1. We are like this becuase we WANT to be like this and this system is tried and true. 2. National rule would be a disaster for a country as diverse as ours and perhaps the lack of such is why we have been so suscessful. You think of it as a flaw, while most of us think of it as a godsend. 3. To think it works "poorly" perhaps reflects your limited access to our freedoms. Maybe those freedoms don't inspire you. American as a whole find that they do. Our consitiution is mostly reverered and has survived because it works.
4. As to speaking with "one voice", most Americans reject that completely. Your voice may not speak to my values and mine not to yours. We find that important. We value independence, perhaps you simply cannot understand why. We are far more indivuduals than a collective.
5. Its often said that diversity is our strength and not a hinderence. Its true in my opinion. Not all roses to be sure but its part of why we have become the country we have become. 6. Our freedom sure must inspire others to want to be part of it given the amount of people trying to get here.
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you: had to do bothersome duties such as washing the lunch (that's true hyperbole!) dishes; I realised that apart from making and eating said travesty of a meal, I have spent the entire rest of the morning and afternoon devoted to LuLa. That is hardly healthy. Anyway.
1. You might find that you are "like that" that because its what you are stuck with, know, and are without a snowball's of changing it;
2. I think of it as a flaw because it removes consistency in law and its application. You can carry a gun in one state and yet not in another. Crazy. That such confusion may be characterised as a godsend is quite informative; you may actually be more French than you imagined. Success has come your way for much the same reasons as it did to both post-war Germany and post-war Japan: you started from zero (but in your case, with the added fiscal advantage of slavery). Being split into disperate identities had little to do with it - at least that I can instantly detect. Also, you had the opportunity of space, whereas most European countries are relatively little in size.
3. The only freedom that the rest of us may lack, again that comes to mind, is your unfortunate right to carry lethal weapons around. To me, I am glad we do no have to share it and lots of its consequences: there are social problems enough without that one added to the mix. Oh - just thought of another one: I think that in California you are allowed to drive what amount to home-made cars... Our roads see enough kills without that added risk! Your constitution is probably quite logical, apart from bits of it - Amendments oft quoted - that allow you access to weapons of mass murder.
4. Nothing unusual or uniquely American here: the difference is that we have - or should I say had - a better central system that is slowly being eaten away by the central govt. trying to fend off Scottish Independence by letting more and more local taxation be raised there, which for starters, has resulted in the poor Scotls having to pay more taxes when they buy a house. As not all Scots buy houses, that may do the Nats. no harm in their search for separation votes, thus ironically defeating the central govt. that tried that sop of extended powers for the locals in order to stem their departure. Also, as with your lot, our two lands of many voices are still essentially limited to two broad political choices, both of which are growing ever more radicalised. The only thing worse is having too many choices, where we end up with a weak coalition that can be neither one thing nor the other, with neither conviction nor power to get anything done to the full.
5. Diversity is the pronouncement hailed by our own radical left, principally as an attempt to gather the votes of the immigrant population. Again, and even more ironically than most ironies, it's the very people who traditionally voted left who also voted Brexit in order to get
rid of friggin' minorities! Oy vey, ain't nuttin' like politicians to screw up: the left's much promoted chorus chanting the technicolor promises of diversity is exactly the birdsong that handed them their greatest defeat in many, many decades and resulted in the scalping of a host of ultra-lefties!
6. Your freedoms (and social benefits in the UK) as ours, inspire all of those who come from places where they are economically and socially worse off. Trouble is, the promised lands usually turn out to leave them no better off than where they started their journey. My mind doesn't stretch to thinking that spending every freezing night under a French or English bridge is in any way better than spending it under a warm one in Bombay or Mexico City. When about the only work you can get to keep from starving is selling drugs on the street, you are far worse off than you were at home.
However, if you have the desired qualifications, you can always try to enter a country legally. If they need what you offer, you are in. And that's the way it should be. I chose to come to Spain, mostly for logistical reasons related to my professional travel and photography. I got in at a time when I was not simply allowed so to do because of European agreements to do with the Common Market, but because I could show myself not to be a drain on the Spanish economy. Quite the opposite: I spent my money here and bought Spanish-built property. And after doing so once when I was allowed to do it, I decided never to vote locally again because I could never understand local politics intimately and well enough, and though voting was now a right, I felt I really had no business voting in another person's country. I was grateful enough to be allowed to live here in peace and harmony without the arrogance to attempt to bend their land to my thinking.
;-)
