Not to sound like a typical arrogant American prick, I think America is a great country and am proud I was born a poor dumb white boy in America, I would have perfered to have been born a rich white boy in America, but over all it's a great country in my opinion. Having said that, based on the criteria used for this list, I'm kind of surprised that America ranked as high as it did.
When I was a kid, the majority of my teachers were really passionate about teaching us and actually had that attitude that they were doing their part in making the world a better place by educating the children. We had sports, art, theatre and music classes, wood, metal, electric and auto shop, home economics and horticulture classes, and much more. The teachers for the most part were passionate about what they taught us. Yes, they would complain about not making a lot of money, but they did what they did because they loved the children and as I said, feeling felt a passion about teaching. Today, most teachers are about the money. Gone is the teachers passion for teaching; replaced by greed and a sense of self-serving that the kids today can see. I'm not saying every teacher is like this, but a big enough majority that the level of education in America has really fallen. Gone are rapidilly falling by the way side is all the art type classes and even sports are starting to disappear from many schools because they don't have the budget. Although they have the budget to keep giving the teachers and administrators more and more money to provide less and less education. I know people that can barely read that have their high scholl diploma. That's sad and unfortunately, that's what education in America has come to.
America probably has the best health care in the world! IF you can afford it! Isn't that sad, in a country that has so many of the worlds best doctors and the technology is clearly there, but is only available to part of the populations. Their are millions of people in America that, other than emergent care, can't afford to see a doctor, and even when they do, recieve a sub standard level of care. I'm sorry, that's shameful.
Quality of life.. Yea, overall, I think Americans enjoy a better quality of life than other countries, but then again, quality of life is again in direct correlation to the amount of money you have. But, i do have to say, what Americans think of as the basics in life, our homes, tvs, ect, is alot higher than many other countries. Not that its either good or bad. Im just saying.
Economics, were in a recession right now, like much of the world, but overall, Americas ability to generate products and to generate wealth is tremendous. Too bad our willingness to spread the wealth doesn't campare to our ability to generate it. The rich get richier and the poor get poorier may not be exclusively American, but it does describe our economic structre fairly well.
Political ... Im not even going there right now.
So as I said, I believe America to be one of the greatest countries in the world, but as I said, based on the criteria of this list, I am surprised we rated as high as we did.
:-(
