USA Exceptionalism

The Phactor likes the USA as much as anyone, it has come good qualities and some good opportunities, some in education, but you try not to let that feeling blind you to its obvious faults and even the decline of some of these good things, like education.  As this recent election demonstrated, anyone who doesn't fervently believe "This is the greatest country on Earth!" doesn't deserve to even be a citizen let alone a candidate for office.  This doesn't leave much room for dealing with reality.  When you've traveled a lot, and not as part of some "coddle the tourist" tour, but when you've lived in a place for awhile and had the opportunity to view your country through the eyes of others, you find our that view is not very pretty.  The simple fact is that most of the people who live in one of those awful socialist countries wouldn't trade their health care, or education, or sick leave benefits for those in the USA.  And you also realize that virtually every European country has much better public transport that the USA who put everything into cars, a road system, and planes, and now even our interstate road system is crumbling and over burdened with vehicles.  The big problem is that our politicians are living in bubble that insulates them from reality.  So when a real critique of the USA gets published, the usual response is to dismiss it.  Get real people.