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Is America the greatest country on Earth?

?

  • Yes

    Votes: 111 75.5%

  • No

    Votes: 36 24.5%
  • Total voters
    147
bigdoublezero said:
That's simply not true. That's a reflection of politics, not power. I'm not saying that being the most powerful is equivalent to the greatest, but we're clearly the most powerful nation on earth, and it's not close. We're similarly the most influential nation on earth. (China is gaining, but it's still not all that close.)
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We (and NATO) are unable to bring Afghanistan to heel, so I'm not sure being the clearly most powerful nation is worth much. We can kill brown teenagers in Yemen who have the audacity to go out in public at the push of a button, but what's the point?

Why would hard power be a better measuring stick than the decisions made by other democracies? Do nuclear weapons improve quality of life? Are foreign nationals stupid or making decisions that aren't in the worlds' best interests? Why would hard power trump politics?



To be clear, I happen to think we are the greatest country country on earth and the reason for that is we have the best geography in the world, one of the strongest protections on freedom of speech and expression, and are, by some distance, the country most people around the world want to emigrate to. But I don't think any of those things refute the UN IHDI argument, just claim that some other things are more important. Dismissing the UN as not a credible source on anything is being a special kind of redneck.
 
No one has made a remotely convincing case for any country being better than the US yet
 
Again, it's a question of what you think "greatest" means. If you think "greatest" is most powerful/influential, sure. If you think it means most comfortable/rewarding place to live, I would say no. Many studies done show a number of countries ahead of the US when it comes to "happiness" or quality of life levels. As someone who has traveled to most areas of the world, I would agree that the general happiness I've found in the US exists in many other countries. That said, most Americans wouldn't enjoy those countries because we have different stimulus that make us happy and vice versa for them. I've watched kids kicking a used water bottle as a soccer ball that were having way more fun than the kids who play organized baseball in the park next to where I live.
 
Milhouse said:
denverpacker has traveled the globe. tuffalo posts charts.

i am going to side with one of them here. just have not figured out which one yet.
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It's immensely frustrating to me that Bhutan-style gross national happiness tracking isn't catching on anywhere. I'd love to have a simple chart to reference for questions like this.
 
TuffaloDeac10 said:
LOL. You "hear" no cases, are told about one, dismiss it out of hand without considering what might be wrong about it, and then repeat that you haven't heard a strong case for no. You haven't heard or seen one because you're not listening or looking for one.

When the shit hits the fan, the world looks to the G8 or G20. We lost our unilateral responsibility for everything sometime between 2003 and 2008.
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No they don't. They look to see what we are going to do. I agree this speaks just to our power, which is a large part of the equation.

I have been to roughly 70 countries and to a one, the citizens all try to emulate us...as in US. That to me says we must be doing something right. Sure we have our flaws, as does everbody. But when you put together the whole recipe, nobody even comes close. Not remotely.
 
TuffaloDeac10 said:
We (and NATO) are unable to bring Afghanistan to heel, so I'm not sure being the clearly most powerful nation is worth much. We can kill brown teenagers in Yemen who have the audacity to go out in public at the push of a button, but what's the point?

Why would hard power be a better measuring stick than the decisions made by other democracies? Do nuclear weapons improve quality of life? Are foreign nationals stupid or making decisions that aren't in the worlds' best interests? Why would hard power trump politics?



To be clear, I happen to think we are the greatest country country on earth and the reason for that is we have the best geography in the world, one of the strongest protections on freedom of speech and expression, and are, by some distance, the country most people around the world want to emigrate to. But I don't think any of those things refute the UN IHDI argument, just claim that some other things are more important. Dismissing the UN as not a credible source on anything is being a special kind of redneck.
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I never disputed the UN as a credible source, although I'm not sure you were directing that comment at me. That said, any particular ranking of how America sits compared to its peers really doesn't hold much water in the grand scheme.

I'm also not suggesting that because we have the most powerful military and can blow stuff up with abandon makes us the greatest. (Although it's a much stronger argument for greatness than being ranked 23rd in anything by the UN.) The fact that we're even debating whether America might not be so great anymore because its military can't effectively do anything it damn well pleases, no matter what kind of threat it is, no matter the political circumstances, no matter where that threat is on the map, kind of proves how hard power matters to the debate of greatness, at least to a degree. Slot in any other country into the previous sentence and it looks completely wacky. That's greatness. As I posted earlier on this thread, just because America has room for improvement in many regards doesn't prove that it's not the greatest.

As for why "hard power" trumps politics, I'm just responding to the notion that when crisis emerges, the world looks to the G20. Give me a break. The weakening of America's position on the world stage over the past decade has more to do with living with the bad decisions it's made internationally and domestically, not its CAPACITY for greatness. Politics is about the short term, and more often it's about finessing of media than anything else at this point, domestically or internationally. Politics can tie an arm behind your back, but when it comes to America, that arm is still by far the strongest.

