Believe me, I'm well-traveled enough to understand how good we do have it here. But being the best doesn't mean you stop seeing where improvements could be made. I think the allowance of free speech and criticism of our government leads to constructive feedback, despite all the ad hominem, alarmism, and fear mongering chaff that gets put out. So while it is an oversimplification to state that we are trending toward authoritarianism, it's one side effect that may arise from creating too many laws to administer, and too many agencies to oversee. We end up with fiefdoms who effectively (if not statutorily) answer to nobody. I'm not advocating massive deregulation, but there has to be a limit on what each layer of government (e.g. local, state, federal) is doing. Prioritize what can be done to a full level, rather than trying to fund & execute more than is possible to do in a competent manner. Yes, I understand it's hard to get there. But if we keep writing new laws without looking for old ones we can retire, we're going to continue trending toward more bureaucracy, less efficiency, and greater risk of effectively unilateral agencies and even whole branches of government.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Not a crisis, but something to guard against. How many politicians are calling for trimming the fat from the law books, the tax code, etc.? The ones who do hardly ever get anywhere because it's a tough sell to the voters and could be seen as undermining their own power.
