The species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything that ever before existed in the world; our contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their memories. I seek in vain for an expression that will accurately convey the whole of their idea I have formed of it; the old words despotism and tyranny are inappropriate: the thing itself is new. ...The first thing that strikes the observer is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure their petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. ...Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure the gratifications and to watch over their fate. This 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. ...For their happiness such a government willingly labors ...provides for their security ...facilitates their their pleasures, manages their principle concerns ...what remains, but to spare them the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?
- from Democracy In America, Alexis de Tocqueville
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