Charybdis. (H/T Peter Thiel)
In many ways a free society is truly caught between the Scylla and the Charybdis.
In Greek mythology, a certain narrow straight of water was bordered on one side by the Scylla. The Scylla was a giant six-headed monster (think Godzilla with six heads), and naturally, mariners did not want to get too close to this aggressive beast. Get too close and the Scylla would destroy your ship.
But on the other side of this narrow straight was the Charybdis. The Charybdis was a whirlpool that would suck a ship down to the bottom of the sea if you got too close.
So the “trick” for the mariner was to shoot between the Scylla and Charybdis and miss them both! NOT an easy task. You don’t want to be “Caught between the Scylla and Charybdis.”
In modern government, the Scylla is laissez-faire or excessively Libertarian government. But the Charybdis is the stifling, Gestapo-like force of government coercive regulation.
One side says to its citizens and to other countries “Do whatever you please, just don’t bug ME.” The other side says, “You vill do vhat I zay or you get a bullet to zee head!”
And there are REAL problems with both of those approaches…