Our odd mix of paternalism and freedom

Robin Hanson says,

I can mostly understand wanting people to be free, and I can mostly understand parents wanting to limit kids freedom “for their own good.” I have more trouble understanding our odd mix of paternalism and freedom. Why do we limit some things, and not others?

 The founding fathers exhibited the same pattern: they wanted Americans to be free but they also wanted to control them. They were the founding fathers, after all.