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American Pride Ranks as World`s Highest

A new poll released this past week indicated to the world what most Americans could probably already have told you on their own: Americans are #1 when it comes to patriotism about their country. A survey of 34 countries was conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, Illinois, and in the results it was found that the citizens of the United States of America came in at the top spot, beating out Venezuela in a close second. This surely doesn?t make Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela who has a major beef with the United States, happy.

Tom Smith, a researcher at the university, told a local radio station in Chicago that ?the two things we rank high on are what we think of as the political or power dimension. Given that we`re the one world superpower, it`s not that surprising.? The survey that was conducted examined how proud people were of their countries in a variety of aspects: political influence, social security, the health and operation of their democracy, their nation?s economic success, the sciences, sports, literature, military affairs and art as well as history and minority-majority ethnic relations.

The results, as stated before, were not all that surprising. Americans ranked highest overall, while taking the top spot in five out of ten categories: pride in their democracy, their nation?s political influence, their economy, their military power, and their command of the sciences. Venezuela, however, took the top spot in terms of pride in the performance of their athletes, price in their country?s arts and literature, and the fair treatment of all ethnicities in the South American country?s societal organization.