There is no doubt that the people fear the government. The nation that rebuked a tyrant at its founding now accepts, and feels comfortable with, tyrannical rule.
Someone once said something that sounded a lot like this: "A nation of sheep led by a lion is more to be feared than a nation of lions led by a sheep." That "someone," as it turns out, was Alexander the Great. At least the attribution I found for it says it was Alex as quoted in "The British Battle Fleet: Its Inception and Growth Throughout the Centuries to the Present Day (1915)" by Frederick Thomas Jane.
