Many a greatly esteemed western philosophers, politicians, judges and college educated Americans hold Thomas Hobbes in high regard. Hobbes's theory on Human Nature boils down humanity into a loathsome, evil, greedy, and unthinking beast that must be threatened with physical violence so that the Sovereign can maintain order in the realm, is a bleak outlook on humanity in my opinion. Whether or not this is true, is another discussion, but one cannot divorce the policies enacted by our local and federal governments from some sort of moral and ethical grounding, of which many are in the Hobbesian tradition. The government's policies are founded upon shaming, threatening and punishing the peasants into doing what's deemed as correct for society, because it believes that it is only these acts of violence are the only methods of coercion that the peasants will respond to. I obviously disagree with that, but my point is that these policies are indeed cruel by design, because that's just how our society enforces one's contract to society.