You're forgetting that our constitution was designed to give us strong state governments, and to specifically keep centralized government out of most of our daily affairs. Those third world countries you are pointing to as an example do not have a level of state government.
It makes a difference, even if you want to claim it's just the principle. We have way too strong and big central government - which is what Scat was arguing against. He specifically referred to centralized (federal) government. You said he was wrong, but he actually wasn't. No one here is arguing for weak government across the board, and no one here is arguing for no government - despite what you pretend with snark. What the majority of us want is less government federally - a whole lot less, and more state powers to fill that void. States don't trample people's rights anywhere near the level of the federal government. Because if they did, people would just move to another state, and they'd lose tax revenue. That's the whole point. State politicians are also much easier for the people to control because they aren't able to maintain the same levels of power that federal ones have - because the "machine" can't reach them on the same level (probably because it isn't interested).