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Is America the greatest Country anymore? Or do you agree with Will?

Is America the greatest Country anymore? Or do you agree with Will?


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Kal'Stang

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Is America the greatest Country anymore? Or do you agree with Will?

 
Please explain what exactly makes a country great and how the United States exemplifies that more than every other nation.
 
What makes on country greater than another?
 
Is America the greatest Country anymore? Or do you agree with Will?



I don't believe USA has ever been the greatest country except to Americans. It's certainly one of if not the most arrogant about "being the greatest" though, that's rarely been in doubt.
 
Your vid failed. Just like your thread/

If you didn't see the video then go to youtube and search for "Why America isn't the greatest in the world anymore". You'll see it at the top there.

As for my thread failing...how do you know if you can't see the video and as such have no clue as to what is actually being said?
 
Please explain what exactly makes a country great and how the United States exemplifies that more than every other nation.

What makes on country greater than another?


That is up to you. I'm asking if YOU think America is the greatest country in the world or if you agreed with the guy in the video.
 
I don't believe USA has ever been the greatest country except to Americans. It's certainly one of if not the most arrogant about "being the greatest" though, that's rarely been in doubt.

Thank you for actually answering the threads question instead of trying to sidestep it.
 
Is America the greatest Country anymore? Or do you agree with Will?

It is a rather silly speech designed to sound good while having exactly zero substance. And he is wrong both in saying that America is not the greatest country in the world, and his over the top rose tinted glasses while looking back.
 
Please explain what exactly makes a country great and how the United States exemplifies that more than every other nation.

What makes on country greater than another?

One would assume you take it as a whole. I have seen a fair amount of the rest of the world, and there is no place I would rather live, which sounds like as good a definition as you are going to get. We may not be tops in many measures, but we are among the best in almost all of them. We as a country are not flawless, but we are pretty damn good. The biggest problem we have these days to my mind is the culture of cynicism, the finding things to bitch and cry about and thinking it is no ****ing use to even bother trying. If there is one thing that might lead us to not being the greatest country some day, that is it.
 
The concept of "greatest country" is pretty vague and ill-defined.
If the question is whether the US is still the single most important economic and military superpower in the World, then the answer is clearly yes.
If the question is whether the US is still the country that provides the greatest opportunities to those willing and able to seize them, then the answer is clearly yes.
If the question is whether the US is the greatest place to live, then that depends on your personal preferences. if watching lots of military parades is your thing I giess you might prefer North Korea.
 
These things take on a gradual quality to them rather than an immediate "anymore" declaration can give you. In terms of the past 30 or so years, yeah, basically in most ways the United States was the greatest country on earth--in earth's history. In many ways, it remains the greatest country in the world, ever. But it's experiencing a gradual increase in multi-polarism, internal economic struggles, and moral uncertainty. In terms of sheer international gravitas, the United States is still the superpower the world looks to and reacts to. It's still one of the greatest economies in the world, it dominates popular culture, its education system has always been unfairly critiqued and remains pretty strong all things considered, despite being on the decline the American university system is still among the best in the world, the belief in anything analogous to American exceptionalism and the American dream is still far stronger here than it is in most (if not all) of the world.

A lot of the malaise is this sort of overreaction to what America is "supposed to be." When the Mayflower came on board, the first consequential speech in our intellectual history stressed that somehow they were supposed to reshape humanity from their little spot and if they failed to meet the immense amount of pressure they put on themselves, God would punish them more than any other group in history. Americans have internalized that and have constantly put a disjointed sort of expectation on what success meant. On one hand this would mean that many thought we were the greatest that will ever walk the earth, but then again, a whole chunk of people somehow thought that we were just utterly failing. Both are pretty exaggerated. Right now we are seeing a bit too much of the God-is-punishing-us crowd, except we are too Hegelian for that these days to believe that God is punishing us. But we are willing to believe it's History that is punishing us.

So think carefully before looking at the rather cynical attitude of Americans as the true mark of where it stands. I would say the country were to at the very least rate in the B/B+ range of countries, even with its current problems. Erode those and it should quickly increase from there.

It is a rather silly speech designed to sound good while having exactly zero substance. And he is wrong both in saying that America is not the greatest country in the world, and his over the top rose tinted glasses while looking back.

It's Aaron Sorkin at his worst. The West Wing would occasionally wax poetic with politics in the most embarrassing monologues possible before swinging back into interesting content. The Newsroom was 80-90% embarrassing Sorkinisms and 10-20% interesting characters.
 
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Is America the greatest Country anymore? Or do you agree with Will?



What nation does not have its faults and problems?

We can be a greater nation if a few adults are elected to office and punish failure and reward success..
 
I think we can all agree that things would be better if our side had the power to make a few changes.
 
I find the whole idea of being "greatest" to be misplaced to begin with. It's a mindless dick-waving contest. It is what it is. If you like it, fine. If not, you're welcome to go somewhere else. The idea that people ought to sit around screaming "We're #1!" all the time is utterly absurd.
 
I think we can all agree that things would be better if our side had the power to make a few changes.

We all saw what "your side" did to my beloved Nation last decade .
 

I tend to keep rather proactive company, so I don't see so much of the cynicism. But my point really was that "greatest" is simply so subjective and everyone's opinion would be based on wildly different criteria that it's not a very good question to ask. I would even dispute the character in the video's notion that this country used to be greater than it is sometime in the past. I also dispute the assumption that this was ever the greatest country in the world, because I don't think you can really tell. I don't like blind patriotism and I certainly don't like nostalgic views of the past that are almost always inaccurate.

