spaniards - but that was just as much a bit of grandiose self-delusion. There is simply no such animal. If a nation is to be judged upon anything that matters, it is how the least advantaged fare - and neither Imperial Britain nor the current USA score particularly well there.
 
With pleasure - there is none - the entire concept is a nonsense. I am sure my ancestors thought Great Britain was the greatest nation on earth, just because they got to boss a third of the world about, and had better grenadiers and men o' war than the French and the Spaniards - but that was just as much a bit of grandiose self-delusion. There is simply no such animal. If a nation is to be judged upon anything that matters, it is how the least advantaged fare - and neither Imperial Britain nor the current USA score particularly well there.

So the least advantaged fare poorly in all countries (not that I agree with your premise)?
 
Yeah, there's a leaderboard. So who do you think is the greatest?

I already answered that question earlier in the thread.

And no, there is no leaderboard. "My country is better than your country" is a juvenile pissing contest.
 
I already answered that question earlier in the thread.

And no, there is no leaderboard. "My country is better than your country" is a juvenile pissing contest.

If I say there's a leaderboard, there is one. Stop arguing with me. I don't think I'm back through over 175 posts to read yours. I'll just assume you said there is no greatest country.
 
America is the worst country in the world, except for all the others.
 
If I say there's a leaderboard, there is one. Stop arguing with me. I don't think I'm back through over 175 posts to read yours. I'll just assume you said there is no greatest country.

Actually, my answer was "I don't know since I haven't been to every country."
 
If a nation is to be judged upon anything that matters, it is how the least advantaged fare - and neither Imperial Britain nor the current USA score particularly well there.
Not necessarily a specific response to how the least advantaged fare, but the Human Development Index includes a lot of factors that benefit the least advantaged:

hdi-top10.png
 
With pleasure - there is none - the entire concept is a nonsense. I am sure my ancestors thought Great Britain was the greatest nation on earth, just because they got to boss a third of the world about, and had better grenadiers and men o' war than the French and the Spaniards - but that was just as much a bit of grandiose self-delusion. There is simply no such animal. If a nation is to be judged upon anything that matters, it is how the least advantaged fare - and neither Imperial Britain nor the current USA score particularly well there.

That depends entirely upon how the "least advantaged" are defined. Using an insane killer, or drug addict, as an example of the "least advantaged" may yield a far different result than using a widow with three young children. ;)
 
I used to think so, but we're falling further into mediocrity these days.

Particularly the last 8 years.

I certainly don't see "diversity" as a mark of greatness. Walmart is not a great music store because they sell mops and groceries. Guitar Center is a great music store because they do not.
 
I already answered that question earlier in the thread.

And no, there is no leaderboard. "My country is better than your country" is a juvenile pissing contest.

While that is mostly true (but one would have a hard time describing Afghanistan as a great nation) you will frequently see that argument made that "great" nations have UHC, wonderful "safety net" systems and decent educational systems. While no nation is clearly #1 (in all important areas) there are clear differences (a leader board?) between most OCED nations (except for Turkey and Mexico) and most non-OCED nations.
 
Not necessarily a specific response to how the least advantaged fare, but the Human Development Index includes a lot of factors that benefit the least advantaged:

hdi-top10.png

If you extended the scale all the way to zero, no one would look bad. Almost all listed are 0.9 or higher.
 
While that is mostly true (but one would have a hard time describing Afghanistan as a great nation) you will frequently see that argument made that "great" nations have UHC, wonderful "safety net" systems and decent educational systems. While no nation is clearly #1 (in all important areas) there are clear differences (a leader board?) between most OCED nations (except for Turkey and Mexico) and most non-OCED nations.

I'll grant that.
 
For those that don't think America is the greatest country, tell us which country is and why.

Exactly only one person has had the guts to say which country they think is better
 
Let's look at a few of the inventions that make the modern world what it is today:

Antibiotics: A Scottish guy.

Louis Pasture was Scottish?

Who knew?

Internal Combustion engine: Belgian

Difficult to say, internal combustion has been around since the 1300's with no clear inventor named. The modern engine using spark plugs and distributed charge for combustion is American.

Telephone: Scottish guy in Canada

Bell was hardly a Scot, and he was an American citizen, regardless of where he did some of his research.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_of_the_telephone

Microchip: British guy

Bovine feces, pure fabrication on your part.

Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments created the integrated circuit. Bill Shockley of Bell Labs created the modern semi-conductor using silicone. Robert Noyce of Intel invented the microprocessor.

