America has historically been a group of people that so disliked where they were from that they would rather face death than remain there. As a result, the descendants of these people are bred to be pugnacious. Further more, the power of any government has been historically weak. This allowed people to have a live-and-let-live policy by default.

Since FDR/WWII, the Federal government is a behemoth. It is also the new god of the many of the people. This leads to the factions within the priestly class trying to grab as much power as possible. If you want to create natural balances that fit the psyche of America, you need to shed 20 trillion in debt, and collapse the Federal government to a size last seen before WWII (scaling for population growth of course).