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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
Paschendale said:
This is not even a little bit true. We have an aristocracy. We just don't codify it into law. Most industrialized nations (if not all of them) have more economic mobility than we do. Rags to riches is not only possible and celebrated in many other nations, it is more likely. In addition, other nations are doing a much better job of keeping people from having to start in rags in the first place.

That we have an aristocracy and are in denial about it is probably the greatest flaw of this country. It is certainly one of the big things keeping us from greatness.



No, we really didn't. A century ago we glorified the KKK as national heroes. 72 years ago we stripped 100,000 American citizens of their rights and liberty without any due process. 50 years ago, we still had segregation. 41 years ago, we finally got the idea that a husband forcing himself on his wife was actually rape. 11 years ago, homosexuals could be jailed for having sex with each other.

We won a big war in the 40s and we had an economic boom for a couple of decades after that. We weren't great. We just had a good period. Greatness is something you have to earn every single day, and we have yet to even come close.

------------------------------

I think that we could be the greatest, if we could face our shortcomings and do the hard work to solve them. But I don't think we will. We like our myths and illusions too much. We like to think that we're the best, and we like to think that we had some kind of golden age. We like to lionize the WW2 generation, but we seem to forget that they were racist, sexist, homophobic, and religious bigots on a scale that would be completely intolerable today. We like the myth of the land of opportunity, even though we have some of the most concentrated and immobile wealth in the entire world. We are enamored with our own stories, and they blind us. Greatness is not something that we had in the past. It's not something we have now. It's something that we have to work really hard every day to earn in the future.

Don't ever think that Americans who criticize this country do so out of hate. It's not hate. It's disappointment. This country could be so much better and when it fails to do so, it's tragic. But we're not trapped. We can improve. We could be the greatest.
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and factoring the war on women, our racist police, and lack of a living wage. The bloody horror...the horror...the absolute horror of America...the tragedy...the evil...the hatred...whaaaaahh..whaaaahh!!!
 
Peter Grimm said:
This is seen as nearly axiomatic in some circles. In others, it's seen as misguided arrogance.

I want to know whether the maxim rings true with you, and your reasoning.


Focus specifically on these areas, if at all possible...... 1.) Freedom 2.) Diversity 3.) Opportunity
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Well, I have greatly enjoyed the time I spent in the USA, and Americans are amongst my favourite people on the planet, so it would be ill-mannered of me to publicly challenge your assertions, as a conclusion, or in detail. Suffice to say that I do not believe there is, or has ever been, any such animal as 'the greatest nation on earth'.

So much depends upon the value systems of those defining greatness, that it ends up being a meaningless term, upon which few might agree.

I think the Jewel in the Crown of the United States of America is neither her wealth, nor her freedoms, nor her material achievements - it is her people. For all the problems of US society, they are warm, generous, and delightful, and I wish them every success! :)
 
Living on the sentimental achievements of the past and pretty much just nostalgia is no way to live in the present let alone the future. America has done extraordinarily great things. And we're still extraordinary in so many different ways, but we're not as overall exceptional as we once legitimately were.

As President Nixon said on March 22nd, 1969:
As Yeats foresaw: "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold .... "None of us has the right to suppose it cannot happen here.
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It is happening here. One exceptional piece of America falling to the wayside one after another. We've gone from rocketing into the sky to plummeting towards the ground. People are already living right now that will be part of the cleanup crew post-crash, when we're nothing special or extraordinary at all.
 
Peter Grimm said:
What's the latest and greatest technology today? Computers and the internet? Both American inventions, and America dominates both industries. We always have been and always will be leading the pack when it comes to driving the direction of technology.
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did a "libertarian" just celebrate the internet as a triumph of the USA
omg.
lmao
 
Peter Grimm said:
This is seen as nearly axiomatic in some circles. In others, it's seen as misguided arrogance.

I want to know whether the maxim rings true with you, and your reasoning.


Focus specifically on these areas, if at all possible...... 1.) Freedom 2.) Diversity 3.) Opportunity
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What a silly question.
What is interesting is why it is so.
 
radcen said:
Yes, it was all done... or undone... in just six years. :roll:
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And exclusively because of "democrats."

That's how the mind of a hack works.
 
Peter Grimm said:
This is seen as nearly axiomatic in some circles. In others, it's seen as misguided arrogance.

