Explain the difference between a Federal and National government? I use those terms interchangeably.
Lots of people use them interchangeably, demonstrating an ignorance of what the Founders wanted for the new Nation. A Federation of co-equal States. The States were supposed to be powerful, the Federal government much less so. That train left the station a long time ago, with the fatal nail driven by the 17th Amendment, effectively removing the governments of the several states completely out of the process.
But, to my post, I have very little interaction with the federal government and can't think of any bad ones.
All of my government grievances are handled on a local level.
Some friends of mine have it even worse than the guy in the OP. They've got to deal with HOAs and their rules. Shoot, there was a city up the road that got sued and finally had to allow it's residents the ability to grow vegetables on their front lawns.
The government closest to the people supposedly governs best, but tyranny is always just under the top sheet in any government. Some people think it's nice to have a National government to act as a check on local tyranny, but all that does is centralize the tyranny in DeeCee, 180 degrees out of phase with what the Founders intended.
You say you've had no negative experiences at the "Federal" level, and then that you've never dealt with them. You have a disconnect. People who have to deal with them directly, like broadcasters needing a license from the Federal Communications Commission, will tell you that dealing with DeeCee is no picnic. It's something I learned about personally back in my first career. The Jimmy Carter FCC effectively forbade my hiring by virtue of my skin hue. It's one of the reasons I left that field to go into R&D for a large Semiconductor company, and why I learned to employ an eternal distrust of the National (used to be "Federal") Government.
Government tends to corruption, and the worst corruption can be found in DeeCee. You have a better chance of throwing the bums out of City Hall than you do out of Capitol Hill.