The "free and independent states" thing was fundamentally decided by the Civil War -- what Gary Wills called "the second American Revolution". The "states rights" crowd lost that one. There are still some rights reserved to the states, but they are more limited than the Confederacy thought they should be. But that's old news. Most of us in the USA are comfortable with the way that turned out, and with the progressively greater role the federal government has played in our lives since the 1860s -- some would argue that this had gone too far, but not too many thinking people would seriously advocate going back to the ambiguity we operated under pre-1860.

[Interestingly enough, "states rights" became a big problem for the Confederacy during the Civil War. As Jeff Davis discovered, it isn't easy to fight a war if each state gets to make up its own mind about the level and quality of its participation.]

Earl seems to assume that people in government are more petty and self-interested than people in the private sector. I've worked in both, and I sure haven't noticed that. I don't advocate carrying on this discussion based on an idealized view of government, but I also don't think we should adopt an idealized view of business. People are people; some do their jobs very well, some don't. Generally, one hopes that the cream will rise to the top, but it doesn't always work out that way. If you worked in government, you might discover (as I have) that government workers have just as many reasons to be efficient and effective as those in private industry do -- and just as much to lose if they don't do their jobs well. Government is a popular whipping boy, because most people work in the private sector, and it's always more fun to say the problem is "them" rather than "us". Those of us who DO have some direct experience in both the public and the private sectors tend to see things a little bit differently.