The greatest nation on earth

[panamaican]

This is solid logic that I can get behind.

ALL HAIL BHUTAN!!!!!

Land of Dragon statues and dark nippled women!!!

Seals the deal for me. :icon_twis

 

[quietwalker]

Apparently, all US politicians, left or right, are unable to conclude a speech or political discussion of major relevance without referring to the US as "the greatest nation on earth". The omnipresence of this notion is stunning. Leaving out the superlative (and only speaking of a great nation or a nation to be proud of or a particularly great nation etc) seems to be suspect, its outright denial would probably not only end a political career but trigger a myriad of hate mail.

As I am not American I am genuinely interested: What is this claim based upon.

I was just in Upstate NY last weekend and i can tell you that it must be excluded from the sum total if you want to call America the greatest nation on Earth. It's like one giant Walmart down there.

 

[Asmitt09]

There is no one greatest nation. There's a bunch that are really about the same to live in that are all excellent for different reasons depending on your prefences.

As someone who grew up in middle America there's a lot of USA ass-kissery and a lot of this I think formed from the getting support for WWII and during the cold war when we we're trying to outdo the soviets and has just stuck around.

We are certainly a military superpower (I don't think this makes us the greatest place to live though) and economically the most significant country with China. Certainly many other countries play a significant role but our market is so large and buys so much shit that we're essential.

 

[KillVille]

Plenty of people getting trolled ITT.

 

[Rusk]

that just shows how socially backward US is

 

[m0353]

Middle Earth
They got wizards, Olyphants, orcs, elvs and stuff.

 

[jstnslby]

Innovaytion, freedom, willingness to help. The U. S. is by far the greatest nation on the planet earth, however we do have our faults.

 

[D3thr0n3d K1ng]

I was just in Upstate NY last weekend and i can tell you that it must be excluded from the sum total if you want to call America the greatest nation on Earth. It's like one giant Walmart down there.

The rest of the US is pretty much the same.

 

[Kanster]

Russia helped more during WWII than America.

 

[zackryder]

Because America saved the world in WWII.

Without us we'd all be speaking German and at least half the planet would just be blue-eyed, blonde-haired assholes.

As payment, the rest of the world has to kiss our asses for at least another century.

nope

hitler made a critical error in attacking stalingrad during the cold russian winter
german tanks were immobilized & thus the reds marched on. america was not needed (more of an overkill). we did speed up and ended the war faster

Because the US has the largest scope of influence , and lately to me it seems most people from outside the US either love or hate us

this

america was the most powerful country and have interests all around the world

 

[Kophens**]

The Condomnation

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Apparently, all US politicians, left or right, are unable to conclude a speech or political discussion of major relevance without referring to the US as "the greatest nation on earth". The omnipresence of this notion is stunning. Leaving out the superlative (and only speaking of a great nation or a nation to be proud of or a particularly great nation etc) seems to be suspect, its outright denial would probably not only end a political career but trigger a myriad of hate mail.

As I am not American I am genuinely interested: What is this claim based upon.

These notions have been around since the founding of the US. The "city on a hill" shit, Manifest Destiny, American exceptionalism, etc.

http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2003c/081503/081503t.htm

http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2006/06/american-destiny-and-providentialism-i.html

They all revolve around the same issues: the US has some sort of natural or celestial duty to be the most powerful on Earth.

Even the most liberal commentators like Michael Moore and Jon Stewart fall into this nationalistic cheerleading. And obviously the conservatives have this as the centerpiece of their platform.

 

[NHB7]

TS, I would much prefer they state it as you say, "We are a great nation" or "We have done great things as a nation" but I've never liked the "We are the greatest" which I feel comes across pretentious and grandiose. Furthermore, when we convince ourselves we are so great we are without flaw, we don't develop or grow. It reminds me of Fox News pretending endlessly that Romney had a sure victory to the point that conservative voters didn't go out and vote in a winnable election.

 

[AGGAMEMNON66]

Russia helped more during WWII than America.

Everyone repeating this over and over endlessly has no fucking idea what they are talking about.

America also beat the shit out if Japan as well, to go along with what we helped do in Africa and Europe.

 

[Kanster]

Don't care.

 

[HunterSdVa29]

Economically a prime force? The USA has a huge debt. And fairly high unemployment.
Culturally? Just a matter of opinion really. But the USA has huge crime rates, every moron can buy a gun. Those are things a lot of people dislike about the USA.

