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According to your GDP, yes. But according to your GDP per capita you're not.
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Originally Posted by In God We Trust
most powerful
You're military would completly destroy any other regular army. But you're still not winning your wars at the moment.
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Originally Posted by In God We Trust
and most famous and well-known nation.
That in itself doesn't make you great. Afgahnistan is probably a lot better known than Lichtenstein but I think most people would still prefer to live in Lichtenstein.
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Originally Posted by In God We Trust
No other country in the world offer not even 10% of what America has to offer, so you could just imagine.
Actually this arrogance is one of the reasons why many people dislike the US. How can you be so disrespectful and offensive and still expect others to love and envy your great country?
You heard the guy in the video. The US are leading the world in only 3 categories: number of incarcerated people per capita, number of adults believing that angels are real and defense spending (where you spend as much as the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies).
Even I would agree that America is probably the "greatest" country over all. If you take economy, freedom, GDP, science, military power, culture etc. in account. But that is mostly because you have a large population and not so much because you're better than the small european countries. And you're definetly NOT 90% better then everybody else could ever dream of.
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Originally Posted by In God We Trust
Canada is the next best country!
Canada is a great country but I find it hard to objectivley rank the "greatness" of nations.
Come on, you can read this forum and see how polarized we have become. My parents generation was the greatest generation. We don't hold a candle to them. They didn't outsource jobs, they didn't reward idiot women who get knocked up by 10 different guys with a check every month. They didn't want to be a military power, but they became the biggest, most badass power when they needed to become one and they defeated Germany and Japan.
I recently looked through the 1940 census for the town my parents grew up in. There was one person, ONE listed as divorced in a town of about 3000. What do you think that ratio would be today?
We are a shadow of what we once were. Anyone who says different is nuts.
There was racism during that time and women were not encouraged to seek higher education, you call that a great period in time? Also, divorce rates were lower back then because it was frowned upon to get divorced; if you were unhappy in the marriage they had to suck it up.
I know about prostitution and gambling in Nevada and I know about the Indian casinos. That's why I said "banned in most of the US". I don't gamble and I've never had sex with a prostitute (and I'm not planning to). But gambling, prostitution, public alcohol consumption and some other illegal things are all victimless crimes. So I don't see a reason to ban it. Especially in a country that is so proud of it's freedom and opportunities.
According to the study on Wikipedia the UK is the only country out of those 9 where social mobility is even worse than in the US. However the "land of opportunities" is still far behind the other 7 western nations in this study.
It's not a ban of mosques but only of minarets. But it's working out well.
I could have mentioned Rodney King and the South LA riots or Trayvon Martin as well. But those are just extraordinary isolated situations just like the euro 2012 or Soccer games between rivaling teams. That's like claiming Norway is a very violent country just because of Breivik. Instead I'm talking about nationwide statistics like crime rates, the social mobility of african americans etc. because those studies show issues that are occuring regularly.
Who was the quasi-dictator of the US? I really don't know, just asking. But you're right, in the first half of the 20th century the US were far ahead of us regarding freedom and democracy. But western Europe caught up during the second half of the century and is now ahead of you imho.
However Europe is not one single country, it consists of 50. So there were obviously more dictators. And murderous imperialism, fascism and communism WAS all on Europe. Today most countries are very free democracies. I admit that some eastern european nations like Russia, Ukraine etc. are not so free. But there is only one real dictator left today.
And you shouldn't compare the US to the eastern european countries in the first place. You should compare it to western Europe. Because western european people and politicians have had enough time to get used to democracy and freedom. While those things are pretty new for eastern europe.
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Originally Posted by brockp0084
So what's the best country in the world? I'm sure noone would unanimously give the same answer.
True no one would give the same answer because everyone has unique tastes and outlook.
For me it is Switzerland. One of the closest states in the world to a direct democracy, beautiful, clean, a sense of pride, highly educated with students learning multiple languages from a young age, highly educated immigrants (in zurich, zug, geneva etc), decentralized bureaucracy, has a strong health care system, controls its own financial destiny, strong sense of neutrality (friends with everyone, peace through trade, commerce, and law), is pro-personal gun laws (and recently as of 2011 rejected tighter gun regulation).
Only two downsides:
-It is brutally difficult in my experience to get a work permit for there (i worked for a swiss company and begged for an internal transfer but it was extremely difficult) and even those in my experience who move there end up leaving after 5-10 years due to difficulties in obtaining citizenship.
