In your first example, the key words are "place themselves."

We are totally at their mercy, we have given up our ability to take care of ourselves, along with the ability to make our own clothes, grow our own food, or even defend ourselves from brigands. Even the institutions that helped us such as church and family, are fading away. We buy every thing we need and earn the money to do so from the same faceless, distant "economy". We've paid a high price for our comfort.

I am constantly being told that it is a great idea, and the sign of the advance of civilization, to place our health, old age, and many other needs in the sole hands of the State, which, oddly, is run by the same kind of fallible humans who run corporations like Exxon.

Why is this?

I can get a bike and not buy gas if I really want to. Any inconvenience or convenience is my choice. I can't think of a single privately produced product or service that I couldn't choose not to buy if I wanted to go to the extra trouble and inconvenience involved.

If I choose not to contribute to Social Security for my retirement, or Medicare for my health in my old age, and find alternatives, I can be prosecuted.

I'm finding this all very interesting, and a bit frustrating. Where is the training that makes us so willing to put on the velvet manacles for the government, but has infinite wariness about the private sector encroaching on their lives?

One of the richest men in the world, running one of the largest corporations, can't force me buy a Windows operating system. Yet the lowliest local zoning board member around here can tell me what to do with my property. Or else.

Now, if you want to know what happened in this country to things like self-reliance, "church and family," private charity, and independence, go look at those who have spent decades deliberately crushing and dismantling those institutions by their policies.

Dammit, when you think "self-reliance, church and family, private charity, and independence" does "liberal" or "conservative" come immediately to mind?

You're on the wrong side. Turn around and LOOK.

You sound like you've spent many years clawing at the soft fiber walls of a corporate cubicle, yet you don't seem to be the type. I think I know what's turning Bowser's crank. What's turning yours?