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Fragmentation of the American System

In a number of ways, it is certainly true that the American system is fragmented, if not necessarily weak. Numerous governmental functions that are performed by the national government as a matter of course in most countries are in the United States relegated to the states. In turn the states pass many of these functions on to local government. The standard form of identification carried by most people is a state driver's license, not a national identification card. Local police perform most law enforcement. They are not directly answerable, in a day-to-day administrative sense, to the national government or even the state government. Local government officials register marriages, property transactions, and much of the other fundamental administration of society.

On the other hand, an observer might ask whether there is an inherent contradiction between the rhetoric of weakness and fragmentation and the reality of the United States as a superpower. The United States government recently carried out a war on another continent, halfway around the world. It did so in the face of widespread doubts abroad and even at home, and in the absence of an immediate, overwhelming provocation by the state against which it went to war. (Certainly the 9/11 attack was an overwhelming provocation, but not directly connected to Iraq.) This is not an action of a weak or fragmented political system. In the 1960s, when the national government chose to overturn long-standing racial laws in the Southern states, these laws were duly eliminated. This too was not an action of a weak or fragmented system.

Turning to the historical origins of the American system, we may consider the Federalist (Hamilton, Jay, and Madison, n.d.). These documents are an exceptional resource, an extended discourse on the conception and objectives of the American Constitution, written by its principal drafters. It is clear from the Federalist that the intent of th...

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Fragmentation of the American System. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 10:40, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1712908.html