Do you consider the States united? I don't think even the United Kingdom is united, obviously more so than America, due to far far fewer components America appears to be more messed up than the floor of a hen house Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Yes, and No It seems that we started off as 13 free and independent states who joined together for mutual defense... And then Things evolved Sometimes via tremendous blood letting. But still Many things are left up to the individual states(some states have the death penalty, some don't. Some states can arrest you for having sex in anything but the missionary position...etc...even cities---eg Norman Oklahoma 5 dollar fine for having sex in public, 10 dollar fine for spitting on the sidewalk...crazy 'nuff(?) ) And then, we have the supreme court which imposes federal over state old maxim is an ambulance and a state police car and a county police car and a us mail truck come to a crossroad who has the right of way The mail truck federal supersedes state supersedes county etc... ............................................... (hell man, I didn't invent this system)
It's pretty "united" in that if you ask someone where they are from, if they are traveling abroad, they will say "I'm from the U.S.". Not "I'm from Raleigh or I'm from North Carolina". People disagree and aren't "united" in that sense but what area that is 3,000 miles across has people that agree with each other all across that distance? Especially if that area includes 350,000,000 people. The South of Italy doesn't agree with the North. Why should anyone expect it to be so much different in the U.S.? Maybe it's different in Australia but they only have about 35,000,000 people as I recall. It's mostly just empty land. The whole populate would fit into the Tokyo metro area. The South/Southeast is really the only odd man out. Otherwise the disagreements are just between what percentage of someone else's money you think you deserve.