[uniqueid]

I've heard people use the two rebuttals — but America's bigger; but America's more diverse — to justify many of America's failings. They're effective, not because they are clearly correct, but because a good counter to them requires answers to many difficult-to-answer questions:

How does a large population affect policy? How much do economies of scale make things easier? How much does bureaucracy make things harder?

What does diversity mean? How much is in the eye of the beholder?

To what extent does diversity cause division? To what extent does diversity spark innovation?

In addition to these questions, the debate entails comparisons and contrasts of nations, most of which you hasn't visited. You end up trading pairs of statistics, without intimate knowledge of their correctness and equivalence.

For such reasons, I just avoid arguing about size and diversity. I'd have to write a book to provide a solid answer.