CBS D.C. reports:

More than 1 in 4 Americans believe that the government is the enemy, according to a new poll.

Pew Research Center found that 27 percent of registered voters say they think of government as an enemy, up 8 points since 1996. The latest poll looked at general public opinion regarding the federal government.

The findings suggests that 57 percent of voters feel frustrated with the government, while 22 percent feel angry and 18 percent feel “basically content.”

The majority of Americans feel the federal government has room for serious improvement, with 59 percent saying the government needs “very major reform.” Only 37 percent of voters felt that way in 1997.

When asked what particularly makes the government problematic, congress and politics were cited most often. Thirteen percent mentioned Congress, while 11 percent named politics.

More than a third (35 percent) of Republicans believe the federal government is the enemy, while 34 percent of Independents believe the same. The poll found that half of all Democrats (50 percent) view the government as a friend and only 12 percent see it as the enemy.

Other findings include that few think the government is run for the benefit of all the people and that it is viewed as wasteful and inefficient. About 3 in 4 Americans say the federal government is “run by a few big interests” and 57 percent say the “government is almost always wasteful and inefficient.”

Facebook Friend Michael Smith provides examples:

If you don’t believe that American society has punished itself for the actions of other cultures, just think about the restrictions in your lifetime – you used to meet an arriving passenger at the gate in the airport. You used to be able to carry pretty much anything with you when you flew, not just liquids under a certain amount. We used to carry pocket knives with us on flights. We were never strip searched just to get to the gate.

Just think about the things you did as a kid that are forbidden today and you will realize just how much freedom we have lost. It wasn’t in a war, we didn’t have it forcibly taken from us by a military force, it was taken slowly and incrementally, quietly and “legally” by a bureaucratic army staffed by people who claim to want to protect us from ourselves – and it was done so with our permission.