A basic conception of the proper role of government, whether as fundamentally passive or fundamentally active seems to be one of the main ideological political differences found in the United States today. This difference in conception is often correlated to the Republican (passive) and Democratic (active) parties, though in reality it is highly debatable whether these associations hold true at all.
I think a good argument for passive forms of government is that it is the people as individuals who matter, and that the government (an abstract entity or system) exists only in service to those individuals. Those who have this attitude would in the same vein view negatively the fact that corporations (likewise an abstraction) are treated as having the same practical rights as individuals.
I think a good argument for active forms of government is that a political entity can be seen as an organic entity in at least some senses. Groups of individuals are not merely a collection of parts, but act as wholes. Thus, there can be a view of “Americans” in general that may not fit very many actual Americans. Or, decisions that make sense on a localized basis can and often do add up to a big mess that could easily be avoided with a little central planning. It is necessary to think “as a group”, which is in fact antithetical to “groupthink”.
This is just a rough sketch of a way of thinking about governments. I suspect it is not new, though I didn’t find anything on Google using the same terms.