Is America the greatest country in the world?

[Foxfyre]

The following is maybe the most honest three and a half minutes we have seen in any medium for some time now. I think it will be disturbing to those of us who love our country, who feel pride and emotion when we salute the flag or hear the National Anthem, but for many it will also have a ring of truth.

But it is a debate we need to have as Americans, as freedom loving people, as people who see the potential in what humankind can be.

Is the United States of America the greatest country in the world? Was it ever? If so, can it be again? How?

I put this in the Tea Party forum because there was no other place for it. The Tea Party movement has consistently been focused on restoring America to its former greatness, prosperity, and best values.

If we could keep the discussion reasonably civil it would be much appreciated.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16K6m3Ua2nw]The most honest three and a half minutes of television, EVER... - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Foxfyre]

And to start things off, I voted "Yes" and also "No, but it could be again" which of course is yes and no.

For me I would not choose to live anywhere else. It is the greatest country in the world. But I also grieve at what we have lost of our greatness in my lifetime, and how much I hope to live to see us regain that greatness.

 

[rightwinger]

Nobody else is a close second

 

[Foxfyre]

Nobody else is a close second

For me yes. But, as was expressed in the video, we lag so far behind so many other countries in so many categories. In order to be intellectually honest, don't we have to at least look at that?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

What a pompous answer! And wrong in the trillion column too!

We have (had) a country with a Constitutionally limited central government and 50 sovereign states that were supposed to be incubators of ideas and ideals. How'd he miss that? That's what made us great.

The one nation on the planet set up to acknowledge and protect the rights of the individual.

 

[High_Gravity]

Nobody else is a close second

For me yes. But, as was expressed in the video, we lag so far behind so many other countries in so many categories. In order to be intellectually honest, don't we have to at least look at that?

Which categories do you mean specifically? the education system in Korea may be better and you get free health care in Cuba but look at all the Cubans and Koreans who come here to live. America is the best country in the world hands down.

 

[Foxfyre]

What a pompous answer! And wrong in the trillion column too!

We have (had) a country with a Constitutionally limited central government and 50 sovereign states that were supposed to be incubators of ideas and ideals. How'd he miss that? That's what made us great.

The one nation on the planet set up to acknowledge and protect the rights of the individual.

I think you didn't listen closely to what he said. Yes, the USA was unique among nations of the world, past and present. We were the great experiment. Our government would secure our rights and then leave us alone to govern ourselves, to live our lives as we saw fit, to achieve or fail according to the choices we made. And for up to about 200 years, that concept made us the most free, most prosperous, most innovative, most creative, most productive, most generous, and most forward thinking people that have ever lived.

We've made mistakes because we are an imperfect nation of imperfect people. But because of the freedom we have enjoyed, we have been able to recognize and correct the mistakes as we went along. We have fixed a lot of our worst mistakes and were working on others.

But somewhere along the way, we started shifting the concept of self governance back to an authoritarian central government and began allowing it more and more power to make our choices for us, to direct what sort of societies we would have, assign the rights we would be allowed, and to take more and more of our assets to swallow up in an ever growing and more cumbersome bureaucracy and using the rest to create winners and losers. It has corrupted our values, our priorities, and depleted our creative impulses.

It is THAT which so many of us wish to reverse and restore the concepts that made us the great nation that we are.

 

[Foxfyre]

Nobody else is a close second

For me yes. But, as was expressed in the video, we lag so far behind so many other countries in so many categories. In order to be intellectually honest, don't we have to at least look at that?

Which categories do you mean specifically? the education system in Korea may be better and you get free health care in Cuba but look at all the Cubans and Koreans who come here to live. America is the best country in the world hands down.

These are excellent points. You don't see a lot of Americans wanting to emigrate to Korea or Cuba. There are lots of Koreans and Cubans who would love to immigrate here.

And that is not an insignificant thing.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

What a pompous answer! And wrong in the trillion column too!

We have (had) a country with a Constitutionally limited central government and 50 sovereign states that were supposed to be incubators of ideas and ideals. How'd he miss that? That's what made us great.

The one nation on the planet set up to acknowledge and protect the rights of the individual.

I think you didn't listen closely to what he said. Yes, the USA was unique among nations of the world, past and present. We were the great experiment. Our government would secure our rights and then leave us alone to govern ourselves, to live our lives as we saw fit, to achieve or fail according to the choices we made. And for up to about 200 years, that concept made us the most free, most prosperous, most innovative, most creative, most productive, most generous, and most forward thinking people that have ever lived.

