I'm not Steve (thankfully! ) but I can tell you that while Hanson is an admirable classicist, when he goes beyond that era he is way off the mark, especially with his ideas that the 'Western Way of War' is somehow more deadly than the 'Eastern Way', and has some kind of immutable attributes that are continuously visible throughout history (or maybe just some very cherry-picked examples).
And Steve,
While I agree a degree of individual freedom is important, it is worth noting that some of the forces most repressive against the individual, like the German army in WWI and Alexander the Great's Macedonians, have very good track records. Admittedly, neither of these are 100% against the individual, but I don't think you can find a historical example that was.