How many other nations have you been to, OP?
I have only been to one other (Mexico), and unfortunately don't have the money to renew my passport right now, but even then, there are things to admire and things to not admire in every nation. And no nation is great purely by existing, but instead by its ability to care for its citizens and contribute to their good and the good of the world. For sure, the USA does a lot in both of those regards, but is it the 'greatest' at even that? I don't know. I know other countries don't have such broken health care systems as we do, and while they may pay higher taxes as a result, the return on investment is generally a happier and healthier society.
I don't particularly like how the population of the USA doesn't seem to like to get along, particularly around matters of politics, but I guess that's true everywhere but dictatorships with no political choices. I'm glad we're not one of those, but we're not realistically all that much better (Oooo...
two choices instead of one!), and yet it seems like with increasing frequency we treat our political allegiances as though they ought to be like visas or passports, determining who ought to be allowed to even be here. That's bad. I would think that greatly shortening the election cycle could fix some of this, since it seems like we never get a break from all of this stuff. In other countries, they do. That in itself doesn't make them better than the USA, but they probably aren't running each other over with cars or starting riots or whatever over their political differences
quite as often as we seem to, as of late.
But I quite like our Bill of Rights and constitution. I'm glad that we have them, and don't like see them monkeyed around with. On balance I'm not sure that these in themselves can prove that the USA is great, only that we're very fortunate. And we are, in a lot of ways. But I do always think we could be doing better in some ways. I hope that's not taken as anti-American or whatever. Both my grandfathers fought the Nazis and the Fascists (the real ones, not "people I disagree with") in WWII, and I'm proud of that, and always will be. In the past we've stood up to tyranny and done what's right, together with allies in Europe and the rest of the West (hi, Australia! Thanks for your contribution to basically everything we do, no matter how dumb it might be! We love you...even the bogans...some might argue that we've elected a few of the American version of these
). I think we can do it again if need be, but I would rather see diplomacy and cooler heads prevail, if we can find some.
That's kinda it, I guess. I would give America a solid B on the A to F grading scale. Quite good, but probably not really living up to full potential. Just sorta coasting on easy mode. Could do better, but will have to put bettering itself ahead of going out partying with its on again off again exes like Russia, China, and Turkey. (We should probably just cut off all ties with Turkey. She looks like she might be the type to tie us up and break our kneecaps, like Kathy Bates' character in the film adaptation of
Misery.)