But what's less obvious but equally if subtly devastating is the low-burn destruction of liberalism's denial of little freedoms and choices that degrade and destroy human happiness and, eventually, life.
Every unnecessary law, tax, rule, or regulation denies Americans of an alternative use of what was taken from them which would have led to greater health, happiness and property (although that's a redundant list of which most modern Americans haven't a clue). For example, by overtaxing someone by $3,000, that's not just some economic inefficiency or necessary political cost, it's a direct denial of the choices and, thus, happiness, that that $3,000 would have allowed.
One way to conceptualize it is to relate the cost of government upon individuals to Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs," a measurement of human happiness:
Government's role is to protect the very basic human needs at the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy. But Leftists think they can not only deliver the lower-level needs but higher-order happiness through redistributions, safety nets, and other centralized, government plans. And these great benefits are to occur, somehow, without reducing the higher-order happiness and opportunities for it of the providers of those programs and taxes. Instead, they create false self-esteem, envy, and barriers to self-empowerment and then cover up their crimes by decrying an unfairness of their own creation.
In ignoring its impact upon higher-order happiness, or "actualization," as Maslow puts it, and while claiming to create a more "just" society, the progressive, "soft" Left and its Democrat party promoters are as criminal as the Nazis and Communists.