I loved reading this thread. It's always fun to hear what others think from different parts of the planet.

Here's my 2 cents:

I have yet to find a country with a perfect government. I find the people from various countries are much easier to get along with and that the politicians everywhere seem, more often than not, to hinder foreign relations.

I'm originally from South Dakota, USA (it's mostly farm and ranch country). When I was younger, I thought that us 'country raised folk' seemed to have more common sense than the rest of the idiots. Once I grew up and saw a bit of the world, it didn't take long to discover that idiots can be found anywhere and that 'Common Sense' isn't all that common. I guess that is sort of a pessimistic view.
I guess it can be said that you usually find what you're looking for... if you're looking for things that are bad about a person or country, it really isn't to hard to find several examples. The same goes for looking for the good things.

Now, while I love my country... I've got a complaint about the U.S. Why the hell haven't we switched over to the Metric System? When I was in grammar school in the '60's I had to learn the metric system because it was soon going to be the standard in the U.S. Where the hell is it? I've been waiting almost 40 years to use it! If the politicians are claiming that it's to expensive to change over, they are probably forgetting the Billions of tax dollars wasted when NASA launches a project that blows up or crashes because some idiot used English Standard measurements in their calculations while another used metric. Let's just quit calling NASA a space agency and call them what they really are... a very expensive fireworks manufacturer. I'm not sure, but I think that the U.S. is one of the last industrialized countries that still hasn't adopted the metric system.

Well, that's about it for me. Have a good night everyone.