It would be rather strange to expect a mechanism that bars governments from holding bitcoins to be built into the protocol, and thus it is rather strange that you expect this to have ever been the intention.
Whatever the "intention" was, what the parent says was the second most advertised supposed feature of Bitcoin by crypto bros (second, as first was "getting rich quick").
Sure, lack of government control is a main selling point, they just did not mean the term "control" in the way that both of you appear to be interpreting it.
