What is the proper role of government?

[realtonygoodwin]

I would like to have a civil discussion on what you think is the proper role of the Federal government.

[Seraphim]

Boarder protection. Very little else.

[pcosmar]

I would like to have a civil discussion on what you think is the proper role of the Federal government.

Limited. Very limited.

As a mediator and arbitrator between the states. As a Guarantor of Rights (should they be infringed by states or entities)

As a coordinating body to address the other nations of the world. ( Diplomatic representative)

To raise a coordinated Defense should the country be directly attacked.

[tremendoustie]

I would like to have a civil discussion on what you think is the proper role of the Federal government.

I don't think federal government is a net benefit. I think proper behavior for any organization or individual begins with respecting personal and property rights, and acting non-aggressively. The federal government as we have it completely fails on those counts.

Local government is far more accountable, for a number of reasons, and far more easily escapable as well.

If some sort of national organization wished to work as a coordinator for local efforts to respond to some general attack, for example -- or offer services as a mediator/arbiter between disputants, that'd be fine with me.

[1000-points-of-fright]

Boarder protection. Very little else.

Room renters should not get any special treatment.

[FreeTraveler]

The OP specifies Federal government. The law of the land is currently the Constitution, so I'd say Article 1 Section 8 lays it out pretty clearly.

Now, I'd like to see it seriously amended, or even scrapped for an Agorist society, but I'd be tickled pink if FedGov went back to Article 1 Section 8.

[RCA]

There is no proper role for any government.

[CaptUSA]

Limited. Very limited.

As a mediator and arbitrator between the states. As a Guarantor of Rights (should they be infringed by states or entities)

As a coordinating body to address the other nations of the world. ( Diplomatic representative)

To raise a coordinated Defense should the country be directly attacked.
^ This.

[noxagol]

The proper role of government is to enforce the law. The question is though, what is the law?

Bastiat puts it best:


What Is Law?

What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?

If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.

[raystone]

Same as all government. To protect our natural rights.

[RCA]

Same as all government. To protect our natural rights.

By taking them away?

[pcosmar]

By taking them away?

That is not the "Proper" role of government.


We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —

But when that does happen,,


But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —