This is not true in the United States, unless you conflate all the governments within the United States as "the government" and ignore the federal system.

In the United States, either Congress or the States may adopt a proposed amendment with a 2/3 vote. However, and importantly, only the States can ratify the amendment with a 3/4 vote. This means that, in the United States, at least, "the government" itself cannot repeal amendments. It requires the approval of at least (at this time) 38 other governments.

State, federal, it's still the government.

The difference is that in the US, while the common man's ability to influence the federal government is basically zero, their ability to influence state and local governments is much stronger. Much of California's social, economic and political landscape is a result of political activism over the past few decades (setting aside whether one agrees with those policies, my point is how they came about).

Which means that for things like amendments, people have alot more power than they do even over Congress.

A single Norwegian or Canadian has a lot more influence on their federal government than a single Californian on their state government.

And ease of influence is not actually the metric you want to optimize for in this sort of thing.

No, not when state or county governments disagree with or refuse to enforce federal government laws. Haven't 37 US states legalized (to some extent) marijuana, while the federal government still has prohibition laws/rules in place? Or county/city governments that have countered executive orders from their respective state governments regarding COVID-19 (Orange county in Florida, or the Pennsylvania country York PA is in)?

> Haven't 37 US states legalized (to some extent) marijuana, while the federal government still has prohibition laws/rules in place?

I mean, that's a bad example because if you admit you've done drugs to a border guard (even while in a state where it's 'legal') you'll get deported. It's not really legal anywhere in the US, there's just a bunch of people doing illegal things. At best this is a case of "it's not illegal of you don't get caught" even if that's because the locals are intentionally trying not to look.

This is an example of dysfunction, not successful function, and an abject failure of federal policy and leadership.

I agree that it should be a states rights issue.