I look at this from another perspective. While you interpet "personal freedom" as a good thing, I see it as an indicator of weakness. Alone personal freedom isn't bad. But when used as resistance against the public good and overall progress, it is a sign that it is being misused, either by malice or incompetence, or maybe both.

America won the world wars by being an industrial powerhouse who could get things built in large quantity. I think that is no longer the case. To go further, it indicates a strategic weakness in national defense. Japan's warships were technologically superior to the American's. The German tank' specs were better than the Allies. But they lost on the number games. I feel like if a fight broke out between the US and China right now, we may see the same thing happen again, except this time, the US is the one playing the "few elite" card while China has the industrial and manufacturing power to swarm us with "good enough" war engines. And history has shown twice which strategy would win a war.