Sounds like pro-police state and fear induced mob mentality to me.

I can see where you are coming from with the "pro-police state" bit, but how is this "fear induced mob mentality"? Unless you mean that the "unregulated" approach results in mob mentality. Just curious.

In the example above, the players were not willing to admit to wanting the helmets until a secret ballot was held, where the fear of loosing face (and manlyness) was removed.