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If you don’t think your country is the greatest in the world, then why aren’t you moving heaven and earth to go live somewhere else?
That is the key question.
Two points:
1. Even if you don't believe your country is the greatest in the world, that doesn't mean you are going to uproot yourself from all your family, friends and entire way of life to move halfway across the world. Some people are pretty satisfied with their life even if by some objective measure (like size of economy, per capita GDP, size of military or something) there are other countries that are 'greater'.
2. Maybe there are some people who admit that they don't know what the greatest country is and are not so arrogant as to claim that even though they only have experience living for any length of time in one country (or maybe two) they are sure that they know for a fact that theirs is the greatest.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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I'm from USA. The greatest nation is Switzerland.
It has both tons of freedoms and a great welfare state, not a member of any non nonsensical international unions, and doesn't get involved in wars that don't directly involve its security.
I'm from the U.S. It is the most powerful country in the Earth and I fervently believe that our planet would be a much worse place if America didn't exist. For one, China and Russia would have effectively turned much of humanity into oppressed subjects.
Not to mention America's entrepreneurial spirit. Tesla, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Google, SpaceX, all of Silicon Valley really. So much of modernity is rooted in American designs.
I think democracy is of utmost importance, and the U.S. is the last pillar of the major powers (Beijing, Moscow, Washington) to even care about things like liberty.
That said, the U.S. is a contradictory place. We spend billions across the world protecting other countries, while poverty goes through the roof. Our inequality and greed culture has created a massive social gap that needs to be bridged so we don't succumb to domestic troubles.
Racism against Blacks remains our original sin, and one we're still struggling to reconcile (but making progress). And of course the country that created National Parks is now a leading cause of environmental degradation.
So the U.S. has lots of bad too. On net, however, I think America is a special place within the global ecosystem and its founding ideals make it far more capable of positive change than people give it credit for.
And American politics is characterized by decades of political stasis followed by rapid renewal in the face of adversity. People thought this country would collapse in 1930 and 1970, only for the next decades to be some of America's golden years.
A lot of Australians, Canadians and Europeans may hate this perspective, but think about it. If the U.S. were to sink into the ocean tomorrow, would you feel safer? Almost certainly not.
I'm from the U.S. It is the most powerful country in the Earth and I fervently believe that our planet would be a much worse place if America didn't exist. For one, China and Russia would have effectively turned much of humanity into oppressed subjects.
Not to mention America's entrepreneurial spirit. Tesla, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Google, SpaceX, all of Silicon Valley really. So much of modernity is rooted in American designs.
I think democracy is of utmost importance, and the U.S. is the last pillar of the major powers (Beijing, Moscow, Washington) to even care about things like liberty.
That said, the U.S. is a contradictory place. We spend billions across the world protecting other countries, while poverty goes through the roof. Our inequality and greed culture has created a massive social gap that needs to be bridged so we don't succumb to domestic troubles.
Racism against Blacks remains our original sin, and one we're still struggling to reconcile (but making progress). And of course the country that created National Parks is now a leading cause of environmental degradation.
So the U.S. has lots of bad too. On net, however, I think America is a special place within the global ecosystem and its founding ideals make it far more capable of positive change than people give it credit for.
And American politics is characterized by decades of political stasis followed by rapid renewal in the face of adversity. People thought this country would collapse in 1930 and 1970, only for the next decades to be some of America's golden years.
A lot of Australians, Canadians and Europeans may hate this perspective, but think about it. If the U.S. were to sink into the ocean tomorrow, would you feel safer? Almost certainly not.
Absolutely not. The US is the pillar that holds the western world together, and many countries would be worse off without it's influence, despite how infuriating it can be at times.
Absolutely yes, I'd feel safer without the nato/eu bull****. Hope one day others will jump on the pro-china anti-nato/anti-eu train. With that said, the AlexJonesness of this forum is becoming too much for my liking, I'd leave it, good luck and sayonara.
I'm from the U.S. It is the most powerful country in the Earth and I fervently believe that our planet would be a much worse place if America didn't exist. For one, China and Russia would have effectively turned much of humanity into oppressed subjects.
Not to mention America's entrepreneurial spirit. Tesla, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Google, SpaceX, all of Silicon Valley really. So much of modernity is rooted in American designs.
I think democracy is of utmost importance, and the U.S. is the last pillar of the major powers (Beijing, Moscow, Washington) to even care about things like liberty.
That said, the U.S. is a contradictory place. We spend billions across the world protecting other countries, while poverty goes through the roof. Our inequality and greed culture has created a massive social gap that needs to be bridged so we don't succumb to domestic troubles.
Racism against Blacks remains our original sin, and one we're still struggling to reconcile (but making progress). And of course the country that created National Parks is now a leading cause of environmental degradation.
So the U.S. has lots of bad too. On net, however, I think America is a special place within the global ecosystem and its founding ideals make it far more capable of positive change than people give it credit for.
And American politics is characterized by decades of political stasis followed by rapid renewal in the face of adversity. People thought this country would collapse in 1930 and 1970, only for the next decades to be some of America's golden years.
A lot of Australians, Canadians and Europeans may hate this perspective, but think about it. If the U.S. were to sink into the ocean tomorrow, would you feel safer? Almost certainly not.
Agreed. As much as I dislike the US government and a decent amount of the US in general, the alternatives of being the global superpower are far worse. America is far from perfect, and not the symbol it portrays itself as, but horrid human rights violations like the massive Uyghur internment camps and the Great Firewall occurring these days is ridiculous and I can't see them doing that, at least so openly. However, if the US did dissolve or not exist, I don't think the world would be some sort of desolate apocalyptic place at all either. But it sure as hell does beat having Russia or China at the helm with the way their governments handle things.
