Slate: U.S. is not greatest country ever - Michael Kinsley - POLITICO.com

Why do Americans need to hear so often that this is the greatest country on earth?  And why do we have to repeatedly hear about trusting the decency and common sense of the American people.   Just as true of the Chinese people, don't you think?  I see no evidence that when the good lord handed out horse sense he stopped overlong at our stall. Michael Kinsley explains:

Having spent a month to a couple of years and many millions of dollars trying to snooker voters, politicians awaiting poll results Tuesday will declare that they put their faith in “the fundamental wisdom of the American people.”

Not me. Democracy requires me to respect the results of the elections. It doesn’t require me to agree with them or to admire the process by which voters made up their minds. In my view, anyone who voted for Barack Obama for president in 2008 and now is supporting some tea party madwoman for senator has a bit of explaining to do. But the general view is that the voters, who may be fools individually, are infallibly wise as a collective — that their “anger,” their urgent desire, yet again, for “change,” is self-validating.

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Opinion: U.S. is not greatest country ever - Michael Kinsley - POLITICO.com