re: The United States may be messed up in a lot of ways
Wow, a little autophobia anyone? The world is in disarray right now, the US not the worst of it. Let's just let the US have one good thing said about it without throwing in the hate.
It's like saying "I'm not racist, but..." Everything after it is colored by the first part.
There's no reason to be apologetic about saying something nice about the US. It may not be in vogue to say so, but the US actually has some good things about it. The same could be said about the UK, Germany, and dare I say it... France.