I didn't say federal government, now did I? My point is that when people don't respect the authorities, we refer to this as the "legitimacy of the government" a

I didn't say federal government, now did I? My point is that when people don't respect the authorities, we refer to this as the "legitimacy of the government" and because no state was specified I went with US, because all states and their governments are part of the US. So yes I anticipated your semantic quibble.