“Greatest” US

Show me a guy who is shouting about America being the greatest country in the world, and I’ll show you a guy who hasn’t traveled much. In light of MAGAns breaking out and embracing good ole “Love it or leave it” once again (a pissy little oldie from the ’60s, from back in the days when “MAGAns” were known as “rednecks”), let’s take a look at America’s stats these days and see how it rates in the “World’s Best Country” derby. Hey, if you’re gonna leave, you should know if you’re leaving The Greatest Country Ever, right?

When you look at various ratings like education, health care and quality of life, you see the folks doing the rating seem to be really impressed with the highly taxed and generally pleasant semi-socialists of Scandinavia. These countries seem to kicking ass in the “We’re cool, calm and extremely functional” department, and you get used to seeing Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands dominating the top 10 in just about every category besides Random Shootings and Blathering Sports Talk. It appears there’s something to be said for not having soldiers, sailors and weapons stationed all over the bleeping planet. You know who else shows up in a lot of Top Tens? Australia, New Zealand and Canada. They’ve come a long way from the days of being British prisons!

I’m mostly using the ratings compiled by U.S. News and World Report, a fine old rag that continues to be a paragon of objective journalism. And, hey, in education, looky here! The U.S.A. does very well indeed, rated as Number Two for an educated citizenry (which implies that we don’t have the moron market cornered by a long shot. Nice!).

How about health care? That’s universally recognized as seriously important, and it’s no surprise that here, the U.S.A. falters, with the World Health Care Organization rating us 37th. Our quality of doctors is very high (second), but the system has some bugs and kinks to work out (thank you, Capt. Obvious).

Quality of life? U.S.A. is 17th. Not bad, but not even close to goddamn Finland or Switzerland. You know what kills us in QOL? All those random shootings by insane madmen. Oh, well. Not that we can do anything about that. Quit whining and suck it up! (Cabela’s is having a hot sale on bulletproof vests.)

Best Overall Countries on Earth? U.S. News puts us at a solid 8. Nothing to write home about, but not an embarrassment. Conclusion—if you’re gonna Leave It, head to Copenhagen, Sydney or Vancouver!