No, you can, and often do have it both ways. I know Americans often treat their government as some kind of foreign entity, but in Europe and other places as well, people see the government as truly representing them. What you said sounds to me like, you can give parents control over their children and hope they don't abuse them, or you can let children retain control, but you can't have it both ways. Well, no. You can trust and demand the government to have the best interest of its citizens in mind, just like you can demand and trust that of parents. I realize that in some parts of the American political spectrum this sort of thing is hard to grasp, and I don't want to get into what is a peculiarly American political argument, but you should know that in most democratic countries people often view their own government very differently from Americans. They demand certain things of their government and can trust it to behave a certain way, and if it doesn't - they punish it.
In short: there is such a thing as good government (which, sadly, the American democratic party doesn't stress enough).