Television: A brit, a German, and a Scot invented the precursors, a pair of Russians invented the first television based on their work.
Computer: A brit if you count Babbage, Turing, or Flowers. A German if you go with Kuse.
Cars: a German
Satellites: Russians
Spaceship: Russians
Light Bulbs: Americans
Airplanes: Americans

On that list, the US has TWO things. Hell, the first personal computer was made by Italians. We often assume things are invented by Americans, when they aren't.

The Babbage analytical engine was not built until the 1990's - the first digital computer was the 1890 census calculator - in America.

The problem I have with leftists isn't what they don't know, it's that so much of what they do know, simply isn't so.
 
You are making all of that up and pretending it is true. That does not make something an "irrefutable fact", it makes it made up bull****.

An irrefutable fact is not bull. I haven't made up anything. However, your attempt to refute these facts is most certainly bull.
 
With pleasure - there is none - the entire concept is a nonsense. I am sure my ancestors thought Great Britain was the greatest nation on earth, just because they got to boss a third of the world about, and had better grenadiers and men o' war than the French and the Spaniards - but that was just as much a bit of grandiose self-delusion. There is simply no such animal. If a nation is to be judged upon anything that matters, it is how the least advantaged fare - and neither Imperial Britain nor the current USA score particularly well there.

The bottom 10% in America live better lives than the bottom 10% in any other nation on the planet with the exceptions of Canada, Sweden, and Australia. There are 195 countries on this planet, and our bottom 10% are better off than the top 10% in all but eleven of them.

'Merica.
 
Is America the greatest nation on earth?

in what category? we have free speech, which is good. our health care system sucks, and we spend too much on war.

either way, how do we judge that? standard of living? nuclear arsenal? who knows? who cares? America is a first world country that is nice to live in. when we start getting caught up in nationalism or questions of empire, though, it usually has no positive effect. **** the contest crap. just enjoy living in your country and strive to make it better.
 
If you extended the scale all the way to zero, no one would look bad. Almost all listed are 0.9 or higher.

The top ten would appear as a tighter grouping, yes. The same would happen if we rounded all baseball players' batting averages to the nearest tenth, but the point is to compare the distinction.
 
Unless your last name is Walton, Gates, Jobs, or Zuckerberger, you might want to double check your online banking balance.



Hardly true. Our best and brightest university professors also often originate from outside the US.



Modern society as I know it was perfected by the Japanese, Sony in particular, revolutionizing personal electronics.



Who would be our contemporaries?



You go--ranch dressing kicks french dressing's ass with or without gloves.


Hardly true at all.


Nothing screams American superiority like us not even being able to put a man into orbit without paying the Russians 50 years later.



Kween Kim Kardashian might have you drawn in Kwuartered.



:lamo Bashar al Assad remaining in power certainly proves your point there :ind:



Got a link for that from a source other than Fox News?




with a five yard penalty and a repeat of first down.

Actually Japan just picked up Americas old Electronics manufacturing base and its inventions and ran with it.

Fundamentally, these personal electronic devices that Sony builds use technologies that were invented and developed right here in the US decades ago.

From Tube Circuits to Microprocessors to Integrated circuit technology and software. All of it was initially developed right here in the US.

And Japan perfected the modern society ?

Huh ?
 
One possible measure of "greatest" would be net immigration. How many try to get in vs try to get out. It could be argued in that context that America is indeed "greatest".
 
I've seen Europeans trying to mitigate away the Moon landings as American money funding German Rocket technology.

Well, we weren't the only Nation to abscond with German Scientist plus, Wermer Von Braun wanted to land the entire Appollo Rocket on the Moon.

It was a American Engineer who came up with the concept of a Lunar Lander and it was another American Engineer who programed the Lunar lander Computer

To compromise for the lack of onboard memory he developed a process of using interrupts which would over ride less critical functions when memory ran low.

Windows to this day uses interupts.

The Computers for the Apollo Rocket Guidance system were IBM.
 
Actually Japan just picked up Americas old Electronics manufacturing base and its inventions and ran with it.

Fundamentally, these personal electronic devices that Sony builds use technologies that were invented and developed right here in the US decades ago.

From Tube Circuits to Microprocessors to Integrated circuit technology and software. All of it was initially developed right here in the US.

And Japan perfected the modern society ?

Huh ?

The US stole german scientists to make it space program as well. Forgot to mention that.
 
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