Those who speak of gezeirot should remember what the word really means: cutting things down to their proper size (memory says that I got this insight from Sefer Haparshiyot). That’s what a tailor does when he performs gezeira on his cloth; he surely doesn’t “punish” it and the cloth doesn’t rise up in anguished protest. So is it when a government acts to reduce a bloated budget deficit, to downsize a set of educational institutions that has enrolled too many people, etc.
Menu