I've been watching CNN and it's all been on Japan and Libya, mostly Japan. But here I go defending my country, oh no. I know I'm not as informed on world news as I should be. I'm 17, I just need to establish habits and gain an interest. I know plenty of adults who don't have an interest for knowing what's going on in the world around them, but I also see people like my government teacher, who would use class time to make sure everyone was informed and make us discuss what the news means, or my mom, who watched the news on the nuclear plants for hours last night and looked up nuclear facilities in the US out of plain interest in curiosity. This thread is filled with generalizations and people arguing when the OP asked if America is a greedy country. I think people are taking the high standard of living and highly vocal citizens to be signs of greed and ignorance. If I'll say one "patriotic" statement, it'll be that the US is filled with 300+ million individuals. You could say they're all greedy, but maybe that's part of the culture of the "American dream", where you want the next generation of your family to be better off than yours. The government could be labeled as greedy, but... Yeah there's a lot of nasty debt and I'm 17, which GENERALLY younger people are more liberal and I fit in there so I won't elaborate on the greedy politicians or the sketchy dealings between the government and oil company executives or anything. Basically I'm saying there's nothing to say the whole country is greedy or not. For the people who have said people don't open doors for each other anymore and other such things, I'd say cultural shift. Young people are stupid. We just have to grow up. Even when people do grow up, they make mistakes, and people who do bad things seem to get more attention here than those who do good. There's no angle to look at this discussion from to get a solid answer. Unless you believe what someone just said on CNN about how Japanese people aren't looting because they love their country and do best for it, while Americans love their country and do what's best for themselves.