US History 101 - Myth vs. Reality

I've gotten into fierce and sometimes uncomfortable arguments with people regarding what we (America / North America) are as a society. After much reading of Western history, I began to argue that countries like the US were pretty savage establishments. I was always countermanded with loads of mythology - American democracy is the best in the world, we have more freedoms than anywhere else, blah blah blah. And the 2nd, most recent war in Iraq was a big helping of myth over reality.

Howard Zinn gives a quick chronical of how US mythology has trumped reality throughout its history:
Lessons of Iraq War start with U.S. history