We've made mistakes because we are an imperfect nation of imperfect people. But because of the freedom we have enjoyed, we have been able to recognize and correct the mistakes as we went along. We have fixed a lot of our worst mistakes and were working on others.

But somewhere along the way, we started shifting the concept of self governance back to an authoritarian central government and began allowing it more and more power to make our choices for us, to direct what sort of societies we would have, assign the rights we would be allowed, and to take more and more of our assets to swallow up in an ever growing and more cumbersome bureaucracy and using the rest to create winners and losers. It has corrupted our values, our priorities, and depleted our creative impulses.

It is THAT which so many of us wish to reverse and restore the concepts that made us the great nation that we are.

Um, and that was in the video....where? I must have missed it

 

[rightwinger]

What a pompous answer! And wrong in the trillion column too!

We have (had) a country with a Constitutionally limited central government and 50 sovereign states that were supposed to be incubators of ideas and ideals. How'd he miss that? That's what made us great.

The one nation on the planet set up to acknowledge and protect the rights of the individual.

I think you didn't listen closely to what he said. Yes, the USA was unique among nations of the world, past and present. We were the great experiment. Our government would secure our rights and then leave us alone to govern ourselves, to live our lives as we saw fit, to achieve or fail according to the choices we made. And for up to about 200 years, that concept made us the most free, most prosperous, most innovative, most creative, most productive, most generous, and most forward thinking people that have ever lived.

We've made mistakes because we are an imperfect nation of imperfect people. But because of the freedom we have enjoyed, we have been able to recognize and correct the mistakes as we went along. We have fixed a lot of our worst mistakes and were working on others.

But somewhere along the way, we started shifting the concept of self governance back to an authoritarian central government and began allowing it more and more power to make our choices for us, to direct what sort of societies we would have, assign the rights we would be allowed, and to take more and more of our assets to swallow up in an ever growing and more cumbersome bureaucracy and using the rest to create winners and losers. It has corrupted our values, our priorities, and depleted our creative impulses.

It is THAT which so many of us wish to reverse and restore the concepts that made us the great nation that we are.

I have seen it my whole life....the next up and coming nation that would overtake the US

Germany in the 30s-40s
USSR in the 50s-60s
Japan in the 80s-90s
The European Union in the 2000s
Now its China

They all had momentary spurts that looked like they would be unbeatable. The US, our system of government, our open society has always prevailed

 

[High_Gravity]

For me yes. But, as was expressed in the video, we lag so far behind so many other countries in so many categories. In order to be intellectually honest, don't we have to at least look at that?

Which categories do you mean specifically? the education system in Korea may be better and you get free health care in Cuba but look at all the Cubans and Koreans who come here to live. America is the best country in the world hands down.

These are excellent points. You don't see a lot of Americans wanting to emigrate to Korea or Cuba. There are lots of Koreans and Cubans who would love to immigrate here.

And that is not an insignificant thing.

According to the UN Belarus, Hungary, Lithuania and the Ukraine have a better quality of life than the US, thats funny considering most of the taxi drivers outside the Baltimore airport are from those countries. If life there is so great why are they here driving cabs?

 

[eots]

For me yes. But, as was expressed in the video, we lag so far behind so many other countries in so many categories. In order to be intellectually honest, don't we have to at least look at that?

Which categories do you mean specifically? the education system in Korea may be better and you get free health care in Cuba but look at all the Cubans and Koreans who come here to live. America is the best country in the world hands down.

These are excellent points. You don't see a lot of Americans wanting to emigrate to Korea or Cuba. There are lots of Koreans and Cubans who would love to immigrate here.

And that is not an insignificant thing.

I dont think the swiss are beating the door down to get in

 

[eots]

America is still the biggest ass kicker on the planet however...

 

[CrusaderFrank]

What a pompous answer! And wrong in the trillion column too!

We have (had) a country with a Constitutionally limited central government and 50 sovereign states that were supposed to be incubators of ideas and ideals. How'd he miss that? That's what made us great.

The one nation on the planet set up to acknowledge and protect the rights of the individual.

I think you didn't listen closely to what he said. Yes, the USA was unique among nations of the world, past and present. We were the great experiment. Our government would secure our rights and then leave us alone to govern ourselves, to live our lives as we saw fit, to achieve or fail according to the choices we made. And for up to about 200 years, that concept made us the most free, most prosperous, most innovative, most creative, most productive, most generous, and most forward thinking people that have ever lived.

