It's this whole attitude of "look at all these stupid government regulations" that provides political cover for entities like Wall Street and Big Oil to drive us through painful cycles of boom and bust, pillage the global commons, and generally make both figurative and literal messes - which the government ends up cleaning up, and taxpayers end up footing the bill for.
The way I look at it, the degree to which any public or private institution needs to have its activities regulated is directly proportional to its capacity to do harm. Sure, we still need checks and balances on government power, but we've also gone far off the deep end in deregulating major industries that need to be reined in. If you want to loosen up things for individuals and small business, fine, you probably have a case. But please, don't use that to justify dismantling regulation in general because we actually need more of it in some areas.
