Definitely. Was that your only point?
"But America..."
What I love about this country is that we talk about it, we struggle with it, we do so publicly, and eventually we try to do the right thing. Our ideals are pretty good, just really hard to live up to, and the real world is complicated. We support dictators abroad, we have a racially unequal (though improving, albeit too slowly) society, there are no saints among great nations.
The point is in trying to live up to the ideals. If we compare to other great powers, I think we do better than most historically. As long as we keep moving toward universal human rights and freedom, however imperfectly, I’m on board.
The US on the other hand values more individual freedoms at the cost of less cohesion and greater division. No doubt this is what's causing the current influx of Karen's refusing to wear masks. The hatred you see towards these people on YouTube is literally enforced in china. You don't wear a mask in china, you're fucked, nobody dares do such a thing.
Rather then fighting some patriotic flamewar I'd prefer HN viewers to have a more logical nonbiased view point and call it apples and oranges, but alas this is not the case. America has to be the best, especially when compared to China.
This does come with tradeoffs, but I don’t think the masks and beach are part of that tradeoff. People can and will voluntarily take on inconvenience for the good of others, but they have to be convinced. Our dysfunctional president has actively fought against creating a consensus that we should move as one against this virus. When the US decides to do something together, especially in the modern era, we do it incredibly well mostly without sacrificing human rights (with some obvious historical injustices we have to remedy). What is happening here is a failure of leadership, not a failure of liberty.