Therewas a time when Americans celebrated this independence of spirit. Thiscelebration also helped instill that reticence for overreach in eachsucceeding generation. In fact, there was more than "a time" when thiswas celebrated, it was the normal American principle until theloathsome counter culture got all up in everyone's business -- and eventhe hippies, dippies, and yippies started off wanting "the man" toleave them alone even as their cause quickly devolved into anauthoritarian we-know-better-than-the-man end game.
Unfortunately,as the yippies began to realize that the hated democracy they lived ingave them the right to work inside the system to obliterate it, and asthese same anti-Americans weaved their baleful influence into oureducation system starting most heavily in the 1960s, they've displacedthe American spirit with a cancer called modern liberalism.