The government is starting to phase out incandescent light bulbs, and a recent NPR story quoted a woman who said she objected to the government telling her what she can and can’t buy. Objected vociferously.

As I listened to the report, I was driving a car whose design was shaped by national fuel economy and safety standards. I was on a highway that’s subject to the Department of Transportation’s requirements for signage and pavement markings. I was listening to a station that must comply with the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission. I was coming home from work, where the government takes money from my paycheck for Social Security. I had stopped at the grocery store, filled with products that are scrutinized by the Food and Drug Administration.

And she’s worried about incandescent light bulbs?

Lady, that train has left the station. And it’s hauling coal to power plants where the Environmental Protection Agency monitors smokestack emissions and the state utilities board sets electricity rates.

We’ve been asking the government to save us from ourselves for a long, long time. Is it working? Are we making the United States a better place in which to live? If we’re not, there are always ways to rebel; you can stash a lot of old-school light bulbs in the average closet. If we are, try to think of the never-ending rule-making as a practical alternative to hoping for miracles.

We do have our share of wacky laws, but the good ones prove that a big, easily distracted nation like this one can at least learn from experience. If movie theaters replaced incandescent light bulbs with kerosene lanterns, you could call that freedom of choice. But I would stop going to the movies.

In junior high school, I had no objection to singing along to “I Like It Here,” the catchy bit of propaganda that our teacher returned to again and again. (“I like the United States of America/ I like the way we all live without fear/ Where I can do what I please/ ‘Cause I’m free as the breeze …”)

But later on, I noticed that some of the people who were as free as the breeze took that as the right to blow smoke in the vicinity of my lungs. Sheesh, there oughta be a law, I thought. Then suddenly, there was one. So maybe we always get what I want, but don’t count on it. Besides, I often don’t know what I should be hoping for.

I never would have realized that we could put together a National Weather Service that uses a network of geosynchronous satellites and radar stations to warn me about tornadoes. I just would have kept peeking through the window.

Create the Federal Aviation Administration and have it do research on crash-preventing windshear sensors? Fine, as long as all of my luggage shows up.

It’s rather amazing that we’re still using the technology whipped up by Thomas Edison so many decades ago. The incandescent bulb was a world-changing breakthrough, but it also has been described as a heating device that just happens to give off light. We can do better than that.

Maybe energy-efficient illumination is one more step on the road to mind control, but I think we still have lots of chances to do the wrong thing. The state does encourage us to gamble while drinking.

Long ago in Chicago, a serial murderer left behind a message at the scene of one of his crimes: “Stop me before I kill again.”

At its best, that’s what government can do – prevent us from making a bad situation worse.

Come on, saving energy isn’t so bad. “Nope, I’d rather waste it,” say the folks who mistake old habits for a series of good decisions. “Just try to stop me.”

Jim Pollock is the managing editor of the Des Moines Business Record. He can be reached by email at jimpollock@bpcdm.com