"America is the greatest country in the world."

[AngryDem001]

Whenever I hear this phrase, I think about:

Those doing hard time for non-violent and minor drug offenses
Creationism being pushed in public schools
Veterans dying while waiting to see a doctor
The gutting of financial regulations
A congress with a singular goal of blocking president Obama any way they can
Republican governors who would rather let their citizens die than expand healthcare
The needs and wants of the super-rich coming before EVERYTHING else
The assault on the environment
The assault on voting rights
The assault on reproductive choice
The assault on science
A space program that is a shell of it's former self
Stagnant wages
Higher education being out of reach for many
The denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples
A middle class that is under attack from the 1%.
The Tea Party. 'nuff said.
Gerrymandering
Roads and bridges falling apart

And so much more.....

[JJChambers]

1. I agree with your title

We definitely have room to improve though.

[yeoman6987]

7. I do too

I have been in 47 countries and would not want to live in any one of them except for the United States of America...warts and all.

[pangaia]

19. I agree with the post.

I have been in 24 countries other then the US. I would be very comfortable living in 12 of them. Of course, I would miss baseball.

[Art_from_Ark]

25. When you live overseas,

you realize that baseball, and other professional sports, really aren't all that important.

[pangaia]

27. Oh yea, buster. And what makes you such an expert on baseball?

[Make7]

2. I think of this:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?t=11&v=YI7Oq8y-jXA

(Series premiere of The Newsroom.)

[SummerSnow]

3. I agree

[Skittles]

4. what truly sucks is, even with all that

I'd STILL rather live here than in many parts of the world

problem America has is repukes actively want to make us part of that "many parts of the world" and all to often it seems like so-called DEMOCRATS are their lapdogs

[rurallib]

10. Sadly, most of both parties are owned by the rich and the corporations

[LittleBlue]

5. Every country has their problems, though

Your quality of life in the US will vary greatly depending on where you live and what profession you're in.

I'd still live here in Washington (state), it's a great place to settle down.

[RKP5637]

6. It's a country being looted, just to start with! It is very sad. n/t

[bvar22]

8. Your list could go on for several pages.

I am fortunate to be old enough to remember a time when being a Working Class American was a pretty good deal. We (as a country) were far from perfect, but heading in the right direction with FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society.
We were improving, things WERE getting better for everyone, and that inspires hope.
Unfortunately, we've been in a consistent back slide since Reagan and the NeoLiberal "Centrist" Democrats
joined with the Republicans in destroying a once prosperous Working Class and instituting a NEW & IMPROVED
Gilded Age 2.0 for the very RICH.


My wife & I had the opportunity to immigrate to either Canada or Costa Rica in 2005.
We considered it, but chose to stay in the States and work to make things better.

[L0oniX]

12. We looked at Costa Rica too when George Bush happened.

[Art_from_Ark]

26. I remember the Great Society

Even though we were stuck in Vietnam at the time, the goals of the Great Society still managed to instill hope in many of us for the future.

[bvar22]

34. Never in my wildest dreams could I imagine that cranky, crusty, salty old LBJ...

...would turn out to be the most Liberal President of the last 1/2 century.

"Johnson was the catalyst, the cajoler in chief. History records him as the nation's greatest legislative politician. In a great piece on the Daily Beast website, LBJ aide Tom Johnson, writes about how his old boss would have gotten a health care reform bill through the current congress. It's worth reading to understand the full impact of the "Johnson treatment" and how effective LBJ could be in winning votes for his legislation."

http://thejohnsonpost.blogspot.com/2009/08/johnson-treatment.html

[EEO]

9. It's the reverse socialism.

The new American way is to socialize the rich at the expense of the middle class and the poor.

[Cryptoad]

14. ummm

that's inverse soicalism?

[L0oniX]

11. G0d bless america mutha f*ckas ...Babylon ...the great Satan.

Home of some of the greediest sociopath assholes in the world ...where the rich are worshipped like lessor g0ds ...and its voters actually believe the lie that their vote really means something ...cowards quiver in shame as the few brave go out and protest ...cops beating up protesters, murdering grandmothers and shooting maid service vehicles ...banksters running wild stealing billions while the black kid gets sent to prison for having too much weed ...where the constitution and bill of rights is something to be exploited ...SCOTUS hops in bed with the rich ...administrations and house packed with revolving door greedy profiteers ...lessons of history forgotten ...wisdom of the fathers discarded ...slaves to the MIC in the name of jobs ...a nation that can not survive without war ...homeless spit upon and forced away from cities like discarded human trash ...minds bombard with ads for cheap and harmful products ..............................etc ...........................etc ..........................etc

[marions ghost]

28. America: Where Sociopathic Narcissists Rule -- this is the biggest problem

RE pie chart--What is that 15% for X --stuff we dont know what it's being spent for?

[L0oniX]

29. X = national secrets and other bull shit ...golf course in Bahama ...stripper polls ...etc.

That chart is from Berkley

[marions ghost]

30. The Shadow Government budget

...yeah --interesting to see it broken out as a separate figure instead of hidden under "Pentagon."

And perks included I'm sure....

[L0oniX]

32. Berkley probably has a stack of 100% redacted pentagon papers accounting for X.

[marions ghost]

33. "100% redacted"

....



(Wiki--Ashcroft redacted)

[tclambert]

13. Perhaps you were thinking of this Jeff Daniels clip.

[Cryptoad]

15. I ve been ,,,

around the world, and I've never found any thing I would trade it for,,,, even with all its Obama Haters!

[MohRokTah]

16. It is the greatest country in the world.

This should tell you something about the sad state of affairs in our world.

[valerief]

17. But America is the greatest country in the world--for billionaires and multi-millionaires. nt

[Jamaal510]

18. Whenever I hear

anyone saying it, I stop and silently ask myself: 'It is probable that this person has never seen every single country in the world, so how can they possibly rule one particular country as the best?' That's one reason why I refrain from classifying any country as the "greatest". Number two is because of another question: America is the greatest at WHAT specifically? There are so many things that a country can excel or not excel at that it sort of begs that question. It could be excelling at baseball, or it could be being the greatest at having a broken taxation system. It could mean being the best at low turnout elections. And so on. The "greatest country in the world" phrase is incredibly vague.

[Blanks]

31. I think it's basketball...

On a per capita basis. We have the most basketballs per capita in the world.

That makes us the best in all categories.

[TBF]

20. It is the greatest -

For the 1%.

It's all about perspective.

[Jeneral2885]

21. yes...

In promoted neoliberalism at home and abroad.

[Thespian2]

22. America is the Greatest Country in the World

when it comes to destroying people.

[heaven05]

23. yep

+1000

[airplaneman]

24. "America is the greatest country in the world."

Kind of proves how ethnocentric we really are.
-Airplane

[rhett o rick]

35. The highest infant mortality rate of all major countries. nm