If the US is "the worst first-world country" and so awful at everything, then what countries outside of North America are actually better than the US?

Question

I'm so sick of anti-American assholes giving their uninformed opinions on the internet. I realize we have a ton of issues, but you act like it's OUR fault for our bad education and healthcare system, and not the corrupt politicians in Washington. Government and corporate corruption aside, I strongly believe the US is better at day-to-day living than any other country on Earth.

The US is FAR from perfect and I'll never claim it is, but I legitimately want to know, with a STRAIGHT serious answer, what countries are actually overall better than the US in how they do things?

Canada is basically America without a military, which is why they have the advantages they do, and Australia is basically America's southern hemisphere sister (as we're both children of England), so those would be easy answers. Which other countries overall do a better job at everything than America does? And please back up your answers with some credible arguments, rather than "I just like this country better than the racist redneck American hicks," blah, blah, blah...

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Ok.

Well I live in the UK.

I dont think you can reasonably compare Canada or Australia to the United States as you are and say that you are all 'children of England' (Britain isn't England it is a union of 4 countries and thats an important distinction here and uncomfortable to my ear.)

Just as Britain isn't England, Britain is only a player in the game because of the Commonwealth and America isn't part of the Commonwealth, you broke away, you fought a war of independence, you wanted freedom from the oppressive crown, the power to determine your own future (Ok, great, I can totally understand that point of view and I am cheering you on in that regard, I am all about freedom), you correctly identified the dangers of mixing religion and the state too and created a secular country.

So what have you done with this freedom?

In a time when Britain is recognising the immortality and injustice of its imperial domination of the world and is devolving power and freeing nations the United States is just getting started, destroying or destablising nations, installing puppet governments, stealing resources, enslaving people and using the people of 3rd world nations as test subjects for all sorts of damaging medical experiments.

Former allies Russia and America become rivals and maybe that or something like it needed to happen but you didn't need to nearly burn the world over as you did, you dont need to still be so indoctrinated against communism that now you refuse to even help yourselves by developing a health service though you can plainly see that every other western country does this and that you aren't really paying anything less in taxes (maybe a little). Having healthcare available to the average joe is a pretty fucking big deal, its a huge boon.

You want to take the position that you are just a little guy, you might have a vote but it doesn't mean anything to have it, you are completely at the mercy of the politicians.

Well Im not going to pretend that everything over here is some magically fairytale land and we dont have exactly the same sort of deciteful selfish sociopaths running the show, our political is pretty much non existant, but i do believe that even in the house at highest levels the peoples will is considered far more in the UK than it is in the states and there is a big fucking difference in electorates in our 2 countries too, or at least there seems to be from my perspective, i actually dont really know much about other European nations from their outcomes that even if they act differently to people in the UK they are achieving similar outcomes.

tartaarsaus · Accepted Answer

The USA is a democracy, which basically makes the American people responsible for bad politicians. That said, an issue of poor politicians is everywhere, as that’s just a result of populism alongside people changing over time, deception and different preferences (i. e. a lot of Americans do not want to pay for M4A, which could depending on your preferences lead to something worse).

That said, a few nations that outperform the USA in social mobility, incarceration rates, education levels (PISA), press freedom; Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Denmark.

Obviously, the USA is not awful at everything. They have quite high GDP per capita (though this could also depend on e. g. hours worked), they have a lot of innovation in specific things, they have a big military for maritime commerce and stuff like that

Smoke-n-Growls · Accepted Answer

Basically any Scandinavian country, but I'll pin my vote on Sweden.

Also, you seem confused. The American people are, by and large, fine folks. Maybe a little loud. But your country on a whole, on average, is super backwards when it comes to happiness and quality of life.

It isn't the people's fault, directly, but the cultural values American culture encourages are - as can be easily seen by it's current day to day life - very bad for human happiness, satisfaction, health, and quality of life.

No universal healthcare, existing labour laws are among the worst in the developed world, rampant civil unrest, infrastructure problems so bad the world knows about it (Flint's water crisis), political division and lack of leadership, massive consumer debt and a shocking amount of poverty, consumerism, etc.

There's even been studies recently about how American "individualism" has helped Coronavirus spread like wildfire in certain states.

I'll say again, though: American people are usually just fine. But America the country is in need of some major reworking.

Natashakir72 · Accepted Answer

No country is better than the USA 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 That'll be the reason why it is called the greatest country in the world 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 and the reason millions of people apply for immigrant every year we have to sort them very harshly cuz of course the entire world can't live here although they wish to of course.

Soteris · Answer

If we rank countries based on happiness we can look at the world happiness report:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report
1 Finland
2 Denmark
3 Norway
4 Iceland
5 Netherlands

Also it IS your fault for the bad policies and the bad politicians, that is what it means to live in a Democracy. Who you vote into power is your responsibility. We can also look at other lists like lets say average life expectancy:
en.wikipedia.org/.../List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

1 Hong Kong
2 Japan
3 Singapore
4 Italy
5 Spain / Switzerland

Other than that we can look at countries based on your chance succeed in life:

If the US is "the worst first-world country" and so awful at everything, then what countries outside of North America are actually better than the US?

So there you have it. Countries where people are happier, where people live longer and countries where you are more likely to become successful and move up in life. If you got any other way you want to measure how a country is better than USA feel free to point it out.

Kaneki05 · Answer

There is literally tons of facts that prove that america isn't "is better at day-to-day living than any other country on Earth". And people ignore that fact just like you are by strongly believing that to be the case when there is legit facts that show that's wrong. And surprise most people tend to not like it when it has people believing in something which has clear facts ageist it. So no wonder there not gonna like America were only around 14% of Americans say “other countries are better than the U. S.", lucky it has been on the rise every year that Americans are becoming more aware to the fact Usa is not. And of course it's mostly liberals that point out these facts. And yes who you vote and how your whole society works with there politics are your fault kinda the point of a democracy, But that been said you could argue about how Usa democracy really don't work and that yourself voting on something in the end has little to no meaning.
But that's why revolutions are a thing but good luck with getting that to happen... especially in america... And never-mind the problems that could bring.

And it's very simple to find out how other countries and which countries that do way overall better than US.

BeMuse · Answer

Most countries in the world are pretty shitty so don’t sweat it. Even the handful of countries that are sort of OK outside of America have many strong disadvantages that outweigh tje one or two advantages they might offer when you compare them in depth. America is a great place. I’m just glad it’s large enough to put some space between myself and the degenerates that don't appreciate what they have.

Anonymous · Answer

Ummm, I'm Canadian and we do in fact have a military. We may have a flaky moron as a prime minister, but at least we don't have an unstable sociopath running the country.

purplepoppy · Answer

America in general isn't a bad country. It's the constant telling the rest of the world your the greatest that pisses everyone off.

BeenThereLovedIt · Answer

Denmark, Sweded, Finland, Holland, Germany, etc..

Quality of life can be measured many different ways, but those countries are consistently ranked high when using different measuring variables. Here's one site that explains their reasoning-

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/quality-of-life-rankings

All you need to do is google.

Stoner710 · Answer

personally I would say Japan is the second best country in the world the United States is without a question in the world the rest are shit beyond japan

Astarlessnightsky · Answer

Technically it is your fault, since you elect those politicians.

If the US is "the worst first-world country" and so awful at everything, then what countries outside of North America are actually better than the US?

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Any countries out there better than the US?

If the US is "the worst first-world country" and so awful at everything, then what countries outside of North America are actually better than the US?

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Any countries out there better than the US?

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