The average person can do more to influence a local mafia boss than they can to influence the federal government. Hell if you have a few dozen friends with guns you can actually stop the mafia from fucking with you for as long as they stick around.
* Edit since I'm spent on replies : Sure you can name that one favela somewhere where a few dozen were beheaded by the mob. The idea isn't that you'll win 100% of the time, the idea is you have some chance. I raise your one unnamed favela with several unnamed Mexican pueblos where cartel was run out by campesinos w/ break-action shotguns and rifles. And the mere fact you actually have a chance at winning is often enough to get a counterparty to back off.
> Hell if you have a few dozen friends with guns you can actually stop the mafia from fucking with you for as long as they stick around.
Go try this in the favela near me and report back. The last group of locals that tried that were beheaded.
I'm beginning to think there's a time limit on relatively fair and effective states, as citizens slowly begin to become almost unbelievably blind to what actual criminal states are like and start dismantling their own institutions.
The institution of the federal government has grown ever more powerful and consuming of peace-time GDP compared to non-war times of ~100+ years ago. Far from dismantling, the consolidation and growth of power of the 'effective state' has created criminals of the common populace in an ever growing compendium of laws.
In no way has the federal government been 'dismantled' as time goes on. Although arguably the constitution has been dismantled, in no small part through ever expanding interpretation of the commerce clause.
A pure democracy is if you lose you can be voted dead. In a constitutional democracy it may not be so direct: i.e. if the majority elect officials that favor say large automotive companies that are permitted to introduce externalities to the water supply that make you dead (see flint water crisis) -- or say your county elects a sheriff who is known to shoot people in 'bad shoots' and then the democratically elected officials prevent effective prosecution of these murders.
How often do “elected officials” do anything against law enforcement? Every politician in any city knows not to go against the local police department.