[tg3]

Not saying that I agree with GP, but the US was much less centralized during the early days of the Constitution than it is today. Part of that is practical - fast communication makes it easier to centralize.

But over many years through a combination of Supreme Court decisions, legislation, and executive decisions, authority has become more concentrated in the hands of the Federal government than in the state/local government, or left to the individual.

That's not to say that it's all bad - civil rights, for example was a hugely important movement only made possible by moving some power away from the states. But to deny that it has happened isn't right either.