This country was not founded on the principles of collectivism. Nor did the Founding Fathers elect a king in the person of the president. On the contrary, It was founded on the principal of individualism. You cannot have a successful community of citizens without individualism. If your individual liberty is not protected in a society, you are nothing more than a subject. Laws based on individual liberty protect us from each other, as well as a tyrannical government. The rule of law, rather than the rule of man is the key to a civil society; and that rule of law has to be based on our natural rights as human beings. Rights that are unalienable, not subject to the whims of whoever is in power at any given time.