>> that is what they teach (or at lest did when I was a kid) in the schools here. America is the greatest, America is the land of the free...
I "get" the whole American Exceptionalism theme. However, there are other successful nations out there. Germany, for example, was absolutely trashed in WWII but came back to be a European powerhouse. Ditto Japan. Both of them obviously have lessons about rising from adversity.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
