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>>>>Don't you realize how insufferable it is to the rest of the world when Americans go around declaring themselves the best country? It would be hard enough to take even if they agreed with that opinion. And according to surveys I have seen recently they emphatically do not agree. The U.S. is viewed as a greater threat to world peace than Al Qaeda.
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>>>Sure I do. But, I am merely stating a fact. By any measure, the US is the greatest country in the history of the world. If you disagree, tell me which country is greater. I'm not bragging, just stating a fact. Additionally, it's not like you or I had anything to do with it, so I'm not being egocentric, I'm just stating the obvious. If that bothers people, so be it. I feel blessed to have been born here.
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>>Mike's right. It does piss people off. Generally I admire the US and her people but when they make statements like that, and/or how they saved civilisation's @ass, I have my reservations.
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>>You're right to feel blessed to have been born there, as most of us in the West do, when compared with Somalia, Ethiopia, the Sudan, The Balkans, the poor of China, the poor of India, et al, et al
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>>It's not obvious to us - only to you! You, yourself, working as a cop in Tennessee, should have your reservations about the USA being "best". How about a country with negligible crime, for a start?
>
>Terry, why don't we simply let these people believe that they are best. We, who know better, can just laugh at them and with them. For some reason ignorant people often seem happier.

Hi Tore

Well, their country MAY be best but they have nothing to judge it by. I won't actually say I know better - I may be better off in the USA than here, I don't know. I certainly would have a higher standard of living, possessions-wise, but quality of life???? I live on the S coast, where I have to search around for a job. I could walk into one, maybe, in London. But I couldn't bear to live and work there, or commute to there. So lower std. of living here but higher quality of life. Now, in Canada, or the States, I would miss being able to walk to any of 20 of my favourite pubs (not mentioning the rest that I don't care about, or have never visited!). I would miss the ease of catching a bus, to be out on the Sussex Downs within minutes of leaving home, the better TV, etc.

It's all to do with what is important to you. Where I live I wouldn't say it's the best place in Britain to live - but I don't know of anywhere better. It is so with the Americans. Difference is I don't brag about where I live or how much money I have, etc.