Wikipedia, for all of its faults, defines paternalism as "the quality of being paternal, i.e. like a father, e.g. characterized by behaving in benevolent and yet intrusive manner towards underlings."

People who have called themselves liberal since the late sixties, found it necessary to paternalize those who would comprise their constituents, or underlings.

Neo-liberal, as opposed to classical liberal, philosophy emphasized that people were not directly responsible for their own prosperity and well-being, but that the "establishment" had this obligation. The Neo-Liberals further defined classes of their constituents or underlings, such as ethnic-Americans, LGBT, and other "victims", thus relieving them of the responsibility for their own happiness and prosperity. Furthermore, Neo-Liberals taught this taxonomy to thoughtful young people who were in their care, and under color of their professorial authority, without the benefit of also teaching these students the lessons of Locke, Hayek, Smith or even Friedman.

Rather, these students’ emotions and good intentions were exploited by these professors to enforce their own notions of Democrat paternalism.

Indeed, Hayek wrote the Democrat Party playbook, “The Road to Serfdom”. If the party of Obama’s arrogance and expectations of underlings to fall in line was not made crystal clear during the convention week, then a generation of people may be doomed to be the serfs, the underlings, until the majority of people realize that individual liberty is far more precious then the false security of being taken care of by the machine.