Their ire is directed toward officials, not the governmental structure that such officials manage. They are satisfied with how the federal government is structured and just want "better people" managing it.

The irony is that if the type of federal governmental structure under which we live today had been proposed to the American people after the Constitutional Convention, there is no possibility that they would have approved it. They would have rejected the Constitution and, therefore, the federal government would never have come into existence.

For some 10 years, Americans had been operating under a governmental structure known as the Articles of Confederation. Under this structure, there was a federal government but its powers were so weak that it didn't even have the power to tax. Imagine that: 10 years under a federal government that lacked the power to tax people!

The Articles of Confederation reflected the philosophical mindset of our American ancestors. They didn't want a powerful federal government. They knew that a powerful federal government would end up destroying their freedom and their well-being.

But there were problems with the Articles, such as trade wars between the states. To fix these problems, the states sent delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The purpose of the convention was simply to revise the Articles.