I don't think Singapore is the best study in comparisons with the U.S. as it has quite explicitly managed to place high-restrictive control on its population in

I don't think Singapore is the best study in comparisons with the U.S. as it has quite explicitly managed to place high-restrictive control on its population in a way that would not fly (explicitly, anyway) in most Western nations. Singapore is hardly what Americans would consider to be a democracy or free society, and by a very very large stretch.