I'm not saying the USA isn't a great country, but let's not pretend it's the best place in the world to live, because it's not objectively true.

This really isn't an opinion. US culture dominates the world, like to an absurd degree. People throughout the world know who our President is, know who are actors/singers/athletes are. With the exception of Bollywood, no other country really even has a self sustaining Movie industry, at least nowhere to the degree that America does in that is exported to other countries. France/Italy/Korea/UK have them, but there's a reason why like the top 50 grossing movies ever are American, and it's not like it's only Americans that watch them. Every industrialized country in the world airs US TV shows, and/or has their own country's BS version. Conversely, the only other country that has TV programs/channels broadcasted like that is the UK w/ BBC. Our fast food chains are present everywhere, minus the poorest third world countries. US clothing brands are prevelent t/o the world, etc.... In terms of culture propagated worldwide, it's the US and then probably the UK like 03093842804832 steps below, and that's pretty much it.

Also, yes the US is still dominant economically. Having a huge debt doesn't change the fact that are GDP/GNP are still the highest in the world, w/ only China even being close. Yes, the income gap is huge, and unemployment is relatively high, but the country as a whole is wealthy.

I just spent three years living in Europe, and the 'hated/jealousy' of the US is overexaggerated. I think the fact that Americas are so egocentric is why we get hated sometimes, tbh. Foreigners know about the US (celebrities/athletes/President/cities), but Americans don't know shit about other countries. I'm willing to guarantee that the vast majority of Americans don't know the political leaders of Canada or Mexico, the two countries on our border. That's embarrassing.

 

[djacobox372]

Um.. Soviet Union was clearly the most important player along with the British and US. Not sure where you learned your history but I suggest you read up on it. Russia took the brunt of the German elite and most of the other countries were in the war far longer than the US.

American played a large part but brushing off the other forces just sounds like you've been brainwashed or something.

Russia was defending itself on it's own soil... that's a little different than crossing an ocean to invade the enemy on their turf; while at the same time fighting a war in the pacific as well.

 

[Sir Galahad]

 

[AGGAMEMNON66]

Russia was defending itself on it's own soil... that's a little different than crossing an ocean to invade the enemy on their turf; while at the same time fighting a war in the pacific as well.

After reading through alot of this thread, its pointless to try and get people to wrap their minds around that point. Russian geography and climate combined with German underestimation and lack of preperation for such things killed more Germans than the Russian military did. And lol @ 'Russian military' during that war. For fucksakes half the time their soldiers were so ill-equiped that they had to pry a rifle out of a dead commrades hands because they could barely field a standing army.. and halle-fucking-lujah if the rifle they picked up happened to have ammo in it.


America, England/Britian, and Russia all had a hand in winning WWII. But I would give the Russians the least amount of credit; they were invaded, spent most of the time back pedaling and getting fucked up until Germany got too far into their territory to safely keep their supply lines running consistantly -and of course fighting a War on several fronts at this point after the US joined in the fight and helped Britian get back on its feet.

I give Britian the most credit overall as even before we got militarily involved they were still putting up a fight against the Germans (single handedly at one point as Germany and Russia were semi allied) were able to maintain an effective navy, a semblence of air superiority and were never truly invaded on their homeland despite getting fucking bombed back into the stone age.

I think the US would have to get credit as the most important factor; we supplied the UK before we ever got involved or declared, when we did enter the war we were able to take on a 3rd of ther Axis pretty much on our own in Japan while simultainiously joining up with the UK and some others on the western front to lend out troops to some of the most important and decisive battles in WWII forcing the Germans to fight the war on multiple fronts -and of course, our ability to provide undisturbed industry and supply throughout the war was most likely our single most valuable contribution as we were able to out mass produce Germany, Italy and Japan combined on our own with our workforces back home to help keep the allies supplied with anything they needed.

The Russians fought their asses off at some points in the war for sure, but they also most likely had the worst leadership out of all the major countries fighting on both sides, were vastly undersupplied and the rest of the Allies literally had to stop and fucking wait for Russia to get to Germany so we could finalize the invasion lol (for political reasons we did not invade without them, but we easily could have and been just fine as all that was left guarding Germany by then were scared children and worn out old men)

 

[Err]

^ What do you mean "waiting for Russia", the US was racing the USSR to Berlin and they lost. And numbers wise, in terms of casualties inflicted to the Axis powers on the Western and Eastern fronts, its not even comparable. Because of the Soviets the Americans and Brits had to fight 5 million less people.