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I agree with madeldoe. Nothing is really absolute. I think America's problems lies in layers - there's a majority (I'd probably say around 250 million) people who're good (relatively), yet the country and it's economical interests are being run by an oligarchy of ruthless rich old men (so the exact term would be a plutocracy). The whole thing with agressive foreign policies, ridiculous federal legislature, corporate scandals going all the way to the top of the executive chain of goverment, inadequate funds provided for education... everything is a direct or indirect result of that. A few rich old men running a system of turbo capitalism in which nothing else but capital gain matters. Slowly a system develops where only a handful of people are privileged to enter that sacred society of rich - which is only emphasized by huge tuition fees (I think education should be free for all, but that's a different topic altogether).
As far as guns are concerened.... my standpoint is that most common people using guns do indeed use them for self-protection and even if they restricted uses of fire-arms most criminals would find a way to get their hands on them anyway. I don't really know what the big deal is anyway - it's not such a huge bother getting a weapon in Europen countries neither. And come to think of it: a crowbar is just as leathal in the arms of a stupid European or American who's out to destroy the world, right?
SUVs... yeah admittedly that is a problem but from what I know GM almost went bankrupt after the sales of SUVs plummeted during the oil crisis. But lets not fool ourselve that Europeans don't buy their fare share of BMW X5s, MB M Classes or Range Rovers and other useless gass guzzers, which spend their existance driving on motorways rather then off-road. It's a global trend of stupidity which is a direct result of people having too much money to spend and too much time on their hands.
Sure I can't say how the country is as a whole since I've only visited 2 states (and from what I saw in my limited experience Americans are the kindest bunch I've ever come across - Europeans are total rude idiots in comparison), but imo it's completely impossible to generalize. All we see is that mockery of a leadership they have with a corrupt goverment and a puppet for a president. But from what I gather there are ennormous differences between different federal states and (imo) Conneticut and Utah have as much in common as Portugal and Germany (except for the langauge of course). So to make big general statements about a country of 300 million people just based on their foreign policies and from basic stereotypes is ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as people thinking how all the "Soviets" in the former USSR were evil and out to destroy the world.
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Just a thought:
"Good and kind people outnumber all others by thousands to one. The tragedy of human history lies in the enormous potential for destruction in rare acts of evil, not in the high frequency of evil people."
--Stephen Boyd, Evolutionary Biologist Harvard University
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