The greatest country, to me, is the one that strives the hardest to be the greatest. Greatness is a process, not a status. And we certainly don't strive very hard, anymore. When it became public knowledge that our government tortured prisoners, and the reaction wasn't universal outrage, we weren't striving to be the most moral people in the world. When people actually argue that it's alright for police to perpetuate a culture of violence against blacks, we aren't striving to care for our own people. I don't know if we ever were the greatest in this regard. I don't know if we're really better or worse than anyone else. I do know that we're not doing very well, in some regards. We strive pretty damn hard towards personal liberty. The United States has some of the strongest free speech protections in the entire world. That's pretty great. Other countries make it a crime to deny the Holocaust. We would consider that unthinkable, and that's how I think it should be. Does that make up for all the black kids murdered by police every year? Or how we ration healthcare only to those with money? I don't know. Because I don't think greatness comes from your achievements. I think greatness comes from never being satisfied with your achievements. And right now, we are a people that is entirely too satisfied.

So, I neither think that this is the greatest country, nor do I think it can be proved that it ever was, nor do I agree with Will McAvoy that we used to be greater and have lost something, and I certainly don't that mine is the worst. generation. ever. Our problem isn't cell phones, nor sexual freedom, nor even cynicism (I would argue that a lot of that cynicism is well earned). Our problem is complacency. There are fools in this country who really do think that racism is over. Or who think that equality and egalitarianism really means tearing down white males or Christians or heterosexuals in favor of someone else. Or who think that our society already does that. Too many Americans think that we've already hit the ideal and now there's nowhere to go but down. Some claim that we're the world's superheroes because of World War II. Some claim that the lofty words of men who died two centuries ago make us experts in liberty who can do no wrong.

I think we are not actually in decline as a nation. We're improving. But our rate of improvement has slowed because of this complacency. Maybe that's the cynicism you're seeing. I see some who have lost hope because they've been ground down by a system that squeezes every last drop it can out of everyone it can for the benefit of the wealthiest of this country. But it's complacency that makes us not do something about that system. We're complacent in our little tiny piece of the pie so we won't risk it to help those with even tinier pieces, or virtually no piece at all, and we make excuses for why a hundred million share an eighth of the pie while a hundred thousand have three quarters of it and the last eighth goes to two hundred million. We're complacent in the invisible privileges we enjoy because of being male, white, Christian, or heterosexual so we won't accept any discomfort for ourselves to help those without those privileges, and make excuses for why they really have the same deference and opportunities we have but squander them.

If Americans could be a bit less self-absorbed and get off of our asses and expect better of ourselves, we could be pretty great. But we're too wrapped up in our own personal gain and wanting to feel superior to other people to risk making any kind of real difference that could change our country and society for the better. We can only become great when we actually realize that we aren't and decide to do something about it. Instead we pat ourselves on the back for past achievements and shout patriotic slogans and pretend that we're done with the process and greatness is a cushion we can sit on instead of a mountain perpetually to be climbed.

In short, "Great" is a thing you do and keep doing, not a thing you are.
 
If you didn't see the video then go to youtube and search for "Why America isn't the greatest in the world anymore". You'll see it at the top there.

As for my thread failing...how do you know if you can't see the video and as such have no clue as to what is actually being said?

because pretty much everyone as seen the factually incorrect video and every few months we have the same poll which at some point contains that video

http://www.debatepolitics.com/polls/211277-america-greatest-nation-earth.html
 
What nation does not have its faults and problems?

We can be a greater nation if a few adults are elected to office and punish failure and reward success..

You could begin by getting the GOP House to agree with itself on anything that matters.

As long as the AAN and TEAs are at each others throats, my wonderful Nation will be held back from solving our problems .
 
You could begin by getting the GOP House to agree with itself on anything that matters.

As long as the AAN and TEAs are at each others throats, my wonderful Nation will be held back from solving our problems .

Your nation? You are a leftist, America was never yours to begin with. And we will not compromise with ideas and actions harm and destroy this nation.
 
Really? Nothing your side did not not much more of...

BTW that statement was a generalization.

Yes really--but you already knew that deficits didn't matter according to the 5-time draft-dodging chicken**** chickenhawk Cheney. Which is why those 4,500 lives didn't matter to him--he certainly lowered the greatness of my great Nation don't you think?

Why are you so into "sides"?
That was a direct statement from you--not a generalization as you are now trying to backtrack it.
Certainly not the foundation of a great Nation where all of our people have come together as ONE GREAT NATION .
 
Your nation? You are a leftist, America was never yours to begin with. And we will not compromise with ideas and actions harm and destroy this nation.

So exactly what does a leftist mean in your mind?

Why so quick with accusations?

Are you saying that leftists have never been a part of MY GREAT NATION?

Compromise is what the Constitution was all about--are you aware of that?

Who are you to say that "we" will not compromise?

The ideas and actions from the last administration will forever be an immense stain on this Nation.

The harm and destruction done to our soldiers and their families by Cheney and company will live with them the rest of their lives.

And now the new GOP Senate wants another war--their words .
 
"Greatness" is in the eye of the beholder.
That being said, in my opinion what makes a country and its institutions "great" (not really my favourite terminology) is - among other things - that it continues to be strong and vibrant even when its citizens elect leaders that are incompetent, stupid, corrupt, ...
 
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