Dustin Goes To Hollywood

“[America] is not the greatest country in the world… With a straight face you’re going to tell students that America is so star spangled awesome that we’re the only ones in the world that have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom! 207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom. Just in case you accidently wander into a voting booth one day there’s some things you should know and one of them is: there’s absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re seventh in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, number four in labour force and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next 26th countries combined, 25 of who are allies…. When you ask what makes us the best country in the world, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Yosemite? It sure used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons. We passed laws, struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty not poor people. We sacrificed. We cared about our neighbours. We put our money where our mouths were and we never beat our chest. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases and then we cultivated the worlds greatest artists and the worlds greatest economy. We reached for the stars, acted like men. We aspired to intelligence. We didn’t belittle it. It didn’t make us feel inferior. We identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election and we didn’t scary so easy. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed by great men; men who were revered. First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.”

- The Newsroom - Pilot Episode

“Can you say why America is the greatest country in the world?”