The irony is that a government which professes to care about those it governs under the pretense that "government is your friend" tends to be far more interfering, noisome, and downright oppressive than a government which professes to care only about national interests with respect to foreign entities. The government is not your friend, and I think a lot of political tension would dissipate if more people realised that and stopped making excuses for it. I see it where I live - a lot of people here are formerly from New York City (where everyone looks out for № 1 and no-one else), which they got sick of and moved to a "town" in the middle of nowhere with no zoning laws. The local (county) government doesn't care about this place, and we'd like to keep it that way.