[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by New Era

The greatest weakness to the US system is the lack of control and consistency over those things that you, as a citizen, rely upon as essential services for your family. If education, healthcare, law enforcement, utility provisioning, and so on, all the way down to refuse collection and disposal, are not managed in some consistent and responsible way, you're bordering on a banana republic. It is an extremely sad statement on the world's "greatest superpower" that you, as a citizen, have to research school districts, have to know the billing practices of each hospital in your area, have to know the jurisdictional responsibility of the layers of law enforcement, etc. before you invest in a community.

It isn't even just state-by-state differences - the balkanization goes right down to the county level. The way I've heard it described is a great many Americans' radius of trust doesn't extend further than they can see from standing on the roof of their house. The notion that a school's quality and funding depends almost entirely on the affluence of the neighbourhood, or that each county should have its own police and emergency services, strikes me as hopelessly backward.