Freedom versus Government Control

From: Freedom in Chains: The Rise of the State and the Demise of the Citizen
(New York: St Martin's Press, 1999) by James Bovard

The alternative to freedom is government control, which means manipulation and exploitation by liars and hypocrites. The loss of freedom does not occur in a vacuum; instead, it sets off a chain reaction that is sure to drag people lower than they expect. The opening of the borders of private lives to government intrusion is not the final act of some grandiose political drama, but merely the beginning of a sordid, predictable farce. The loss of freedom does not simply mean that people will have fewer choices in how they live; instead, it means that other people will have new prerogatives to command how they live and to punish them for disobeying. And the greater the power at stake, the more noxious the people who are likely to eventually get the grip on the reins.