Politics

American politics, to our eyes, is a strange thing. First, because Americans seem to have a general distrust, and a general dislike of government. Remember Ronald Reagan saying something like "The scariest phrase in the English language is 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'"? Well, maybe you don't, but he did. And Americans liked him. In the movie 2012, the governor (of California, I think) comes on the radio to tell people not to panic, and the hero says "That's exactly when you should panic". The American government system seems to be set up to make sure that the government is usually incapable of doing anything - in the senate, for example, a 40% minority can filibuster, and stop any bill getting anywhere. And then it's got to pass congress, and then the president can veto it. A lot of people can say no.

In addition, a lot of people get elected (depending on the state) - sheriffs and judges and school district coordinators and state attorneys and all sorts of other people are elected, and in some states, propositions can be proposed, and these can be directly voted on by the electorate.

Not that this matters to you very much, because you won't be able to vote.

If the government does something, it's often seen as suspicious. There are laws about wearing seatbelts, but these are not obeyed to a surprising (to my UK senses) amount - reading traffic accident reports, people seem to usually not be wearing a seatbelt. (Although that's a biased sample, because they are more likely to die, and if you don't die, you don't make the papers.) Red light cameras are widely seen as a way by the government to raise money and intrude into our lives - I've seen emails sent to large groups of people, asking if they know of ways to avoid your number plate being detected by the cameras - this is seen as an acceptable thing to do. If you suggest that they don't drive through red lights, and that they therefore might not have an accident, they get cross (again, that's in my experience).