"Above
this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power,
which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications
and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute,
minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like
the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its
object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks,
on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood:
it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided
they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness
such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to
be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness;
it provides for their security, foresees and supplies
their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages
their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates
the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances:
what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking
and all the trouble of living?"
-- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book
II [1840], Part 4, Chapter 6.
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