As a European, I'm constantly amazed at the fractured nature of American society, Europeans have an idea that the US is one country, everyone pulls together and gets great things done. Well it turns out that the US gets great things done in spite of the fact that it operates as 50 different countries. I honestly had no idea before I moved here that so many people viewed the residents of other states with such suspicion and fear. I guess it's a size thing, coming from a relatively small country (the UK is roughly the same size as Florida) I'm used to regional differences but not regional animosity.
There is an internal migration going on within the US, the citizens from the north have finally figured out that the weather up there is terrible, that the folks in the south speak the same language (after a fashion) and the winter isn't nine months long. This has led to a large degree of "Git the hell back to whur ye cum from." Personally I think it's a good thing, we could do with the fresh DNA, shit was getting a little weird around these here parts.
You see evidence of state before country everywhere which is ok I guess, provided it doesn't become counter productive, unfortunately such is the incredible level of distrust in the federal government it has long since passed the point of being counter productive. Added to that we have the on-going civil war. For my European readers I'll need to explain, in 1861 eleven southern states broke away from the rest of the union and declared their secession, forming The Confederate States of America. Rumor has it that the war ended in 1865 but no one seems to have told the locals down here. I live in Charleston which is actually where the war started so feelings are running pretty high. What they don't realize is that they're all yanks.
So we have a federal government that thinks it runs a country and we have 50 individual states that think they are countries, constantly challenging the government and resenting federal interference into state issues such as appalling education, shockingly bad health care provision, unsafe roads and blatant violations of the federal constitution. To make matters worse, each state is fractured to a ridiculous degree and as a result huge inefficiencies exist, here's an example. I work on James Island it has a population of around 40,000. There is currently no Town of James Island, it's been incorporated 3 times and has been taken to court three times by the City of Charleston which is trying to incorporate the island into the city, each time the city has won but the Town is gearing up for a fourth attempt to establish itself. Part of the Island is already incorporated into the city and as such these residents get refuse collection, fire and police protection from the city. The rest of the Island has solid waste (garbage) collection and fire protection from another agency (Public Service District) the county provide police protection for these folks via the Sheriffs department, confused? I know I am. Of course if you drive far enough down Folly Road you get to the beach, which is a town in it's own right with it's own fire, police etc etc. It's pathetic.
Imagine what we could achieve if we all worked together, to the same objective, I blame Ronald Reagan, ironically, one of the greatest post war presidents, he probably did more to foster the idea that the federal government has a minimal role in running the country than anyone else. Prior to this we had "The United States" now it's more like "The Divided States" In the 1970's it probably would have been possible to implement a universal healthcare system, alas no more. Such is the distrust of the federal government now I fear we will never see a fair and affordable healthcare system in the US. Most people cite government inefficiency as one of the main reasons to avoid universal healthcare, in actuality Medicare and Medicaid are far more efficient than any private system spending only 3% of turnover on administration and marketing compared to over 30% in the private sector.
This ridiculous state of affairs will only continue to get worse while we have separatist politicians at a local level. South Carolina recently refused to apply for over $140m of federal money set aside for the improvement of schools and god knows we need it. But we shouldn't be surprised when it's now a serious political position to de-fund public schools completely! We have a fractured health system that allows people to register with as many doctors as they please thus allowing pill poppers to collect as many prescriptions as they like. We have a school system that allows children to be "home schooled" with virtually no oversight, or just drop out completely and no one notices. We have fire engines rolling past closer stations to service "their" people, have a traffic accident and you can have three different types of police turn up at the same time, don't like the no smoking ordinance in the bar? no worries, try the one next door, it's in another town, what a mess.
Rant Over.
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