It is true, governments sometimes abuse this mandate. However, they must continue to exist because we can count on the strong, when unopposed, to always abuse theirs. "Exploitation, arrogance, bullying, theft, and brutality" seem to be the danger of power of any kind, perhaps this is inevitable, no matter what we do.

I want you to look at this paragraph, and go over history in your mind.

Of the exploitation, arrogance, bullying and theft in this world, how much has been by large businesses, and how much by governments?

Government is self-interest with the power of the gun.

People can rationalize government control of my home, invasion of my privacy, and restriction of my free choices for "the greater good." But these same people will go to the barricades about tracking phone traffic patterns for "the greater good." Why this is so might be a subject for a new thread.

19th century America is often used as the example of free markets gone amuck. Yet for all its real faults, America of that time was a magnet to people from around the world. Not unlike smog-choked London. You see, they had something to compare it with. I suspect that a lot of people around the world even today would cheerfully trade their current lives for a place in America during the infamous Gilded Age.