Bottom line is that when America moves, the earth moves. Economically, politically, militarily, culturally, etc. There's no other country that even comes close to America's influence around the world and its influence on each and every nation on earth. I'm not saying that's the end-all, be-all of determining greatness. Clearly values and quality of life and geography and culture and resources matter a whole lot in the equation.
 
TuffaloDeac10 said:
http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

Obviously this is missing things like weather and beaches, but the US doesn't win on life satisfaction and it is tough to make us win a composite index except by pumping the importance of income way up relative to environment and health.
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Again... just tell me a country better than the US and justify it. I get it, the US doesn't rank #1 across the board over indexes of quality of living, but I've yet to read anyone make a convincing argument for any country that is better.
 
Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Canada, Australia, Israel, Finland, Sweden, and New Zealand all report higher life satisfaction than us. So that, to me, seems to be an argument for each and all of those countries over the USA. What component of national greatness would fail to show up in citizens' subjective well-being? Do we want national greatness that doesn't improve the perceived well-being of the nation's citizens?
 
TuffaloDeac10 said:
Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Canada, Australia, Israel, Finland, Sweden, and New Zealand all report higher life satisfaction than us. So that, to me, seems to be an argument for each and all of those countries over the USA. What component of national greatness would fail to show up in citizens' subjective well-being? Do we want national greatness that doesn't improve the perceived well-being of the nation's citizens?
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I think the citizens of those countries are just gaming the rankings.
 
buckets said:
Again... just tell me a country better than the US and justify it. I get it, the US doesn't rank #1 across the board over indexes of quality of living, but I've yet to read anyone make a convincing argument for any country that is better.
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There are countries in which you can go out on the streets and not find people wearing shirts that have the letters D U K and E on them
 
Somewhere in Africa, children wear Buffalo Bills Super Bowl XXV (and XXVI, and XXVII, and XXVIII) Champions t-shirts... so they have a case, too.
 
TuffaloDeac10 said:
Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Canada, Australia, Israel, Finland, Sweden, and New Zealand all report higher life satisfaction than us. So that, to me, seems to be an argument for each and all of those countries over the USA. What component of national greatness would fail to show up in citizens' subjective well-being? Do we want national greatness that doesn't improve the perceived well-being of the nation's citizens?
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And not one of them has an aircraft carrier or nuclear submarine.

:cool: Kidding...
 
TuffaloDeac10 said:
Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Canada, Australia, Israel, Finland, Sweden, and New Zealand all report higher life satisfaction than us. So that, to me, seems to be an argument for each and all of those countries over the USA. What component of national greatness would fail to show up in citnizens' subjective well-being? Do we want national greatness that doesn't improve the perceived well-being of the nation's citizens?
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By that logic, Lincoln, Neb., is a greater city than New York City because its people on average have a greater measure of well-being. Clearly New York City can't be the greatest.
 
TuffaloDeac10 said:
Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Canada, Australia, Israel, Finland, Sweden, and New Zealand all report higher life satisfaction than us. So that, to me, seems to be an argument for each and all of those countries over the USA. What component of national greatness would fail to show up in citizens' subjective well-being? Do we want national greatness that doesn't improve the perceived well-being of the nation's citizens?
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And, how is this reported? I can say I am happier than anybody in those countries, so there is that.
 
HuskyDeac said:
Again, it's a question of what you think "greatest" means. If you think "greatest" is most powerful/influential, sure. If you think it means most comfortable/rewarding place to live, I would say no. Many studies done show a number of countries ahead of the US when it comes to "happiness" or quality of life levels. As someone who has traveled to most areas of the world, I would agree that the general happiness I've found in the US exists in many other countries. That said, most Americans wouldn't enjoy those countries because we have different stimulus that make us happy and vice versa for them. I've watched kids kicking a used water bottle as a soccer ball that were having way more fun than the kids who play organized baseball in the park next to where I live.
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I think this is a good post. For instance, going back to New Zealand, if I wasn't so attached to having digital cable, movies, American sports, etc, I think I could totally live there, and it would likely be a very fulfilling life, perhaps more fulfilling than the life I have now. But I'm so Americanized (for lack of a better word), if you plopped me there right now for the rest of my life, I'm not sure how much I would like it.

I haven't traveled to a ton of places, but having spent some time in Sydney, Australia, I still think that might be the most liveable place I've ever been. Housing is expensive, but goddamn that's a great city.
 
Say Hey Deac said:
I think this is a good post. For instance, going back to New Zealand, if I wasn't so attached to having digital cable, movies, American sports, etc, I think I could totally live there, and it would likely be a very fulfilling life, perhaps more fulfilling than the life I have now. But I'm so Americanized (for lack of a better word), if you plopped me there right now for the rest of my life, I'm not sure how much I would like it.

I haven't traveled to a ton of places, but having spent some time in Sydney, Australia, I still think that might be the most liveable place I've ever been. Housing is expensive, but goddamn that's a great city.
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I haven't been to Sydney, but you don't think there are any cities in America that are comparable?
 
one of the things that makes America is great is the diversity of the cities. the differences between New York, Chicago, San Fran, LA, Miami, DC, etc. are pretty broad.
 
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