It’s the best I can do and I’ll send you one too. (iambic pentameter)
Too much irony in the blood and you will rust out before your time.
Now there an oxymoron, if I’ve ever heard one.
Precisely. Let me send you one.
ETA it’s prophylactic.
I call bull shit on this one.
I love the USA but I wouldn’t want to live there unless I was independantly wealthy. Please note I am not a USA basher, I just like a bit more socialism with my capitalism. 
CITE please,
The US relied on britian importing your goods as much as Australia. Don’t make blanket statements without facts mate.
The MAIN difference between the USA and Australia was that were formed on the back on convicts and not by puritans.
That’s my more to my taste but YMMV.
Australia was an afterthought. Like Liberia. What you gonna do with dem convicts of Capital and get rid of the collateral evidence? Ship 'em abroad.
Thank Dog that we got the convicts and not the born agains!
Hey! We’re having a civil conversation here and you bring that stuff up.
Gotta point?
The reason that America is exceptional compared to other Western nations is that its much larger in useable land (Canada I believe is bigger but much of it is under perma frost).
Other then that its standard of living and quality of life are poorer for the average person then those living in other Western nations.
I speak as a regular and much travelled visitor to the U.S., I am pro America and pro American but the envy of the Western world you most certainly are not.
You need some schooling on the meaning of quality of life. America defines that meaning, because we’ve got the most money and the most power.
IMHO, what’s exceptional about America is its glorification of selfishness and greed. There’s just no social stigma against succeeding at the expense of others. I can’t think of any other explanation for its foreign policies or the poverty/inequality.
I thought China had most of your money, as to quality of life your definition most likely differs to those of the inhabitants of the many slums and ghettos in American cities.
I have seen your “quality of life” in many places at first hand.
Most of our money? No, I don’t think so, unless you have a cite to the contrary. Most US debt is held by US citizens, if that is what you meant.
And are you comparing US slums and ghettos to the slums and ghettos in Europe, or apples and oranges?
As to the OP, the US is exceptional because we have the largest economy in the world, the greatest manufacturing output, we win the most Nobel prizes, our social culture is the most influential in the world, the most powerful military, etc, etc.
We are exceptional because we are No. 1 in so many areas that are important. Not all, but more than any other single country.
I know., I know - “but Lower Slobbovia outproduces the US in per capita production of nutmeg graters!”
Regards,
Shodan
Actually the bit about China having most of your money was tongue in cheek.
America IS exceptional in many ways, but the standard of living for most ordinary Americans(not the slum dwellers) is below that of other Western countries.
Look at health care and paid holidays just for a start.
Personally I would not like my employer to control my health care
Not iambic, and not pentameter. More like anapestic dimeter. Iambic pentameter sounds more like this (recapping part of the thread* in blank verse). I may have lost some of the nuances.
Adh.: America is great. Oh yeah, we rock.
Dep.: And I, for one, do welcome all our new / American overlords
Adh.: You have no choice.
Can.: Materials are plentiful and cheap.
Qpw.: O oligarchs, too few are much too rich.
Foo.: Utopic libertarians we are.
Adh.: In technic forest of distraction lost…
RP: Your hist’ry, Sir, has fatal flaws galore.
…
Sm.: You know that’s no response to what he said.
Adh.: It was my best response – here’s one for you.
*I got bored.
It depends on what you are looking at.
Health care is certainly important, but so is employment.
But even the things that Europeans and liberals would say were to the detriment of the US can be seen as part of our exceptionalism - we value individual effort more than equality of income, for instance.
Regards,
Shodan
I, a US resident, envy the standard of living of regular folks living in Europe. Would be really cool not to lose health insurance along with a job, sane hours sound great. Life is good when you are rich in the First World and the US, but it’s much better for regular folks over there.
If by US citizens you mean Wall Street CEOs and their big investors, you may be right. But that’s not what you meant say, is it.
And when was the last time (since WWII) that Europe turned a fashionable manufacturing epicenter like Detroit into what it today? No doubt you would say, Hey, that’s the free market.
There is no question that the natural product of national corruption is excess. And, it’s not all good. At least to those a little down the food chain.
Al Capone is our 20th century icon. He specialized in money and murder. We could only get him on tax evasion.
Why is that funny to me? I should be outraged. I am that unearned income should be lightly taxed and not taxed when passed on to aristocrat’s spawn. Stuck in Lodi, again.
Sounds to me that you’re hanging in there on the food chain somewhere above all previous record high water marks. Look back on our so-called depressions. Fraudulent overextension and the debt called in produced, in addition to many smaller calamities thru the centuries, global tsunamis that caused two world wars and brought on the MI Complex.
The worst (final) tsunami will arrive with the end of cheap oil. SOON, geologically speaking. Anyone with a greenhouse and neighborly neighbors will do well.
If I may offer a suggestion, Sir, change your views.
Me, too. For the nonce, you may consider me your Muse. Please carry on.
I can offer no explanation other than, I am my father’s son. Thanks, Paul Simon.