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I'd argue that the US lost its reputation as "one of the best" quite some time ago. Communist Russia is probably still an overly contrasting comparison point -

by swombat 12y ago

I'd argue that the US lost its reputation as "one of the best" quite some time ago. Communist Russia is probably still an overly contrasting comparison point - the US is not as bad as that - but compared to countries that are actually among "the best", the US has been quite low down the rankings for some time now. So actually the OP's comparison seems fair. "The US may be bad these days, but at least it's not (yet) as bad as some of the worst in history!"

grecy 12y ago
> So actually the OP's comparison seems fair. "The US may be bad these days, but at least it's not (yet) as bad as some of the worst in history!" Pondering how bad things could get is not going to make things better. Surely the comparison should be "It's not as good as it used to be, let's make it better!"