Mother, may I......................?

Carl Schramm laments the intrusion of knowing-what's-best governmental decision making into the routine nooks and crannies of life.  And he points to some unpleasant-for-the-future consequences.  Full essay is here.  Excerpt here:

Unimaginably, America, the land of the rugged individualist of old, has become a “Mother, may I?” society.

There is a hidden and profound danger that such permission-seeking inflicts on America’s famed individual creative capacity. The impulse for individual freedom that animated our revolution resulted in the most creative economic society ever imagined, one built on individual risk taking and performance. Freedom to think the unthinkable brought forth unimagined innovation. American innovations in pharmaceuticals, construction, transportation, and housing have lengthened life and improved living standards. Exported, copied, and emulated, American creativity — expressed in revolutionary new products and services — inarguably has bettered the lives of billions of people around the world.

thanks craig