The OP isn't asking if American was always great, it's asking if America was ever great...

@JeffMurray I read it. Yes America was never perfect. What country is? I'm proud to be an American. Yes this is a great country. Trump has made America less great.

@Fred_Snerd It's still a great country. It's the wealthiest most powerful country in the world. It has the default currency for the planet. It's the oldest continuing democracy in the world today. It's not perfect. No country is.

@barjoe So wealthiest equals great? Or powerful? Oldest? Do those things still equal greatness when they are used to force our ideology on other nations? What about when they are used to oppress our own people? What about when our wealth is used to make the rich richer and let the poor languish? Is it still great when other countries are able to do so much more for their people with so much less? Is it still the oldest democracy if it isn't really a democracy? We've disenfranchised voters forever. Blacks, women, and now the poor and people of color have been seeing it more and more lately with voter suppression laws. Maybe I'm forgetting the good categories like per capita incarceration rates or infant mortality rates?

Or perhaps barjoe is a white male with white-male-colored glasses and sees a great country through them?

@JeffMurray Perhaps you want to judge me for not hating my country. You obviously do.

@barjoe You sound like one of those knee-jerk Republican assholes. Who said anything about hating the US? We just said it's not great. If we criticize one thing or point out something that could be better, suddenly we hate the country? I'm very thankful I was born here as opposed to so many other places I could be, but that's an important point they don't get. They didn't do anything to earn the life they have. They very easily could have been born in sub Saharan Africa in the midst of an AIDS epidemic, or as a member of a race suffering genocide somewhere. Their 'American exceptionalism' bullshit is not only unfounded, but super rude and ungrateful.

@JeffMurray I mention that I don't hate America but you sound like you do. You get all butt hurt and lash out with ad hominem attacks.
"barjoe is a white male with white-male-colored glasses and sees a great country through them"
"You sound like one of those knee-jerk Republican assholes"
You don't know me. I am well aware that this country has problems but I'm proud to be an American.

@barjoe I don't know you, thankfully, but you are showing everyone what kind of person you are. I don't regret anything I said to you; quote me all day. You were the one that was making [actually, still making] accusations that I hate my country the way Republican assholes do all the time, simply because I pointed out problems. You earned my scorn by acting the same way.

@JeffMurray I wasn't talking to everyone. I was talking to you. I don't know you. You might be a nice person, but you're a keyboard warrior. Facebook is full of them. You don't know how I vote. You shouldn't judge people because they comment on a post and your happen to disagree with them. I don't accuse you of anything but being an angry person. You might not hate this country but you hate Americans. I find it a lot on this website.

@barjoe None of that shit is true. And I never assumed anything about you, never claimed to know how you vote, didn't judge you because we disagreed (I judged you because what you said was super fucking rude and untrue), and you did accuse me of more than being an angry person- you accused me of hating America (and now Americans) which is what started this shit to begin with. To be clear, I said you sounded like those asshole Republicans that assume you hate America if you do any number of things they don't like that in no way actually mean you hate America. How do you not see how ridiculous what you said was? And I'm not a "keyboard warrior". If you said that shit to my face, I'd call you out just the same. That doesn't make me an angry person, it just means I have a backbone and won't let cunts get away with talking that nonsensical bullshit in front of me.

@JeffMurray I don't want to accuse you but you sound pretty angry to me. I'm sorry you only sound like you are angry. Maybe you forgot to take your meds. You have a good night.

@barjoe I'm perfectly happy and civil with people who aren't cunts. Go fuck yourself.

@JeffMurray So Angry

Yes, @ Fred_Snerd, sad but true.

It's all a fairy tale, just like religion.
Motivated thinking blinded us to our very own truth.