whoa. that was all over the USA map. my mouth is still open...ooops fly

What made American great? Ask the cop on the beat. Ask the cop in the grocery store. Ask the cop in the woodpile. Ask the cop on the rooftop. Ask that cop knocking on your back door:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-4YF7S7r...

What made America great was no one thing, but a combination of factors developing through centuries. And which standard do you apply to "greatness"? Any anarcho-whatever will tell you all about Medieval Iceland, but millions of people did not seek their fortunes there. Moreover immigration to America was always constant and steady but accelerated after 1848 when it was clear that political freedom - democratic capitalism - would not come to Europe.

But, you have to contrast that with Japan. The Japanese proved able to pivot their culture on a single point of tradition. When Perry opened the doors, they kicked out the shogun and opened up to industrialism. After World War Two they out-America-ed American industrial methods. I do not just mean Demming, but the weakness of the Japanese military-industrial complex versus America's crypto-Nazi worship of weaponry. But no one emigrates to Japan to make their fortune. They come to America.

I think that the essential statement came in "Atlas Shrugged" when the anonymous workman (presumably Owen Kellogg) told Mr. Mowen that firms are moving to Colorado because of what they DON'T have.

The key to Galt's Motor was "do nothing."

Read any constitution from any of 180+ nations and maybe 500 subdivisions. They all promise rights and liberties in glorious and flowery words. But who delivers? The US... Canada... a few more... How? By doing nothing: by not interfering.

What made American great? Nothing! Laissez faire! Let it go. It is not your problem. Mind your business. Mind your OWN business. Go into business for yourself and mind that. Never mind your neighbors or their religion or how they raise their kids.

What made American great? Good fences!

On the positive side, he invested tens of millions of dollars (in today's dollars) into many different technologies. Some went nowhere. Some became things like the lightbulb. (Edison didn't invent it, but made it practical and commercialized it.) So he pour huge amounts of efforts into things that were very risky. It resulted in technologies we take for granted.

Abundance. Until 1913, the phrase "making money" meant something other than printing it. Even today, in America many of us operate from a perspective of abundance (as opposed to scarcity). Whenever we think we're about to run out of something we find a new way to accomplish the goal, whether that be finding new energy reserves or finding a different energy source.

Those were features of the foundation of America, BUT at the time the notion of any democratic republic form of gov't was a theory from ancient times. They took it, and made it real. In the blink of an eye compared to the time since ancient Greece and Rome, all that stuff you mentioned was condemned.

You're denigrating something amazingly special. Imagine some people in some distant and difficult-to-reach place set out to solve some major problem of humanity that's seen as a fact of life. Let say they want to abolish the concept of nation states, flags, borders, etc, so everyone can live in peace; something that sounds impossible to you and me. They succeed and create a blueprint that much of the world uses as inspiration. That's amazing stuff. That's what America did.

You're saying the dark side of America is just the bad stuff and mistakes.

Just think about your comment on about genocidal slaughter. 200 years later Americans are this mixture of cultures from around the world that is often afraid to criticize anything different. We don't want to be anything like that mistake. When you mention the notion of an industrial society coming into contact with hunter gathers, the FIRST thing we think is avoiding exploitation.

Why do you think the worst mistakes of Americans history are its foundation?

who are you and why are you on this site?

That 's how we knew slavery was wrong. The slaveowners argued against natural rights as the progressives do today and look! We have becone slaves again! Do you own all the product of your labor? Do you feel confident the govt will not take your property?

The wholesale creation of a new form of government, influenced by the age of enlightenment, unlike any that came before it. Though imperfect, it was founded on individual liberty. Where men were free to succeed or fail and government's only legitimate function was to protect one's right to do so, and deriving its limited power from the consent of the governed.

A certain type of man from Northwest Europe that didn't like having to bow his head,
That didn't trust those who counted themselves his better to do right by him and his family for their sustenance,
An available location to move to with space for those that didn't fit, for those that didn't inherit, and that would dare,
The freedom and space to move away from,
A community of trader values that accepted that a man could fail then try again - to make money, and a man's earned wealth was his own,
A system of law that protected an individual's property and his right to protect that property and defend himself anywhere at anytime,
Law and a court that was available and affordable to any man locally,
So much to do that there was nothing extra to spend on other's affairs,
A time of enlightenment in the relationship between a man and his government,
And a century of being left alone by other countries.

Trying to answer the question also leads to 'What has damaged/weakened America's Greatness'.
Men who sought power for the sake of power,
Men that wanted a Great country recognized by the historical great countries of Europe,
The expansion of the concept of equality from 'born equal' to being or are equal after Marx's writings,
The granting of the vote to newly freed slaves, the suffrage movement, and the Labor movement,
Changing Senator's to popular democratic election,
The push for the idea of a democratically elected Federal Government,
Lincoln's income tax,
Continuing open immigration after the country was filled,
The socialist leanings of Eastern and Southern European immigrants,
The demand for continued 'growth',
The government's intrusion into business and industrialization,
Wilson's WWI, the Federal Bank,

Enough for now.

It was the right of the individual to own property. George Mason Virginia Declaration of Rights June 12, 1776 Article 1 states that "all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights of which . . . they cannot deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety," All other rights rest upon this one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_D...

Loved the book. Must think about this.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The freedom for each person to make their own path is what made America Great, and the curtailing of those freedoms is destroying her.

The Protestant Work Ethic.

A nation and multiple generations of people who believed that they were put here on this Earth to "be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth" to glorify God.