Recently there has been a tremendous amount of debate within the US regarding a wide range of subject; health care, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and economic recovery. These debates are far too complicated for any one person to take head on, however I think it is important to the debate to have an honest look at how the United States compares with other countries in the world.
The reason making comparisons is both valid and important is that it is one of the best ways to learn from example, that is if it works somewhere else why don’t we try it here or at the very least we can examine what is working and compare it to our systems that seem to not be working.
Engaging in this debate under any pretense that the United States is the “best country in the world” or has “the best X” is a very destructive practice. In reality, having any pretense when entering into this enormous and precedent setting debate that is happening in the US is directly opposed to what the US (and any country really) needs, open and honest dialogue. The process the US should be in now is one of discovery and introspection, not one of strictly defending one side or the other. The debate should be treated with scientific precision, a true and unbiased assessment of the state of the United States.
I made up a little image to demonstrate in a simple format how the US ranks among various areas on the world stage.
Citations for this:
Health Care System (from the WHO)
Quality of Life (pdf)
Privacy (pdf) (out of 36 nations)
Global Gender Gap (pdf 21MB)
Some of this data might be a little out of date and the US may be ranked higher or lower based on new reports, however the point was not so much of a deep analytical look at the numbers as much as just an example that the US really needs to be honest with itself. The fact of the matter is there is absolutely nothing wrong with not being first as it is much better to accept what is failing and try to fix it than to pretend that it isn’t failing in the first place.
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