What makes America a great country?
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GAMBIT (
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April 1st, 2009
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29 Answers
Mindless, flag waving, patriotic, bigoted, morons.~
@ABoyNamedBoobs03 – I don’t think it is perfect but I think it has some good qualities.
The fact that we could finally get rid of Bush and elect an Obama without a bloody revolution.
Also, the number of immigrant groups who have come to this country and made a life here. Our diversity is a big part of our greatness.
@The_unconservative_one – I’m trying to understand your post. It is the morons who make this country great because they are mindless flag waving patriots?
@seVen – Yes and hopefully the Constitution will always be upheld.
Sarcasm good people, sarcasm. My point was that those people are the opposite of what makes a country great.
@janbb – Tolerance of dissent without hate, that is what makes America great.
In a word, possibility. The genius of America’s core structure is that it only requires its people to sign on to a few core principles, and leaves it at that. What constitutes “American-ness” is purposely left open, and therein lies the gift of possibility.
Much of our political discord revolves around this question of how narrowly to define our national identity. Are there degrees of “American-ness” when other cultures are brought into the mix? Does an American necessarily speak English? Is America a Christian nation? Is America synonymous with a particular economic model? Does sexual orientation determine one’s possibilities?
My personal take on this is that we pay a heavy price whenever we attempt to impose a more rigid concept of American-ness. The clearer our idea of what a “true American” looks like, sounds like, believes or has intercourse with, the smaller we have become, because possibilities have been walled off.
Because we are free to converse on a site like Fluther.
Because women are not treated as possessions and can dress as they please.
Because we are free to not follow a church or doctrine or to follow one without prosecution.
Because we are able to have a gun.
Because we can question our govenment and criticize our leaders without fear of becoming a prisoner.
Because we have clean water to drink.
Because food is abundant.
Because we have a judicial system that , while not perfect, is still better than many other countries.
Because we have decent roads to drive on and signals and safety rails.
Because there is public transportation.
Because builders are made to follow a safety standard to protect the inhabitants.
America is not perfect but we can all support change. In my opinion the biggest problem with our great nation is the apathy of people who would rather complain then actively support change.
The built in ability to change and adapt society based on the ideals we value.
Capital built up over the course of two centuries (tapped out).
Printing the undisputed champion of reserve currencies (for how much longer?).
Cheap oil (no more).
Cheap credit (no more).
Cheap foreign labor (hello permanent underclass).
The Big Stick (on the road to getting tapped out).
All that civics stuff (in peril from “public safety/order” & “homeland security” culture)
as far as greatness, I don’t know if I’d go so far. Our pure size and population is what still mainstains our massive output and consumption of goods. But comparitively speaking, we are a much better nation than many others. There are things the USA still does better than anyone else, and there are things that everyone else does better than us. So I think it’s balanced much more than it was in say 1900 or 1950.
As far as I know…America is not a Country! is a continent!! and YES is great!!
@masterlui – America is a country – North America is a continent.
@Dog – impeccable answer! You ROCK!!
RE: Sarcasm: Be sure to look for the Tilde, people
I am finding that many of the answers thus far do not constitute ‘greatness’ by my understanding of the term. For something to be ‘great’ should it not be notable when compared to it’s alternatives? Despite this most of the qualities that have been mentioned are also elements within many other societies (some of which have arguably improved on them). Even the mention of the democratic ideals outlined within the US constitution do not strike me as particularly significant due to almost every modern society possessing similar legal principles.
Assuming the term ‘country’ is referring to the US society and culture rather than the literal country there are a few traits which I believe make such ‘great’ dependant upon the person experiencing them.
Is my definition of ‘greatness’ too narrow?
@Nially_Bob I think we tend to forget what an incredibly radical experiment America was. If other countries have built on its model and advanced it, that’s a tribute to the success of that experiment.
I’ll be the first to say that we’ve done a poor job of living up to our potential. I chalk that up to our placing so much emphasis on individual responsibility that we’ve come to devalue collective action; we’re not very good at using our institutions for the collective good.
But that’s not a structural flaw. The country’s constitutional foundations aren’t preventing us from realizing our potential, our own selfishness and lack of vision are. That’s why I said that our greatness lies in the possibility that America offers. What we do with that possibility is up to us.
“Our power depends on the strength of our freedom,
our glory depends on us all, on us all.”
-The Power and the Glory, Phil Ochs (R.I.P.)
@Harp my friend, by no means do I wish to degrade or devalue the American culture or society, frankly I find both quite fascinating. But what I dislike is that when discussing matters such as the finer aspects of said culture and society so great an emphasis is frequently placed on matters which I believe the US cannot be considered responsible for. Some societies have built on American models of legislation creation and so such, for that matter on a cultural level many societies have imitated typical American commercialism but that which is most commonly mentioned as being specifically ‘American’ are things such as democratic ideals (Outlined and created by Roman law, the Magna Carta, and there were even ancient civilisations which laid the seeds of the typically ‘liberated’ civilisations we live amongst today. When the US constitution was fully implemented there were already some international legal systems which held to similar principles, for that matter much of the present-day American judicial system is derived from British common law), the freedom to voice ones opinions (See: France) and the strong national identity associated with upholding peace and justice (most strong empires throughout history). These are not special traits held by the American culture as exemplified in the bracketed editions to my text. What is unique to the US is criteria which I believe to be often overlooked: The shared social experience of a crowd in a baseball stadium, shopping malls, that quirky American friendliness, these things may seem trivial to some but having never lived in the US but experienced them I can honestly state that they are something to appreciate.
In answer to your comment regarding Americas potential, few entities, human or otherwise, reach their potential. However it is not in reaching but in how a creature tries to reach that it is defined.
@Nially_Bob It’s true that the founders drew on many historical ideas, some of which had been implemented in the past and some of which had remained on the drawing board of past political philosophers. The writings of John Locke were tremendously influential and were a century old at the time of the drafting of the constitution, but this was the first time that some of these ideas had ever been actualized. Locke’s notions that the authority to govern derives only from the consent of the governed, that the government’s raison d’etre was to guarantee the rights of the governed, and that the relationship between the government and the governed was contractual, these had never before been codified and used as the basis of representational democracy.
I don’t say this in a chest-beating sort of way. America didn’t invent democracy. The founders simply picked and chose from among the best political thought of the ages and pieced it together in a unique and remarkably robust way.
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