User blog comment:Stareh/'MURICA!/@comment-1839575-20130422012943

Okay, here's my take on things. Yes, it's great to have pride in your country - but really, most of these 'positives' don't seem like it to me.

I'm not even sure why independance is something Americans value so highly, because other countries function fine without it. Canada. Australia. New Zealand. The UK itself. America is not the brainiacs who got a spaceship onto the moon first - that was actually the Soviets with the Luna 2. (The Soviets also launched the first satellite and got the first human into space). The Americans got the first PEOPLE on the moon, so be precise with your wording because it's important (and also frankly sounds more impressive). I'm not sure what 'unbelievable amount of rights' you're talking about, because America shares most of its rights with other first-world western nations - and you're missing some we have, such as the right to free health-care. If you mean the right to bear arms... well that's just dumb (and taken out of context, as well). Also, "we're the ones in the army"? Is that supposed to mean that America are the only people who fight? Because that's also not true. Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, to name but a few, have all rallied to America's side in your wars.

But if the positives you mentioned weren't entirely accurate, neither were the negatives. 9/11, for a start, is most certainly not the fault of America. The extended retaliation that is still occurring might be a little OTT, but Australia is fighting with you, so I won't complain. It's not even the single crazies who massacre people that the rest of the world finds bad about America. It's the lack of response to them. In the constitution, it actually says "every man has the right to bear arms against the Government." That last part is always conveniently left out of arguments. All that sentence means is that your citizens have the right to fight back against their Government. They don't have to lie down and be steam-rollered over like citizens in China, for example. They have the right to say to the Government "no, that's wrong" and the right to hold picket signs and protest if they so choose.

It doesn't mean they should have the right to kill innocents. Honestly, I can only see three things wrong with America. The trouble is that they are all massive things. Your country needs a health system, your country needs a better justice system, and your country needs to lose the guns.

With that achieved, all the other, wonderful, protective, achieving, ambitious, scientific, entertaining, fair parts of America will no longer be overshadowed by the bad, and that is when people in other countries will start saying "Wow, look at America. I want to live there."