I agree with all of this. Much regulatory action amounts to forcing people to make different choices. If they just made those choices, we would need less regula

I agree with all of this. Much regulatory action amounts to forcing people to make different choices. If they just made those choices, we would need less regulation. There are cases where individual choice alone is inadequate, such as when we need to pool our resources to achieve something or we need a central organizer to make collective action possible, but a vast portion of the legislation proposed is aimed squarely at changing individual choices. On top of that, making a choice oneself inspires hope and commitment. If you make the hard choice, sacrifices near-term comfort for the common good, cognitive dissonance rewards you. Likewise, if you make a morally lazy choice, cognitive dissonance soothes your conscience and makes it harder to choose otherwise in the future.