PAUL GREENBERG: Wouldn't it be nice?

Democratic nations are peculiarly susceptible to a soft form of despotism that doesn't so much dictate to its people as embrace them, infantilize them, smother them ever so gently in its all-encompassing arms.

We would all be saved the trouble of making our own decisions, providing our own necessities (like health care), and generally thinking for ourselves. Which was always a bother anyway.

Such a regime would cover "the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. ... Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes and stupefies a people."

The important thing is that nothing come between the caretaker State and its subjects, formerly citizens. So there will be no confusion about who is in charge, no divided loyalties with each of us going our own way, following our own ideas rather than melting into the warm ocean of The People Yes. But the road to serfdom must be smooth, broad, safe -- an interstate compared to the crooked little roads each of us might choose. It'll be more efficient that way.

No.