Growing up in the USA, I've always viewed it as the greatest country on Earth. This simplistic statement is true in some regards, but it is more of an emotional truth than a statistical one. It may feel patriotic to belligerently defend our greatness, but this slows our progress toward realizing true greatness. To realize our full potential, we must identify our failures and fix them. This is a patriotic act. The United States has incredible potential given our vast geographic resources, educated people, population size, military power, and enormous economy. The main impediment to greatness in all areas is our collective inability to recognize our shortcomings and take meaningful corrective actions. We must break through the strangle hold of our political system to address: