Really? I've never once, despite living in the EU for my entire life (in various countries), heard anyone claim the country they live is anything like "the land of the free".
I know more about UK & Ireland than others, but it's not hard to find other countries similar. France's national anthem ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Marseillaise ) is a song about overthrowing tyranny, the national motto of France is "Liberty, Freedom, Fraternity" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libert%C3%A9,_%C3%A9galit%C3%A9... ).
All countries claim to be the best.
Every country has people in it believing that, and songs accordingly. It is called nationalism, which is more common in some countries then others. If you would say those thinks over here, people would suspect you being a nazi.
This "America is the greatest country on earth"-slogan is pretty specific for the USA. It is so typical that it became a klischee, we call it "american pathos". It is the same category like beauty queens wishing world peace in a country leading two wars. It is the movie independence day with a american president being a jet fighter fighting aliens and saving the world, once again, and us thinking that this fits to the image the USA has of itself. It is right-wing nationalism as a political party (republicans) and 24h on tv (Fox News). It is "god bless america".
And there are those american politicians saying things like "we are the greatest country in the world" and "the land of the free". No other country has that, at least no democratic one and not with the same prevalence, to my knowing.
It is hybris, because in many objective ways, america is the worst countries in the world. Poverty, education, leading wars, prison system, death sentences, amount of guns per capita, killing and abduction of foreign civilians, torture of prisoners, broken democratic system, religious fanatism. No other country fails in so many ways so high, not even your beloved rogue states.
PS: Doesn't mean there are only bad parts, there are even great ones.
PPS: Your examples, "mother of all parliaments" and the tyranny-overthrowal in France, relates to historical events and facts. That is something else than a broad generic claim.
You say this is hubris, but you fail to mention that in many if not more objective ways America is the greatest country in the world. It has the largest amount of wealthy people, the largest amount of educated people, it has freed an entire continent of war, its justice system covers and protects an enormous amount of people, it holds individual rights to a very high standard, it is the largest true democracy in the world.
Then we haven't even mentioned the results of that great economy it has. It presents the world with a dazzling amount of technological progress, from computers to medicine. The fruits of american science have increased the quality of life and longetivity of a vast majority of people on this planet.
There's some subjective stuff too. It has in my opinion the greatest cultural industry, it produces the most impressive books, movies, music, paintings, whatever you like you're bound to find an expert in the US.
Yes guantanamo bay is a black mark on the US's grey slate, but it doesn't immediately disqualify it as a great state of this world.
One could argue about specifics. I agree more with your subjective part - i like many american movies and series, but i would disagree with the high standards of individual rights (that was maybe true in the period after the communist-hunt and before 9/11, though) and the true democracy (for one, a true democracy in a literal meaning, according to my education, is a direct one, and the usa has many issues with its democracy like the needed money for becoming a successful candidate to qualify as a true democracy in the strictes sense, even if we count a non-direct one as such).
> (As a Dutch person I believe The Netherlands is the greatest country of the world)
Why would you do that? For real now. It is highly unlikely that exactly the country one comes from is the greatest, bestestest, whatever, in total or only in any way.
As another dutch person, I don't agree with that. This isn't the greatest country overall by any stretch of the imagination. The problem is that for every axis that you come up with some things will be better, others will be worse. No country wins on all points.
>Why would you do that? For real now. It is highly unlikely that exactly the country one comes from is the greatest, bestestest, whatever, in total or only in any way.
No need to be so rational. I happen to have grown up in a way that's enabled by only a few countries in the world for which I am extremely grateful. I am sure you could be as happy in any other country.
Uhm, really? As another Dutch person I now suspect you to be a member of some extreme rightwing ideology (PVV?) because no sane Dutch person I've ever known would say such an absurd thing.
Also, viewing your country as great has nothing to do with rightwing ideology. I do not for a second think that past immigration laws have done anything to degrade The Netherlands as a great country.
Also, immigration laws (PVV's main issue) have nothing to do with rightwing ideology, it is merely associated with it due to conservationists often being right wing. Hitler for example was famous for his dislike of immigrants and also was a leftist.
Also, please don't post dumb assumptions over other peoples ideologies on public websites..
The nsdap had a left, socialist wing. Most of the members of that wing were executed, which is a good indicatior on how much Hitler himself agreed with them. He himself didn't had many political views one could describe as left, that there are similarities in the methods is mainly a coincidence. Your linked article is plainly wrong in that regard, the nationalization of industries for example didn't really happen after the Kapital agreed to cooperate (and ideologically, nationalization of industries in a facist regime is something else entirely than in a communist one).
For a good article about the subject, read http://www.h-ref.de/organisationen/nsdap/nazis-sozialisten.p.... Anyway, I don't think we should discuss this any further here, it is OT.
In fact that song I've thought was a good snapshot of where we (the US) are right now.