Yeah, that was pretty lame. And I'm Canadian.

It annoyed me that Sorkin put his question: "Why is America the greatest country in the world?" in the mouth of a cute blonde college student named Jenny.

Objectively, I think it was a damned good question. It prompted a hard look at this huge article of national faith, but we were manipulated into thinking it was stupid because it came from Jenny.

If it had been a black woman or a muslim or even a white male student asking the same exact question in the same exact words, it wouldn't have seemed stupid at all. It would have seemed like a challenge. Sorkin exploited our prejudice to drive home his point about "Greatest country in the world" being unquestioned national dogma. Because she's a pretty blonde milk white maiden , who even flubbed the question a little, we can all assume that she's not actually questioning the dogma, she's not smart enough for that. She's just asking the nice media figureheads to reinforce her beliefs.

So the Jeff Daniels character can browbeat her about her crappy generation, and everybody can be extra shocked by his answer.

Am I making my point? I hate this shit in movies. Two guys want to date julia Roberts, but we know which guy for is really meant for her because he has better hair. I'm working on a theory that the world isn't really like this.

The thing is, it's still a classic scene. I'm not yet convinced that America isn't the greatest nation on earth. After all, we've got Aretha Franklin; but it would be nice if we could consider the possibility. True or not, America becomes a better nation when people can say that it's not the greatest ever. Whatever that means.

Oh boy, the people at pajamasmedia are going to have a field day with this. LIBERAL HOLLYWOOD TV QUESTIONING THE GREATNESS OF OUR COUNTRY

I take it Sorkin had some TFL trouble with the ladies prior to making it big in Hollywood and now it's payback time?

I think my main annoyance is that this is what mainstream type people think "challenging, important critique" is. I'm starting to wonder if we'll ever see it again.

Let me get this straight: it's ignorant to think the US is the greatest country in the world, but it's not ignorant to think there was some golden age when it was?

Okay, Sorkin, I'll play your game. This magical time couldn't have been during the period of slavery, or the 100 years of Jim Crow following that; whatever good one could say about America, there was still this whole legalized brutality that undercut any claims to greatness. Nor could it have been during the Vietnam War, when the US was practicing a reprehensible foreign policy. The Reagan years and the period following them have seen the rise of a Republican Party actively trying to disenfranchise half the country, and if you want to talk about the demonization of intelligence and education, look no further. So I think we've narrowed down this golden age to about a week and a half during the Carter years, did I crack the code?

A slightly more reasonable answer to the question -- and I'm no Sorkin, I'm just a half-asleep Bort at 4am. There is no such thing as "the greatest country in the world"; there are good and great people, there are good and great systems of government, and the US is lucky to have both. But it's a fatal mistake to pat ourselves on the back and make like our greatness is assured or somehow inherent; we need to be looking at ourselves with a candid, critical eye and working towards improvement at all times. That's how successful individuals succeed; that's how successful nations succeed. In summary, the only thing you have to do to make me happy is come home at the end of the day.

I'll bitch about this when I hear about 15 million people watching it, instead of Big Bang Theory.

I'd say a good contender for greatest country is Denmark. education, public transport, healthcare, wages, holidays, % power from renewable sources, cycling as mode of transport, life expectancy etc. Theyre always waaay up there.. Or maybe the Netherlands, those countries in that area have their shit *tight*

(ed)One interesting thing tho is that those prefectly run model countries usually have high suicide rates, do people *need* suffering strife and crushing inequality in order to want to continue striggling on?

Also Americans are cute (and sorta scary when you realise they are actually serious) aboout that whole greatest country thing. I mean its certainly a pretty big country... one of the biggest! :) .... uh....welp

I used to be the greatest guy in the world, but I'm not anymore... But I can be the greatest guy in the world again and I WILL BE GODDAMN IT!

This comment thread for some reason made me think of Hetalia. The American is a self-loving, fun guy with a hero complex and a habit of stuffing his face with cheeseburgers. Not too far off the mark I thought.

Blaming college kids for all the world's problem when everything is run by old white men.

Every one of the problems Jeff Daniels rants about here was caused or perpetuated by his generation, so I'd love to know why he can turn around and in the same breath announce that a bunch of powerless debt-shackled college kids are the worst people who ever lived.

Bonus points for trotting out the old "HA HA KIDS DON'T VOTE" stereotype which hasn't been true for at least the last two election cycles.

This is classic Sorkin: make a great point, but deliver it in such an asinine manner that the point ends up being forgotten entirely.

It's not.

Japan is the greatest country in the world.

Because of anime.

There was a time when America was great. That time was when I was a child. There was a time in this country when adults would filter all the bad stuff out of world news. People didn't have to pay bills or taxes. Santa Claus was real and he gave people presents. Birthday parties were a big deal and were always well attended. I have books and books of pictures and they tell the story of a world of birthday parties, holidays and vacations. There's not a single photo of a person at the dentist, getting suspended from school, or throwing up because they got really sick. It was great back then.

Bad things didn't happen, and if they did, they were just kid stuff bad things. Stuff like getting a boner in math class and getting called up to the board. I may have written about how horrible it was in my diary but that was before a decade passed and I stopped taking it so seriously because it isn't happening to me anymore. Stupid kid, I don't even know those people any more.

I wish I could condescendingly pat America's past on the head and say "There there, it might seem bad now but someday we'll all look back on this and we won't even remember this Jim Crow thing".

This is meat and potatoes for you faggots!

Whew! Another chance to sit on my ass and hate on America while im not getting machine gunned to death in my living room or squatting in a mud puddle dying of some shitting disease!

How progressive!