We've made mistakes because we are an imperfect nation of imperfect people. But because of the freedom we have enjoyed, we have been able to recognize and correct the mistakes as we went along. We have fixed a lot of our worst mistakes and were working on others.

But somewhere along the way, we started shifting the concept of self governance back to an authoritarian central government and began allowing it more and more power to make our choices for us, to direct what sort of societies we would have, assign the rights we would be allowed, and to take more and more of our assets to swallow up in an ever growing and more cumbersome bureaucracy and using the rest to create winners and losers. It has corrupted our values, our priorities, and depleted our creative impulses.

It is THAT which so many of us wish to reverse and restore the concepts that made us the great nation that we are.

I have seen it my whole life....the next up and coming nation that would overtake the US

Germany in the 30s-40s
USSR in the 50s-60s
Japan in the 80s-90s
The European Union in the 2000s
Now its China

They all had momentary spurts that looked like they would be unbeatable. The US, our system of government, our open society has always prevailed

OMFG!!! I thanked you twice and posrepped you in this thread.

What the fuck?! Did Oddball or Liability hack your account?

 

[CandySlice]

Man, is this little show getting a workout!! If you'll read my 'Far Right Wingers' thread you'll see I also found something inspiring.

Waaay Cool

 

[eots]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPtD0ZcEYt8]PAUL HYDE - America Is Sexy - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Foxfyre]

What a pompous answer! And wrong in the trillion column too!

We have (had) a country with a Constitutionally limited central government and 50 sovereign states that were supposed to be incubators of ideas and ideals. How'd he miss that? That's what made us great.

The one nation on the planet set up to acknowledge and protect the rights of the individual.

I think you didn't listen closely to what he said. Yes, the USA was unique among nations of the world, past and present. We were the great experiment. Our government would secure our rights and then leave us alone to govern ourselves, to live our lives as we saw fit, to achieve or fail according to the choices we made. And for up to about 200 years, that concept made us the most free, most prosperous, most innovative, most creative, most productive, most generous, and most forward thinking people that have ever lived.

We've made mistakes because we are an imperfect nation of imperfect people. But because of the freedom we have enjoyed, we have been able to recognize and correct the mistakes as we went along. We have fixed a lot of our worst mistakes and were working on others.

But somewhere along the way, we started shifting the concept of self governance back to an authoritarian central government and began allowing it more and more power to make our choices for us, to direct what sort of societies we would have, assign the rights we would be allowed, and to take more and more of our assets to swallow up in an ever growing and more cumbersome bureaucracy and using the rest to create winners and losers. It has corrupted our values, our priorities, and depleted our creative impulses.

It is THAT which so many of us wish to reverse and restore the concepts that made us the great nation that we are.

Um, and that was in the video....where? I must have missed it

At the end. He phrased it differently than I did, but I got what he was saying when he said "It sure used to be. . . ." and then went on to list those things that by implication we have lost.

 

[Liability]

The following is maybe the most honest three and a half minutes we have seen in any medium for some time now. * * * *

The most honest three and a half minutes of television, EVER... - YouTube

There WERE some tidbits of honesty in that three and a half minutes.

There was also a lot of very stale, tired, rancid and not particularly honest partisan hackery.

When the character intones how we "used to" pass laws for moral reasons and cited the "example" of "waging wars on poverty not on poor people," I snorted.

We passed bullshit ineffectual "laws" to address poverty. And we have never waged wars ON poor people.

If you bury that kind of rancid bullshit in what could have otherwise been a fair-minded answer to the "question," the 3 1/2 minutes of honesty gets tragically diluted.

It was a Sorokin liberal bit of verbal masturbation wherein liberals are the enlightened good guys and conservatives are the thuggish bad guys.

Yeah. There is some painful truth in the speech. There's also a lot of crap.

 

[Jos]

What a pompous answer! And wrong in the trillion column too!

We have (had) a country with a Constitutionally limited central government and 50 sovereign states that were supposed to be incubators of ideas and ideals. How'd he miss that? That's what made us great.

The one nation on the planet set up to acknowledge and protect the rights of the individual.

Americans were sold into slavery by Bank debt

 

[there4eyeM]

This way of discussing the question is so far from anything indicative that participating is a dubious activity, but to play the game...

Determining the criteria of what is desirable would be nice. Anyone who has actually lived in another country for a significant amount of time knows that people there are often quite satisfied with their culture and system. The French, English, Germans and many other Europeans are usually interested in America, but not in moving there.

Many things in the US are great, many problems are also great. A flat statement that it is the best is totally unsubstantiated.