Americans have put up with the whiners. Now let them put up or shut up.

A) You act as if no one on the right has "criteria." What do you even mean by criteria here?

B) Why should emulating another nation even be necessary? It's like you're hostile to originality.

Specific issues with relevant criteria would be like the ongoing battle to make it possible to fire incompetent or even pedophile teachers in California despite the union's ridiculous tenure system. If you need this criteria specified to you then you have no idea what conflicts between the left and right are actually like in the US and comparison to another country is irrelevant.

This is why I was talking about libertarians, you seem to be making a very general argument against anarcho-capitalism or something but you probably don't actually know what that is.

 

I linked to my applicable criteria, the Human Development Index, under which the highest national achievers are Norway, Sweden, Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Iceland, USA, Japan, and Ireland, all of which embrace self-governance in administering social welfare and regulating free-market capitalism, and I invited anyone who takes exception to cite his criteria that references an alternative metric, and to specify the actual nation whose approach and performance he prefers.

Obviously, it's not necessary, since most nations do not follow the paradigm of those that are most successful.

It's a pragmatic approach that eschews ideological dogmatism and recognizes the common aspects of all "first world" nations.

My pragmatism disposes me to invite dissidents to present their alternative criteria, and whatever extant examples they would offer to show they are not captivated by airy-fairy notions from the realm of fiction, such as Ayn Rand's pulp confections.

So, far, I've seen none.

 

Ok, so you're declaring victory while dropping 50% of your argument

Moving on, Norway is at the top of the HDI but they are a socialist petro-state. They are already in debt past their total petro-wealth. The USA, nowhere near as liberal, is 3rd without tapping most of our natural resources and without being anywhere near as close to the left as Norway is. America has the best debt layout in the developed world. America's success and the state of the HDI looks like an endorsement of American policy thus far to me, not a criticism.

I know that the HDI is designed around liberal criterion but they will not be able to keep the Scandinavian countries near the top forever. It's always been a little ridiculous to have them there when Sweden has half the population of New York City.

 

I have no idea what you're talking about regarding declaring victory or dropping 50% of whatever you think my "argument" is supposed to be.

As a pragmatist, I recognize the both primacy of the nations I mentioned and I enumerate some characteristics they all share. I make no claims of perfection, merely demonstrable superiority.

There is nothing to prevent anyone from citing an alternative metric to the Human Development Index and its rating criteria, and name a nation whose system they believe demonstrates a better approach.

Yet, out of nearly two-hundred nations on earth, they seem inable to cite one they prefer and for what reasons they prefer it.