The quality of being "great" is a term that broadly implies that something is infallible and indefatigable in its existence. I don't think America is the greatest place on Earth, but I do believe it is a
better place than other environments I could be living in for the long run, as long as I live. You might interject that I don't have the hardships that you might have in your communities or elsewhere in inner cities where education is down-trodden and social living conditions are poor, but alas we are talking about the global perspective of what could make the USA the greatest country right now. From that perspective I will point out some key things worth mentioning from my knowledge.
Our health care system is something people will look at and say is totally broken; I'll partially agree to that. However, our medical research and quality of care is the best in the world, barring costs and insurance policies. Someone I know had a malignant baseball shaped tumor in his chest and had a nationally-recognized surgeon to open up his chest, take it out, and check the rest of his innards by hand to find other cancerous growths, after conducting biopsies of his lymph nodes months in advance to figure out just how much his cancer spread and doing several rounds of chemotherapy. He is vacationing up in Michigan three months after his surgery and doing all sorts of physical activity like kayaking and what not. Thanks to his insurance policy he was able to get it paid for, but also he had the support of years of honed medical practice and expertise to extend his life. I don't think other people in 3rd world countries have that same advantage of life-saving medicine, and for that reason alone, I think maybe it is worth nominating that the US' knowledge of medicine is the greatest in the world. Now, is the cost of medicine reasonable in the US compared to other countries? By and large, not at all when healthcare is free or nearly-free in countries like Canada or France. This is a significant problem we will have to fix in the next few years, because it has serious implications for the US in the long term if we do not change the laws for how we do health care in this country.
Besides our global leadership in medicine, we are probably the strongest in technology and innovation. That means R&D in all sorts of industries the US might be involved with. Recently, people are saying that we are losing our cutting edge in technology to Asian countries such as South Korea or China. Samsung of South Korea rivals our native Apple Inc. in the smartphone market and holds lots of ground in LCD/OLED R&D used in HDTVs, tablets, and phones. We concede that expertise because they've taken the lead on that field. China mass-produces lots of our consumable goods, because the US does not have the same industrial manufacturing capabilities, not to mention the same amount of disregard on the environmental damage on pollution or working conditions. In most Chinese manufacturing towns such as the one Foxconn (manufacturer of iPhones/iPads etc.) is located in, thousands of young Chinese people wake up every day in the same company dormitory to go to work building consumer products for 12 hours at a time. That is what a lot of Chinese people look forward to in the pragmatic sense in their lives. I will reiterate again that the US is still the impetus for these particular working lifestyles in other countries worldwide and our consumer market dictates what will be built in foreign countries where the living conditions we take for granted are not guaranteed by any means.
Now China, on current matters regarding innovation & technology, is trying to catch up to what we have been doing for decades. Regardless of how they have accomplished building their next battleship or stealth fighter, they are limited by lots of glaring social problems that are prevalent in their country. Niketalk, how many of you would honestly feel motivated to wake up every day and manufacture the same part for some high-tech weapon if your family cannot afford to send your kid to the best local university and live in some shanty apartment surrounded by millions of the same kind of people? It is research-proven by neurologists and sociologists on any sort of magnitude that creativity & innovation are intangible skills that cannot develop when one is under stress. Many of our brightest scientists, engineers, or physicians do not come from the slums of some manufacturing town; they come from a nice family suburban home where they are given the freedom to pursue hobbies, ideas, and learn from unique experiences. Can anyone name a similar Asian college that rivals the combined innovative output from institutions such as Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Ohio State (had to thrown in my college
), etc.?
I will conclude by addressing some of the cynical points of views on the US: social freedom is an ongoing process that does not often have a definitive means to an end. We are not going to absolve the lack of proper education funding for the poorest American communities overnight, and we are not going to be able to provide everyone with a family practitioner they can rely on for proper health advice. Above all, we are being more cognizant of the political problems that are interfering with the US' progress in life, but as a people, we need to ACT and LEAD on these issues rather than sit back and wait for someone else to take the initiative. For years we have been great at doing this, and I think we are still capable of greatness if we take the more informed paths in our endeavors.
