Does "The State" View Us As Children?

I was reading an Isaac Asimov essay today (I keep a blog called The Encyclopedia Asimova, available on the Kindle) and came across the following introduction to his essay "Hot, Cold and Con Fusion.)

My dear wife, Janet, is, for some reason, incredibly solicitous over my well-being. If there's a single cloud in the sky, it's umbrella time. If a mist has faintly bedewed the streets, I must slip into my rubbers. If the temperature drops below seventy, on goes my fur hat. I won't even mention the close watch kept on my diet, the inquisitional cros-examination at the slightest cough, and so on.

You may suppose that I am very grateful for all this care. I put it up to any husband in similar straits. "Are you grateful?"

I thought not.

In fact, I complain a great deal about the matter, and I can be very eloquent, too, when I feel aggrieved. And do I get sympathy?

I do not.

To all my complaints, all my friends and acquaintances look at me coldly and say, "But that's because she loves you."

You have no idea how irritating that is.

So one time recently I was in a limousine being ferried a moderate distance to give a talk. The driver was a foreigner of some sort, who drove with perfect accuracy, and who was clearly intelligent, but he had only a sketchy command of English. Being aware of this, he took the trouble to practice his English on me and I answered carefully and with good enunciation so that he might learn.

At one point, he looked at the smiling sunshine, felt the mild breeze, enjoyed the sight of a nearby park, and said, "It - is-vair byootiful - day."

At this, my sense of grievance rose high and I said, in my normal manner of speaking, "Yes, it is. And so why did my wife make me take an umbrella?" And I raised the offending instrument and waived it.

Whereupon the driver, choosing his words carefully, said, "But your -wife-she lahv you."

And I sank back defeated. The conspiracy was cross-cultural.

And as I read this tale of an over-protective wife, who continues to think of her husband as a helpless child, I couldn't help but think of our government, who is trying to do the same coddling to us - in terms of the food we eat - or mustn't eat, and so on.

Those folks who like to stand on their own two feet rebel (just as most children rebel, eventually), but those folks who are on welfare - and I'm talking everyone of all colors - they are willing to put up with this intrusion into their lives if it means that they get free money for food and housing for the rest of their lives. Perhaps after the second generation of living in such a way, those folks just lose all idea of being independent - of even realizing it's possible and better to be independent!