I want to know whether the maxim rings true with you, and your reasoning.


Focus specifically on these areas, if at all possible...... 1.) Freedom 2.) Diversity 3.) Opportunity
Click to expand...

It's very clear the United States is the greatest nation on Earth. For those who understand and appreciate what it stands for it represents the ultimate in all three categories identified in the OP.

The US, and what is possible here, is the dream of people from around the world.

While it's possible to fail here just as it is anywhere else in the world, there is no other place where opportunity is afforded to those willing to take on the responsibility to take advantage of it.

Here, one has freedoms beyond most, if not all industrialized nations.

As a melting pot, the US embraces all who come to add to the beauty and richness of the people who call the United States home.

On the inverse, it is not a place for divisive failures who think opportunity means to take from others to feed their own greed.
 
ocean515 said:
It's very clear the United States is the greatest nation on Earth. For those who understand and appreciate what it stands for it represents the ultimate in all three categories identified in the OP.

The US, and what is possible here, is the dream of people from around the world.

While it's possible to fail here just as it is anywhere else in the world, there is no other place where opportunity is afforded to those willing to take on the responsibility to take advantage of it.

Here, one has freedoms beyond most, if not all industrialized nations.

As a melting pot, the US embraces all who come to add to the beauty and richness of the people who call the United States home.

On the inverse, it is not a place for divisive failures who think opportunity means to take from others to feed their own greed.
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You had me until the last sentence. We have indeed become that, as well.
 
radcen said:
You had me until the last sentence. We have indeed become that, as well.
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Only for a time. Just as maintaining success requires a recognition that failure is always a possibility, IMO, we must also remember there will be those who, for a time, gain a voice that allows us to learn what failures think and how they live, so we can avoid the mindset that results in that way of life and dependency.

It is because of the greatness of United States and what it stands for, that both sides of this coin can be witnessed and experienced.
 
cpwill said:
I later edited to throw in a source for you.
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I also looked it up on my own. It was interesting, though, that the jump was not as significant as one would like, and that many of the top countries also saw a reduction in infant mortality when the adjustment was made.
 
Peter Grimm said:
Not exactly a random sample, eh?
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Of course not. It was specifically a small sample of major modern inventions to disprove the clearly stupid claim of "We invented pretty much everything in existence in the modern world"

you're the one who made the stupid claim, I disproved it with a fairly reasonable sample of things in existence in the modern world. I specifically chose not to include obscure **** like a specific type of lathe for screws (centuries after the first lathe was invented by the way) or obsolete **** like Morse Code because they are obsolete and obscure.

Do you deny the undeniable truth that your claim was clearly false?
 
SlevinKelevra said:
nope
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/u....html?sq=mobility&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=all
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Yep.

The ubber left NY Times should find some different researchers who don't push the loser agenda. In fact, given their own failure as a newspaper, perhaps they should hire some researchers to help them discover why they are such losers as a newspaper.

People come here from other countries and achieve success beyond their wildest dreams. People rise from the most desperate of circumstances to achieve success in their family and daily lives.

Pandering to those who excel at excuses is not what this country is about. While everyone has the freedom to wallow in that result, understanding what this country affords those who embrace it's promise is what will keep this country the greatest in the world.
 
ocean515 said:
People come here from other countries and achieve success beyond their wildest dreams.
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Some do, but many, if not most, come here to just to escape truly desperate circumstances in their home country and end up living in just a better state of poverty than that which they would be faced with back home.

It's definitely better for them here than in their country of origin, but it's also not something "beyond their wildest dreams". It's actually a fairly modest, reasonable dream in most cases.

And the fact of the matter is that, while we as a nation can provide a better home for many immigrants, we can still do better than we have as well.
 
Peter Grimm said:
That's the sound little brothers typically make.
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It's the only appropriate response when one finds oneself walking past a circle-jerk.
 
Grand Mal said:
Nah, your fundamental challenge is coming from OPEC flooding the market with cheap oil to make fracking your reserves uneconomical.
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That makes about as much sense as someone voting for the EPIC FAILURE Obama.
 
Kobie said:
And exclusively because of "democrats."

That's how the mind of a hack works.
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Not all, just mostly. The world burns, Americans are miserable, and dems are calling it a success. If Obama's scandals had been known prior to 2012 he'd have lost. Last month was a reflection of that.
 
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