MSD

I'm not egotistical enough to say that we're the absolute best, but we're partying on the top floor with the big guys.

Some of my big plusses
-I'm free to practice any religion (or in my case, lack thereof) without the government telling me I can't.
-I'm free to criticize the government in pretty much any non-threatening way I want, and they cannot legally stop me unless I'm violating the rights of others (although there is a frightening trend of declining freedom of speech, we do not have laws in place forbidding our media from criticizing the Royal Family, nor do we have a Royal Family. I see this as a good thing.)
-I'm free to arm myself for the purposes of defending myself against any threat from any source, as long as I am able to pass basic competency tests. This is more than can be said for much of the world.
-If I work hard, I can get an education, begin a sucessful career, and live comfortably with the wealth I have earned.


I know there are downsides, and I'm not the type to be blinded by flag-waving and chants of "We're number one!" so I'll list a few major negatives
-We have begun to display an alarming trend of sliding back into the puritanical pit from which we emerged. We are far behind Europe in social openness and tolerance
-We still allow the views of traditionalist religious groups to take precedence over our guarantees of equality, and deny full legal protection to some who are looked down on by these traditionalists.
-Our public education system is in serious need of a complete overhaul in order to bring us up to speed with the rest of the developed world. When only 27% of the country believes in evolution and over 60% think that creationism should be taught in schools, there's a problem. There's also the estimated 30%+ illeteracy rate.
-We still allow human rights abuses in our own country, and we do not take human rights into consideration when choosing foreign trading partners.
-Contrary to what the two sides of the political spectrum tell you, our monopolized media is dominated mainly by a self-interested bias, and does not provide us with an accurate representation of what is really happening.
-Until we make drastic changes, we are stuck with a national two-party political system, with third parties rarely appearing on anything above the local scale. Like the media, these parties are solely self-interested and do not represent the people.


As for the original article, it reeks of pro-EU bias, and I understand, although I don't quite completely agree with, the poster who called the author a Communist (I think that Socialist would be more appropriate, and that's still an ideology that I disagree with.)