New Rule: Stop Saying America is the Greatest Country in the World

From Real Time with Bill Maher

America must stop bragging about being the greatest country on earth, and start acting like it. I know this is uncomfortable for the faith over facts crowd, but the greatness of a country can, to a large degree, be measured. Here are some numbers:

Infant Mortality Rate - America ranks 48th in the world. Overall Health - 72nd, Freedom of the Press - 44th, Literacy - 55th. Do you realize there are 12 year old kids in this country that can't spell the name of the teacher they're having sex with?

Now America, I wil admit, has done many great things: making the new world democratic comes to mind, the Marshall Plan, curing polio, beating Hitler, the deep fried Twinkie, but what have we done for us lately? We're not the freest country, that would be Holland, where you can smoke hash in church and Janet Jackson's nipple is on their flag. And sadly, we're not a country that can get things done either, not big things like building a tunnel under Boston or running a war with competence. We had six years to fix the voting machines, couldn't get that done. The FBI is just now getting e-mail! Prop 87 out here in California is about lessening our dependence on foreign oil by developing alternative fuels, and Bill Clinton comes on at the end of the ad and says, "if Brazil can do it, America can too."

Excuse me, but since when did America have to buck itself up by saying that it can catch up to Brazil? We invented the airplane and the light bulb, they invented the bikini wax and now they're ahead?

In most of the industrialized world, nearly everyone has health care, and hardly anyone doubts evolution. And yes, having to live amid so many superstitious dim wits is also something that effects quality of life. Which is why America isn't going to be the country that gets the inevitable patents in stem cell cures, because some people think Jesus thinks that its too close to cloning. Oh and did I mention we owe China a trillion dollars? We owe everybody money. America is a debtor nation to MEXICO. We're not on the bridge to the 21st century, we're on a bus to Atlantic City with a roll of quarters.

And this is why it bugs me that so many people talk like its 1955 and we're still number one in everything. We're not. And I take no glee in saying this because I love my country and I wish we were, but when you're number 55 in this category and number 92 in that one, you look a little silly waving the big foam #1 finger. As long as we believe being the greatest country in the world is an inalienable birth right, we'll keep coasting on the achievements of earlier generations and we'll keep losing the moral high ground, because we may not be the biggest, or the healthiest, or the best educated, but we did always have one thing that nobody else did: we knew soccer was bullshit.

And, we had one other little things called the Bill of Rights. A great nation doesn't torture people or make them disappear without a trial. Bush keep saying, "the terrorists hate us for our freedom," and he's working damn hard to see that soon, that won't be a problem.