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Gary Borders: Is America the greatest nation? Check the numbers

The opening scene of the first episode of “Newsroom” is vivid. Jeff Daniels portrays anchor Will McAvoy, who is seated at a panel discussion in a university auditorium. A student asks, “What makes America the greatest country in the world?”

Others on the panel respond with the usual patter about freedom and the American way. McAvoy tries to avoid answering the question. But the moderator keeps pressuring him to respond, and he finally does. It is a tough scene to watch. McAvoy replies,“It’s not the greatest country in the world, professor. That’s my answer.”

And he proceeds to profanely and succinctly enumerate why he thinks so. Rather than rely on fictional television, I decided to search online. I found a site called Ranking America, maintained by a respected academic. Here is what he found:

• The United States ranks 14th in education, behind South Korea, Japan, Canada, Ireland, Poland and others, according to Pearson.

• According to Bloomberg.com, this country ranks 44th in health care efficiency out of 51 countries ranked.

• America ranks 49th in life expectancy at birth at 78.11 years, out of 224 countries ranked by the CIA World Factbook.

• The United States ranks fourth in child poverty, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, with 20.6 percent of our children considered poor. The only nations with higher child poverty rates are Poland, Mexico and Turkey.

• Thirteen countries have a higher rate of college graduates than the United States, including Australia, Iceland, New Zealand and Italy.

• The United States ranks 16th for Internet broadband access, according to the OECD, at 30.2 percent of the population. Switzerland at 47.3 percent ranks first.

We do rank first in a number of categories. At $619 billion, the United States spends more on defense than the next eight countries combined, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. China ranks second, far behind this country with defense expenditures of $171.4 billion.

• We rank number one in incarceration rates, according to prisonpolicy.org, putting 716 people per 100,000 population behind bars. The United Kingdom at 147 prisoners per 100,000 population trails far behind in second place. In raw numbers, the United States has more than 2.2 million prisoners, outpacing China with 1.7 million prisoners.

• The World Health Organization’s “World Mental Health Survey” found 9.5 percent of Americans experienced a “clinical anxiety disorder” in a given year, giving the United States top ranking for mood disorders.

• And we have the most airports of any nation in the world, which might account for the plentitude of mood disorders.

So, is America the greatest country in the world? Clearly, we lag behind others in a number of key categories, if that is how one measures which country is the greatest. I cannot think of any other country where I would rather live, but that is probably true of most folks both here and in other countries. It is a sure bet that citizens of France or New Zealand do not consider the United States to be the greatest country in the world.

Perhaps we are asking the wrong question. Instead of candidates all mouthing the same platitudes about this being the greatest country, we should ask what can be done to make this a better country for all of its citizens. How can we become a nation where people are not gunned down in church or at the movie theater, where one in five children do not live in poverty, and we do not incarcerate more people than China — with four times the population?

Tomorrow, the Fourth of July, might be a good time to start acting on those questions. Gary Borders #119 - Asking the right questions commentary

Copyright 2015 Red River Radio

Gary Borders has been an East Texas journalist and editor for more than 30 years. He is currently the editor and publisher of the Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune and also writes online each week at garyborders.com.