Is America really “The greatest country in the world?”

[Shandris]

23. In some ways, we are a great country. In some others, we are not.

There is -no- country that has it 'right', but there are more than a handful fighting to be as good as they can get with the majority of differences being minor squabbles, idioms, and disagreements over the best methods of implementation.

I think anyone who thinks America is horrible is an outright idiot, as is anyone who thinks we are 'the greatest' with no equivocation or clarification as to a category they think we're 'the greatest' in. I think we are in danger of being eclipsed by our own mythology and heading down a very dark path if we're not careful, though. I think there's still some time to turn that around, but that time is getting shorter and shorter.

So no, we're not the greatest. We are among the better countries, however. And we, like every other First-world country, have a lot of things wrong still but they are minor slices of life compared to the second- or third-world countries. For instance, we have some problems with sexism, but we aren't watching the Stoning of Soraya M. happen in downtown Indianapolis, either. It's a matter of degree.