Now as far as a good topic for debate I would like to suggest that it be (in the beginning) one that....
That's a good one right there. In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.
with that said...How many true debaters do we really have?
Certainly less now than before. Many have been run off. What is left is largely a group of back patters who's debating skills consist largely of emotional rants that more than anything say, in essence, "This is what I believe, you can't change my mind, but you should believe what I believe because it's the right thing to believe." This is a debating tactic that squashes debate participation at least as effectively as overwhelming cut-n-paste does.
I had a debate coach once say that you cannot convince anyone of your position on an issue unless you can fully understand, and even vigorously defend, theirs. For example, someone who is vehemently anti-abortion enters into the debate, however they are only permitted to take the pro-choice stance on the issue. This would force them to
learn and understand the opposite side of the issue, to see things from a different perspective, to see that what they would normally look at as simple and easy is in reality a complex issue with no easy answers. Abortion is but one of countless topics this applies to.
Greg: The United States, the government in its present form, may be older than the countries you listed, but to say that the United States is older than those countries is a little disingenuous. For example, to say that Germany didn't exist before unification in the 19th century isn't entirely correct, since the region and the culture have a distinct history that dates back to Julius Caesar. France, both as a distinct region and a distinct culture has its beginnings that date back to Charlemagne in the late 700's. Italy, Spain, the other European countries, as well as China, Japan and all countries outside of the Western Hemisphere have similar histories to draw from. The United States has essentially no distinct history prior to the mid-1700's. Outsiders came to North America and effectively wiped a 10,000 year old slate clean, to start anew. While other countries outside the Western Hemisphere have had many governmental changes over the centuries, few of them have had their slates wiped clean to the point of erasing their existence prior to the inception of the United States.
The joke holds true, where the difference between Europeans and Americans is that Europeans think 100 miles is a long drive, and Americans think 100 years is a long time. The reason Americans think 100 years is a long time is because, relatively speaking, it is. We only have a few hundreds of years of history to draw from, but European countries, regions and cultures draw from thousands of years of distinct histories. Changes in various forms of government in those countries does not change their history to the point of making them a "young" country without much history in the same manner as the United States.