We reached for the stars, acted like men, aspired to intelligence. And we didn’t belittle it.

This is how Aaron Sorkin’s new show, The Newsroom starts. It only gets better.

If you want to see and hear Jeff Daniel’s deliver this speech in all it’s glory, I can’t embed it, but you can watch it, starting at 5:41.

“There is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, number 4 in labor force and number 4 in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real and defense spending – Where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined; 25 of whom are allies…..So when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Yosemite?! We sure used to be. We stood up for what was right, we fought for moral reasons, we passed laws, struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were and we never beat our chest. We built great, big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases and we cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, acted like men, aspired to intelligence, and we didn’t belittle it. It didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election and we didn’t scare so easy. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed by great men, men who were revered. First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.”