from someone who says it better than i ever could
"The people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have.
Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we mjust all allow; yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.
It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way."
-Thoreau; Civil Disobedience
Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we mjust all allow; yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.
It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way."
-Thoreau; Civil Disobedience