Small Tribute to the Land I Love
I think America is a great role model for the world. It’s the best role model the world has got. You can consider Americans with national pride big-headed, that’s fine, but I think they have alot of reason to be proud of America. American pride is nothing compared to Samoan pride - yet none of us are accusing Samoans of being big-headed. America is the easiest to accuse because they’re the most prominent country in so many fields. Also, alot of people give extreme weight to the most recent foreign policies - including the War in Iraq - to say that America is trying to take over the world, or overstep its bounds. That is simply too narrow-minded a view.
I think people focus too much on the mistakes America makes - probably only because those mistakes are played out on the world stage because America is the only superpower, as well as the epicenter of the large majority of the world’s media (TV, news, cinema, music, etc.) A lot of countries don’t even have entertainment industries because they can rely solely on entertainment from the United States. I don’t think America is necessarily a role model in the kind of entertainment they bring to the world, but they are a role model in pioneering and bringing forth much of the entertainment industry.
In fact, America has been a role model throughout its history in a number of categories.
Sports - the United States holds the most all-time olympic medals in modern olympics, including by far the most in the Summer Olympic games, and the second most in the Winter Games. The U.S. brought the world basketball and baseball - two of the worlds most lucrative sports.
Science and Technology - the United States has been home to a huge amount of inventions that bless our lives and are used around the world. Some of them include: the typewriter, dishwasher, modern sewing machine, modern elevator, telephone, AC motor, modern radio, modern cinema, modern vacuum cleaner, Air conditioning, gas motored/manned airplane, photocopier, microwave oven, television, cell phone, credit card, modem, email, audio tape, compact disc, tape recorder, floppy disk, keyboard, mouse, printer, as well as huge advances to improve other inventions like the locomotive, the internal combustion engine, the automobile, the computer, the internet, to name a few. This doesn’t include the many smaller inventions which have improved the utility of earlier ideas. And this doesn’t even mention medical advances, medicines discovered, or the fact that the US has the most Nobel Prize Laureates in the world.
Business - In business, Americans developed the assembly-line, current business accounting, big business and specialization. America is home to the largest and most technologically advanced securities exchange market, as well as the accounting standards upon which several other markets are based. Americans developed modern business and accounting practices, as is apparent by their enormous GDP. The United states has by far the largest GDP in the world - almost twice as large as the next biggest (China - which has about 4 times the population)
Government - the US constitution was among the first of its kind and has since been the model upon which many other countries’ constitutions and governments have been based. The US has a very low relative amount of government corruption. Also, instilling democracy in Iraq has helped spread democracy, and freedom, in several countries throughout the world
I’m sure each of those areas could be expanded much further, and several other fields added to the list, I just got tired of researching. Oh, and all of this has been accomplished in less than 250 years. Show me another country who has had that much influence and accomplished as much….ever - let alone in such a short period of time. Yeah, I’d say America is a great role model for the world.
What do you think?
[Sources include nationmaster, and inventors]
(Somewhat) Similar Posts:
...From The Associated Press: Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon's scandal-shattered White House as the 38th president and the only one......Microsoft is poised to debut its new Zune music player later this year to compete with Apple's Ipod. The Zune will be similar in...
April 21st, 2006 at 7:22 pm
No. Somoans are just plain BIG.