The Decay of Freedom

I think it can be said that no people is fit to govern itself if it does not hate to be governed. That healthy hatred of being governed, formerly so strong in the American people, is gradually being lost. No interference is resented today, no menace to family life, no government monopoly, if only it be thought to confer physical benefits. I do not think that we ought to deceive ourselves about this matter. We are witnessing today in America the decay of free institutions. And that decay is proceeding quite in the well worn track which it followed, for example, when the Roman Republic gave place to the Roman Empire about two thousand years ago.

J. Gresham Machen: from the book Education, Christianity, and the State.