More than 200 years have passed since we fought a war and freed ourselves from the tyranny of a King, and today we find ourselves under the rule of an elected King.  Yesterday I mentioned the tyranny of the Federal government forcing banks to take bailout money in exchange for partial nationalization.  Today, even more details are emerging on that front:

Community banking executives around the country responded with anger yesterday to the Bush administration's strategy of investing $250 billion in financial firms, saying they don't need the money, resent the intrusion and feel it's unfair to rescue companies from their own mistakes.

But regulators said some banks will be pressed to take the taxpayer dollars anyway. Others banks judged too sick to save will be allowed to fail.
...
At Evergreen Federal Bank in Grants Pass, Ore., chief executive Brady Adams said he has more than 2,000 loans outstanding and only three borrowers behind on payments. "We don't need a bailout, and if other banks had run their banks like we ran our bank, they wouldn't have needed a bailout, either," Adams said.

The opposition suggested that the government may have to continue to press banks to participate in the plan. The first $125 billion will be divided among nine of the largest U.S. banks, which were forced to accept the investment to help destigmatize the program in the eyes of other institutions.
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Federal regulators said they did expect some banks to volunteer, though none stepped forward yesterday. But they added that they would not rely on volunteers. Treasury will set standards for deciding which banks can be helped, and the regulatory agencies will triage the banks they oversee

Emphasis mine.  And Bush made the following comments today:

The liquidity measures being taken are structured such that the government will be a passive investor.  In other words, there won't be government officials sitting on the board of private companies.

Ahhh... because as we all know, the government is quite capable of sitting idly by and being passive.  They've never used their ability to give money as leverage to ever force companies to do things they wouldn't normally do... like give sub prime mortgages and interest only loans to people in order to boost home ownership for instance.

And I don't know about you, but when I hear about banks being forced to take money, and then Bush talking about "passive investment", I'm actually more reminded of a mobster forcing in on a business, and telling them not to worry because he'll be a "silent partner".  Don Bush seems to be making an offer that nobody is allowed to refuse.  How's that Democracy working out?