The Proper Role of Government

Man’s survival depends on three things. The first is his ability to reason, which is the means by which he interacts with other men and the mechanism that guides his behavior. Man also needs purpose which is productive work and self-esteem which is self-worthiness, embracing the concept that he is worthy of happiness. What this basically means is that man has a right to life and a right to pursue a life worth living.

This is worth repeating; this concept, which is “man has the right to life and a right to pursue a life worth living” is uniquely American.

Let me make one quick point here. This does not mean man has the absolute right to a life worth living, only the right to pursue that life. Remember these are rights of action. You cannot expect rewards for inaction but to act or not act in your own best interest is voluntary. In other words, you reap what you sow.

The Declaration of Independence prescribes this quite eloquently as the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to own property, and the right to pursue one’s own happiness.

Therefore if this is man’s real rights than what role does the government play in protecting these rights?

Men have only two ways of dealing with one another which is through volition or through intimidation—by reason or force. The government is the only institution with a monopoly on the physical use of force, so the question then becomes whether or not that force is to be used to protect or violate the individual rights of man.

The founders understood the delicate relationship between state powers and protecting the individual quite well. They understood that the most grievous of atrocities perpetrated upon mankind have been committed by government. The founders set forth a form of governing that protects the individual and society from the abuses of government.

The founders knew that in order to safeguard these rights the government must be limited in size and scope so, they gave us a Republic. A Republic is a government that is limited by law, thus leaving the people alone. The law in America is the Constitution, which explicitly restricts the powers of government and protects the individual from the majority.

The Bill of Rights is a document that specifically protects individual liberties—it doesn’t grant rights, it PROTECTS them, and it doesn’t protect collective rights. In other words, no special groups of people have protected rights under the Bill of Rights and that is why we are a constitutional republic—ruled by law not by majority opinion.

The Bill of Rights is defined in negative terms, in other words it is what the government can’t do to people and what the majority can’t do to the individual.

Another thing our founders understood was the importance of property rights as an integral component of individual liberty. This is the private ownership of land, livestock, income, etc, etc. And they also understood the fact that incentive, creativity and productivity is more often than not propagated by reward, and dignity is a product of self-achievement.

We also live in a democracy which by definition is the rule of the people or majority rule. Democracy is important to the “will” of the people and although democracy plays an important function in society it is also dangerous in that the majority can take someone’s property (income, land, business, or even their children) by simply having the majority of votes. Democracies have never lasted long because sooner or later the majority figures out that they can vote themselves the property of others. This is what happened to the ancient Greeks.

Democracy is the process of legislating opinions. The republic which means to be “ruled by law” protects the individual from the whims of the majority. Another way of putting it is democracy can be a means to legislate the majority’s opinion but in a republic it can do so only as long as it dos not violate the law.

The essence of a republic is the fact that the rights of government are not subject to the majority rule but by the law.

In conclusion the only rational function of government is to protect man’s individual rights. This is accomplished, first and foremost by government obeying the law then by providing a police force to protect men from criminals, provide a military to protect men from foreign aggression, and to provide courts to protect men from breach of contract, and to settle disputes among men.