Discussion about America as a country

Yesterday in class, we watched a video from The Newsroom and it was like one of the first episodes they made. During the video, they were having a discussion about America and why it is the greatest country in the world. The one guy spoke up and didn't agree that it was the greatest country in the world because of how far behind we are on some things. We had all these great things happen with our country that made it great but for the last 100 years it just hasn't been as great as it used to be. I agreed with every part of what he said of why America isn't the best country in the world. He brought up all these statistics that were true and made sense because we aren't number one in everything either. We are 7th in literacy rate which seems hard to believe because of how much we encourage and make education a required thing. We also aren't the number one country in speaking English, which is even weirder because we speak English pretty much more than everyone in any other country in the world. In China, they encourage people to learn English so much so they can get good jobs and be successful when they get older. That is one reason why we probably aren't the number one country in the world that speaks English. Those aren't the only two categories there are much more but I don't know all of them of course. I am thinking maybe one time we were the best country but so many negative things have happened through the years and especially how our government and taxes work. It just isn't where it should be anymore. We can make it better though as long as people are willing to make it happen.