it feels to me Americans are more legislated: city laws, county, state, federal. That there are more neighbourly oppressions: your community has more rights against you (about what your lawn looks like, etc.). And so on.

Americans also feel more taxed, again, at every level above.

Ironically, I think the more centralised power is, the more uniformly its managed, the more free one feels under it -- since there arent as many competing interests to worry about