Depressingly, this is the same logic that keeps Americans from improving anything. Because they're constantly told they live in the best country in the world(TM), Americans are apathetic when it comes to making things better (healthcare, education, poverty rates, incarceration rates, living standards, etc.), because they think it's already "the best".
A great many of my fellow Americans are worse than apathetic. If you point out areas where we can improve, some Americans will actively attack you through accusations of treason and verbal abuse. (Seems to be 10X worse in Texas than any other place I've lived.) It's as if they're willfully trying their best to ensure they won't ever learn anything.
I noticed that this patriotic religion increased and I had a lighthearted mental count going in my head of how many houses had a little US flag in the front yard (in LA, this would be on the other side of the yard as the post telling you which security company would respond to a burglary). It seemed to me that the more patriotic-religiouse areas hit one beflagged house in every 4-5. To be fair, most areas didn't have any flags or rare flags, but when it got to one in five... anyway, this theory was turned on its head when I stayed in a part of Pittsburgh where it was one in five houses that didn't have that little flag...
I've yet to meet an American who didn't think at least one one of these, if not all, were completely broken.
Source: I live in America.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/16/fox-news-poll-america-w...
> I've yet to meet an American who didn't think at least one one of these, if not all, were completely broken.
More importantly, what are any of those people doing about fixing the things that are broken?
The US is a good country and the citizens are indeed well off. We're not trending in a good direction on average and a lot of things need to be fixed, but it's still a very good place to live.
Spend some time looking at the statistics [1] and you'll see that in almost all key areas, America ranks dead-last among developed countries, and is often more comparable to developing countries than developed ones.
Compared to undeveloped countries, you are right, America is a very good place to live for the average Joe on the street. Compared to developed countries, it is not.
The thing, I think, that most of us miss is that, well (and I am in this category too,) most of us think of ourselves as above average.
As Steinbeck said, "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
From my experiences, even just looking at my own feelings, this is absolutely something built into the American culture. I go on like I'm wealthy, and I do own a company with a very high revenue, but profit? what I actually get paid? well, I'm barely above average. But I still see myself as 'above average'
I think this explains most of the very American phenomina of poor folks voting for various policies that disproportionately favor rich folks.
Can you be more specific with your assertions? Linking to a huge dump of statistics and making claims about them is a bit disingenuous. What makes it not good for an 'average joe' compared to developed countries?
Where do you live, might I ask? Have you spent significant time in America?
I've visited Jamaica, Scotland, England, France, Canada, and South Africa and interacted with expats from a number of countries and I've never had the impression that any developed nation would provide me a better quality of life. (Okay, I lie, when it comes to soccer/football, almost any European country would make my life better). In fact, in every country the people I've interacted with have universally complained about the same issues that are fundamentally broken in America (healthcare, immigration, education, etc).
Granted, I am most certainly a privileged American. I'm a white male. I have a masters degree, a job making more than median household income.
tl;dr: I'm not sure why you've decided to champion the cause that America is bad on HN today, certainly America has a lot of issues, but every country does.
Most importantly, how are you trying to fix the areas that are broken? Are you even doing anything towards fixing them?
> Where do you live, might I ask? Have you spent significant time in America?
I'm in Canada these days, I lived a year on the West Coast of the US and a year on the East. I've spent another year driving all around, I've spent time in ~40 states.
> In fact, in every country the people I've interacted with have universally complained about the same issues that are fundamentally broken in America (healthcare, immigration, education, etc).
Right, because they're interested in constant improvement. It doesn't matter how good healthcare in Norway is (brilliant) - it can always be imrpoved upon.
That is the mentality that is lacking in America these days - the drive to constantly improve upon things are sometimes good and sometimes bad.
> I've never had the impression that any developed nation would provide me a better quality of life.
You're OK with more than double the chance of being murdered? or involved in a violent crime? You're fine with double the chance your kids or their friends will be born into poverty? You're happy your child is massively more likely to be obese and have serious medical complications because of that? How about incarceration rates? How about police violence rates? Student debt? (you don't even realize you graduate into servitude)
If you're happy, that's great. Other countries do it better.
I know several Americans who think those are all in fine shape. They tend to be Republicans living in places like Arizona. I don't meet a lot of people like that in Los Angeles, but they really do exist.
No 'republican' around here is happy with anything, everything is broken and it's all Obama's fault. :)
Seriously, his belief in individual liberty lead to sharp disagreements with his party on abortion, gay rights and drug laws, with the result that by the 1990s he was endorsing and voting for Democrats over Republicans.
And this is still my favorite clip from a TV show- somewhat related. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MYjyLg8bbo
disclaimer: I'm an American Citizen.
So this is why there is no innovation in America? We are all culturally caught up in tradition and taught in such a rote manner that we can't innovate? You should see the caste system we have -- inflexible tradition all the way!
I dunno, I don't have particularly clear examples, but as an outsider, Americans used to have a reputation as having a real can-do attitude, but recently it seems to have... attenuated? More content to fiddle while Rome burns?
I think this rhetoric is a lot more wide spread than just the United States of America.