Joe,
Your post made me think of Tocqueville:
The sovereign extends its arms about the society as a whole; it covers
its surface with a network of petty regulations?complicated, minute,
and uniform?through which even the most original minds and the most
vigorous souls know not how to make their way? it does not break wills;
it softens them, bends them, and directs them; rarely does it force one
to act, but it constantly opposes itself to one?s acting on one?s own ?
it does not tyrannize, it gets in the way: it curtails, it enervates,
it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally reduces each nation to being
nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the
government is the shepherd.
