As for government creating a "tyranny on the people," at this small, local level government is, definitely, "the people". We can argue a great deal about the relationship between constructs like "the people" and other constructs like "government" at the state and federal level. But at the level of a little NJ boro, them is us.
In a small community, where the people might be more likely to widely agree on an issue, and where those who have a problem can leave, easier than they can leave the country, democracy might become slightly more important when weighed against liberty, than would be the case at the national scale, but liberty is still an important concern even at the local level.
"Them" is closer to, probably more response to, and perhaps more similar to "us", but still "them is not us". And even if they where (say it was a direct democracy with universal suffrage) it wouldn't be enough to make nanny state interventions anything but problematic. |
