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View Poll Results: Is America Number one, any more?
Yes 26 44.07%
No 33 55.93%
viva la mexico 0 0%
Voters: 59. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 06-30-2012, 02:41 PM   #1 (permalink)
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Is America number one?

The Newsroom - YouTube

I thought this was a pretty interesting statement.
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Old 06-30-2012, 04:27 PM   #2 (permalink)
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I agree with everything he said. I just wish he ended it with..."But it can be." Like the sign. That was awesome.
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Old 06-30-2012, 04:59 PM   #3 (permalink)
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I don't know.

But not being #1 in literacy or #1 in infant mortality, etc. does not make you the #1 country in the world. It's the totality of it all.

Okay, so the US isn't the #1 country in the world, "anymore," fine. So...which country is?
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Old 06-30-2012, 05:11 PM   #4 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianAlt View Post
Okay, so the US isn't the #1 country in the world, "anymore," fine. So...which country is?
What do you value?
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Old 06-30-2012, 05:34 PM   #5 (permalink)
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We're still the most powerful right now. China is gaining and may pass us soon.

Finding a replacement for oil would be such a huge game changer, though. Right now we are in a competition for resources, and if we had a renewable source of energy that let us maintain our lifestyle, then we become less dependent on other countries and our whole political landscape changes so much that I don't know what country would be number 1.
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Old 06-30-2012, 06:00 PM   #6 (permalink)
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The "but it could be" part of that video is vital to this discussion unless it's just going to be another joke. If this thread just turns into America-bashers vs Jingoists it might be fun to watch but it'll mean jack. Even if America isn't genuinely #1 per se, it's not anywhere near as bad as the bashers try to make out and there sure as fuck isn't any other country that could legitimately be considered anywhere close to perfect. The US is at least top 10 in terms of the best countries in which to live. Most likely comfortably top 5 even. That makes it top 5-2.5% at worst. There's nothing wrong with that.
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Old 06-30-2012, 06:30 PM   #7 (permalink)
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So...which country is?
When I saw this video, I was like "he is right". Then I thought what you stated there, if the US is not then which country is? It almost seams like there is a 15 way tie for number 1.
If we had a free for all war between every country, I think the US would be top 3 for sure. But that is only one aspect of being a great country.
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Old 06-30-2012, 08:29 PM   #8 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Bucho View Post
What do you value?
The things I value are personal to me. When you talk about countries it's an aggregate of everyone's morals, abilities, intelligence. And negative things too: stupidity, crime, exploitation.

So if you're saying that what I value is what will make that decision, I think I agree with you. Which is what makes this such a subjective discussion.

To be clear, I'm not attacking or defending the sentiment of the video. I think it's possible, perhaps likely, that the US is not #1. And I ask seriously, then who is?
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Old 06-30-2012, 10:21 PM   #9 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianAlt View Post
The things I value are personal to me. When you talk about countries it's an aggregate of everyone's morals, abilities, intelligence. And negative things too: stupidity, crime, exploitation.

So if you're saying that what I value is what will make that decision, I think I agree with you. Which is what makes this such a subjective discussion.

To be clear, I'm not attacking or defending the sentiment of the video. I think it's possible, perhaps likely, that the US is not #1. And I ask seriously, then who is?
Yeah, when it comes to countries it's an aggregate of those things and the things Sorkin has Jeff Daniels list in the video. So for the closest thing to a serious "objective" answer you can find you'd probably need to look into a few of those Standards/Quality Of Living surveys that various think tanks do fairly regularly, where they take all of those things and weigh them into as cohesive a whole as possible. But even those studies seem to disagree with each other on the specific rankings. In a general sense some Scandanavian countries seem to have the highest quality of life but those convict bastards in Australia and those hockey thugs to your north are often placed first, second or third too. My earlier point was that the US is almost always in the top 10 with these things, which, given that there are over 200 nations, is the top 5%, and when you're in that top bracket my feeling is they're probably fairly interchangeable.

Of course the main use of these studies is to give people the opportunity to miss the point of them so they can get offended and dismiss the findings of the survey out of hand because it doesn't mesh with that particular individual's point-of-view.

Another thing for non-Americans to remember is that while Denmark or Australia may be the #1 on those lists, a good deal of their quality of life may be due to the products and actions of America. It may not be America in the top slot, but whoever is is at least partially standing on the shoulders of a giant.
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Old 06-30-2012, 11:23 PM   #10 (permalink)
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If you don't think America is #1, get the fuck out of the country! Plus you're probably a mooslym terrorist.

You only need to look at the fact that there is South America, North America, and then the real America. That's right, number fucking ONE!
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