“nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.”
I believe that is known in the modern age as ‘Europe’. The loss of freedom seems to be galloping in the past few years and I very much doubt Obama’s administration will slow it down. This may in fact be the curtain call for individual responsibility and the final triumph of the welfare state.
The question is, how do you reverse these trends? Is that sort of reversal even possible with an electorate with whom the majority pays for nothing in return for the largesse of others?
The good news is, such a system is ultimately unsustainable and will eventually collapse. But this could take a long time, as the Soviet Union demonstrated. Of course, many people will be so morally and mentally wrecked that they will not function well in a relatively free society, should the old order be overthrown or collapse. So the bad news is, a society may go from one form of despotism to another rather than from despotism to freedom.
And I think the coming American (and Western European) despotism will offer people the illusion of freedom while taking away important rights. This is a refinement from the old fascist and communist systems. We see it already in that pornography or senseless violence are celebrated as important expressions of freedom of speech, but serious political, religious, moral and even scientific speech is increasingly censored. The average, dumbed-down person thinks he is free because he can watch all manner of vulgar entertainment. Most intellectuals are believers in despotism and look forward to being high priests and commissars in the new order - see how hostile they are to competing ideas. The decadent, despotic Roman Empire lumbered along for hundreds of years and that part of the world did not see much progress until one thousand years after the collapse of the old Roman system. The West is probably facing a similar fate again.