If being powerful equals great, Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot were great men. I hope your kids private school teachers don't define great exactly as you do.
Country should be reasonable if you can afford health care. Go to College, get a good job, get good health care. Can't afford college? Okay work and go to college. Structure = Logical America. Work hard so your kids can have a good life and can afford college. Then you get good health care. Do this for generations. How hard is that? I don't care if somebody is poor because their parents made stupid mistakes. Go work at Lowes and take online classes. America is not in decline. Liberal America is in decline.
Remotely, really? Russia and China are close in terms of armament, organization and/or manpower. This is why, outside of Palin, you very rarely hear American diplomats or leaders even hint at direct military engagement with them. France, UK and Germany have equally complex and dynamic economies off of which ours was largely based; Roosevelt even joked prior to Pearl Harbor that we had to engage in WWII because British and German bankers ran the world, also note that America didn't surpass UK as the leading economy until after World War I. Russia has the domestic resources that could allow them to get there at some point. All the Scandinavian countries have higher human rights quotients, though that's probably partly due to size and ethnic homogeneity. Postwar Western Europe in general is a better administrative and economic model than the US over the last sixty years, especially in terms of international trade and collaboration. Also, our economic and military might has come at a drastic cost to other countries' permanent stability and economic well-being; our entire international commodities trade has been exploitative and unnecessarily bloody and destabilizing. We probably could have ended or mitigated global poverty and industrialized the the Third World after World War II if we didn't spend the next fifty years arming and bribing despots for the sake of resources or strategic positioning against the Soviet Union.
College is a minimum $10,000 a year; payable immediately, and none of the Fortune 500 accepts paper from online degree mills.
This nation is also great because it is unique in its founding based upon a set of ideas instead of a set of leaders. But of course that was covered in the American Exceptionalism thread (oh wait, I forgot, almost no one in that thread actually understands what the term means )... But it would be silly to conclude that America's greatness doesn't at least in part derive from its military and economic power. They are certainly highly relevant factors if the question is whether or not it's the "greatest country on earth".
And not a single one of the countries youn named has the unique combination of being very strong in virtually every single area. Sure, some nations may best us in some metric, but they will be bested by us in many, many more. Russia and China are indeed powerful militarily, but they have nowhere near our prowess, their economies are shadows of ours, and their scores on rights and freedoms are lacking, to say the least. Westernized nations like the Euros and the Asian tigers are economic powerhouses in their relative small packages, but they are militarily and economically weak and generally far less free. No one out there is strong or dominant in nearly as many areas as the US is. Taken holistically it's rather absurd to argue that anyone has an overall edge on us. No one else is close.
The first parts of what you said is not true and the part about the fortune 500 is irrelevant. You don't have to work for a fortune 500 to make a good living.
I'd say yes. Parts of Western Europe are great, but have screwed up labor markets, economic sluggishness and are expensive to live in. Australia and New Zealand are interesting, but don't have our standard of living and are isolated. If I had to move to another country, I'd probably pick Australia, Switzerland or Germany, but I like the US best.
You apparently have a problem with yourself then, since you're the only one that got outraged here about this fictional TV series.
Instead, brainwash him with religion and a false sense of reality! Woooooo! (Waiting for a response to Brandyon's post...)
How many MILLIONS of Americans have chosen to live out of the country? Sorry to burst your metric. :grin:
LOL, "Outraged"? Do you really think anything here makes me that mad? Major, pick your battles. You're smarter than that.
The same is the case for most western countries and even for countries who are neighbours to countries in civil war. I think it depends on what you think are the criteria. Do you only look at the living condition, or also economic power, military power, social policies or even influence on the world. For example the british empire was very powerful, however they did a lot of damage to the rest of the world. which is a important criteria for me. This is a useles discussion unless you make specific criteria on how to measure "greatest" country in the world. If you just look at living condition there are many countries who are great. I would not say the US is the greatest on that area. Another important area for me is social policies. for me a country that still discriminates on a large scale (like not having legal gay marriage) cannot be the greatest country in the world IMHO. I think the US is a great country to live in (probably not for me), but there are many countries that can say the same thing. I do not believe there is such a thing as the greatest country. All countries have there advantages and disadvantages. Also to chip in on the whole freedom discussion. Are there really people who believe you have more freedom in the US than in most european countries? I'm interested to know what freedoms you have in the US that people do not have in England, Germany, the Netherlands etc. I'm pretty sure that the freedom to marry the person you love (even if it is of the same sex) and the freedom to buy marijuhana are there in the Netherlands and are not there in the US (I'm not saying you have more freedom in the Netherlands than in the US).
My contention was that greatness is in the eye of the beholder and would therefore vary per person. Since America has an endless number of people trying to get in (more so than any other country), then it would be deemed 'great' by the most people. Presumably someone trying to come and live in this country would think it great.
I disagree that this is a good way to measure greatness. There are many reasons to choose a specific country to try and immigrate to. Location is also important and how easy it is to get a residence permit or the size of a country. if your country is next to a war-torn country you will have many people trying to get in your country. For example if you look at immigration number in Europe: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/st...up,_2010_(1).png&filetimestamp=20130204085131 The top 4 countries in Europe are: United kingdom Spain Italy Germany. I do not think there are many people who would claim Spain is the second greatest country in Europe and Italy the third. If you look at the amount of foreign born citizens World wide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-born_population So you are claiming the top 5 greatest countries in the world are: America Russia Germany Saudi Arabia UEA Furthermore, people can think a certain country is a good place to live in, but that does not mean that their perception is true. In my experience most people are idiots.
Those can all be factors in determining 'greatness'. Why not? The number of foreign born citizens isn't the measure I used. I said the number of people who are trying to get in. Do you know many immigrants who come here and determine this country isn't what they had hoped and leave? I know many immigrants, but few hold this view.
