I agree with you that a government, any government, is like a living being, a monster that wants to continually grow larger and more powerful at the expense of the governed. Checks and balances are supposed to stop government overreach, and when they don't there's no going back to what we've lost.
But at some point that big, bloated, over-reaching government has to collapse. When (not if) it does, things will become more local. Some areas will do okay, some not so much. I'm coming to think that the sooner the global and federal governments collapse, the better. At least now, there are still some people who have acquired survival skills. What's it going to be like in a few more generations, if there's no one left who knows how to survive?
Normally I’d buy the ‘eventual collapse’ argument.
However, I propose that the recent oil and gas discoveries have taken our government off life support and extended the time until collapse almost indefinitely.