-Sometimes non-white people can feel uncomfortable (but this is true of a lot of europe in my experience sans holland, sweden and norway).
I was born in america to asian parents and I would love the opportunity to move to Switzerland and raise a family there. However, I don't think it'll ever happen unfortunately.
There was racism during that time and women were not encouraged to seek higher education, you call that a great period in time? Also, divorce rates were lower back then because it was frowned upon to get divorced; if you were unhappy in the marriage they had to suck it up.
Family was much more stable back then, work ethic was much better, crime was far lower, music was far better, people actually interacted with each other, etc. etc
Yeah, I would take the 1940's over today, but not over the 1906's 70's or 80's
Family was much more stable back then, work ethic was much better, crime was far lower, music was far better, people actually interacted with each other, etc. etc
Yeah, I would take the 1940's over today, but not over the 1906's 70's or 80's
Agreed. I truly think we are living through the worst generation this country has ever seen.
...and I'm not sure we will ever recover, considering that the next generation a la occupy wall street seems to be far worse.
Too subjective to answer unless thread starter wants to narrow down "great" to something we can measure it with.
Economically the US is one of the most productive and innovative countries with by far the largest economy, it dominates the list of the world's top universities, is the most politically/militarily/culturally influential country, and is extremely diverse both geographically and ethnically.
I'm sure there are reasons like above where one could make a reasonable case for #1 in greatness, but then again everyone has their own measures of what makes a country great.
Family was much more stable back then, work ethic was much better, crime was far lower, music was far better, people actually interacted with each other, etc. etc
Yeah, I would take the 1940's over today, but not over the 1906's 70's or 80's
Like I said, it seems more stable because divorce was frowned upon if you were unhappy you had to live with it. As for crime I would have to look at stats before commenting on that. I believe I read somewhere that teen pregnancy was still high during those times, but what's different is that they used to marry if that occurred while today marrying the teens off is not as common (I'll see if I can find stats).
Also, the older generation always criticizes the newer one, I'm sure in the 1940s people were saying that things were much better 20 years before.
According to your GDP, yes. But according to your GDP per capita you're not.
You're military would completly destroy any other regular army. But you're still not winning your wars at the moment.
That in itself doesn't make you great. Afgahnistan is probably a lot better known than Lichtenstein but I think most people would still prefer to live in Lichtenstein.
Actually this arrogance is one of the reasons why many people dislike the US. How can you be so disrespectful and offensive and still expect others to love and envy your great country?
You heard the guy in the video. The US are leading the world in only 3 categories: number of incarcerated people per capita, number of adults believing that angels are real and defense spending (where you spend as much as the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies).
Even I would agree that America is probably the "greatest" country over all. If you take economy, freedom, GDP, science, military power, culture etc. in account. But that is mostly because you have a large population and not so much because you're better than the small european countries. And you're definetly NOT 90% better then everybody else could ever dream of.
Canada is a great country but I find it hard to objectivley rank the "greatness" of nations.
Nah, we are better across the board. No other country has our influence. I can name five things, the U.S. has created or developed in the last 20 years that has significantly changed and impacted the world. And most people in the US could care less what other's think about us. That's a losers approach. The great thing about America is that anyone can be anything that they want to be.
Judging by where our country is now it is hard to call us a great country. You know we are sliding when even the illegals who flouted our laws to come here are leaving. We have over 8% of our workforce officially unable to find a job, the real number who knows. But the real problem is our politicians. Yes I know everyone complains about them. But the current crop is the worst one I have ever seen, more interested in collecting their pay while slinging mud at the other side than working to solve our problems. We still have the largest military and the Grossest National Product.
Nah, we are better across the board. No other country has our influence.
That's right. I agree that you are the most influential country in the world. But you are also the largest developed one so you have a huge advantage just due to your size.
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Originally Posted by DC's Finest
I can name five things, the U.S. has created or developed in the last 20 years that has significantly changed and impacted the world.
That's right again. But that again has to do with you're huge population and budget. It doesn't make you the greatest country.
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Originally Posted by DC's Finest
And most people in the US could care less what other's think about us. That's a losers approach.
It's a losers approach to be so arrogant and ignorant. You can't do without the rest of the world! You need China to produce you're cheap products; you need the arabs to give you all the oil you need; you need Europe as an important market, partner and ally etc. So you need to care about what other's think of you!
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Originally Posted by DC's Finest
The great thing about America is that anyone can be anything that they want to be.
That's wrong! America is not the land of opportunities anymore! Social mobility in the US is lower than in most other developed nations!
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