I'm from the U.S. It is the most powerful country in the Earth and I fervently believe that our planet would be a much worse place if America didn't exist. For one, China and Russia would have effectively turned much of humanity into oppressed subjects.
Not to mention America's entrepreneurial spirit. Tesla, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Google, SpaceX, all of Silicon Valley really. So much of modernity is rooted in American designs.
I think democracy is of utmost importance, and the U.S. is the last pillar of the major powers (Beijing, Moscow, Washington) to even care about things like liberty.
That said, the U.S. is a contradictory place. We spend billions across the world protecting other countries, while poverty goes through the roof. Our inequality and greed culture has created a massive social gap that needs to be bridged so we don't succumb to domestic troubles.
Racism against Blacks remains our original sin, and one we're still struggling to reconcile (but making progress). And of course the country that created National Parks is now a leading cause of environmental degradation.
So the U.S. has lots of bad too. On net, however, I think America is a special place within the global ecosystem and its founding ideals make it far more capable of positive change than people give it credit for.
And American politics is characterized by decades of political stasis followed by rapid renewal in the face of adversity. People thought this country would collapse in 1930 and 1970, only for the next decades to be some of America's golden years.
A lot of Australians, Canadians and Europeans may hate this perspective, but think about it. If the U.S. were to sink into the ocean tomorrow, would you feel safer? Almost certainly not.
Americans always vastly overate this 'American power' thing they always harp on about.... I blame American TV and American propaganda myself.
Americans always vastly overate this 'American power' thing they always harp on about.... I blame American TV and American propaganda myself.
I don’t agree with the “American power” aspect of the United States. I don’t see why we should be militarily involved in countries half way around the world that are completely different in culture and are of no threat to us. I have never seen a legitimate argument as to why the United States meddles in those countries.
I'm from the U.S. It is the most powerful country in the Earth and I fervently believe that our planet would be a much worse place if America didn't exist. For one, China and Russia would have effectively turned much of humanity into oppressed subjects.
Not to mention America's entrepreneurial spirit. Tesla, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Google, SpaceX, all of Silicon Valley really. So much of modernity is rooted in American designs.
I think democracy is of utmost importance, and the U.S. is the last pillar of the major powers (Beijing, Moscow, Washington) to even care about things like liberty.
That said, the U.S. is a contradictory place. We spend billions across the world protecting other countries, while poverty goes through the roof. Our inequality and greed culture has created a massive social gap that needs to be bridged so we don't succumb to domestic troubles.
Racism against Blacks remains our original sin, and one we're still struggling to reconcile (but making progress). And of course the country that created National Parks is now a leading cause of environmental degradation.
So the U.S. has lots of bad too. On net, however, I think America is a special place within the global ecosystem and its founding ideals make it far more capable of positive change than people give it credit for.
And American politics is characterized by decades of political stasis followed by rapid renewal in the face of adversity. People thought this country would collapse in 1930 and 1970, only for the next decades to be some of America's golden years.
A lot of Australians, Canadians and Europeans may hate this perspective, but think about it. If the U.S. were to sink into the ocean tomorrow, would you feel safer? Almost certainly not.
If the US as we know now didn't exist, then something else would exist in its place. It could have been better or it could have been worse. It's obviously hard to tell. Without it existing, it's also unlikely that China and Russia would be in its current form as well, but like with the US, it's impossible to tell if it would have been better or worse.
I think the entrepreneurial spirit in the US is fantastic, though it's also something that's fairly recent mostly going into the aftermaths of WWI-WWII that knocked many countries that were arguably more developed and entrepreneurial overall down a peg or two and also meant a massive "brain drain" and capital flight from those places into the US. That's not to say that there weren't some amazing innovations, but the US really only took a significant lead in innovations fairly recently in history.
The other major pillar would be the EU overall, but it's more diffused. Collectively, it's a very much a major power, but has difficulty wielding it. India could be a major power, but still has too many intrinsic issues right now to work out though it is a democracy.
We have spent billions across the world protecting other countries, but we've also spent it for our protection as well as for attempts at securing our own interests.
The US had two original sins--hereditary enslavement in a brutal system that lasted for a long while and from which we're still suffering a long hangover, and the far less blowback-inducing (due to its utter completeness) of decimating the native peoples of this land. For the latter, I think there's a lot of unfortunate and unintentional parts to it like the spread of diseases from our Old World close quarters animal husbandry practices that the native Americans did not have immunity to and brought altogether at once, but the US federal government did at times pour what seems to have been an incredible amount of salt on those wounds as it was in many instances quite profitable to drive them out and/or kill people off. I think one thing that is often understated is how much of America's prosperity is rooted in the massive expanse of resources in regards to mineral resources and arable land that was cleared to make profit from. Canada, Russia, Brazil, and Australia also had these massive expanses cleared of natives, but it was only the US that had that incredibly massive amount of arable land in familiar climates for human settlement that was particularly conducive to the technologies and practices of the larger Old World civilizations and meanwhile augmenting those with technologies, especially in terms of agricultural development, that could be adapted from the natives quickly.
I do think one aspect is that we have had one of the oldest governmental and legal structures in the world that have not seen substantial revisions or adaptations within the last several generations, and there's probably a bit of code cleanup we can do, but that's always a pretty hard and contentious thing.
If the US were to sink into the ocean tomorrow, then the entire world would be pretty screwed and they would probably be wondering what the cause of it is and if it's going to happen to them next.
Anyhow, I think concentrating on making ourselves better and trying to see what other countries that seem to be doing well are doing and adapting them into the US is a good pragmatic thing to do. I think having a bit of self-doubt and questioning ourselves as a country to some degree can lead to better decisions.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 07-02-2020 at 03:17 PM..
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