Quotes of the Day vs Ohio laws and regulations

As part of my writing for Ohio Watchdog, I cover a lot of the proposed laws and regulations coming out of Columbus, primarily from Republicans because they're in the majority.

I'm working on a story now about the proposed revisions to the precious metals dealer license. Apparently, criminals used to use pawn shops to liquidate their stolen goods and now they're using businesses that buy and sell gold and other precious metals to do the same.

Of course, that means TOTBAL ... there ought to be a law.

With this on my mind, I opened my daily email from Liberty Tree and find these two quotes which seemed so very appropriate.

"After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." ~ Alexis de Tocqueville

"It used to be the boast of free men that, so long as they kept within the bounds of the known law, there was no need to ask anybody's permission or to obey anybody's orders. It is doubtful whether any of us can make this claim today." ~ Friedrich August von Hayek

I can't help but wonder how we got to this point and whether or not we even realize how much freedom we've actually lost.