(Published in the Farwell, TX/Texico, NM State Line Tribune)
If government were necessary- it isn't, but I'll humor you- its one and only possible justification is to protect the rights of the individual. Only individuals have rights; not "society" or any other collective. There is no such thing as "the common good"- this is just a flimsy excuse to harm individuals, which always harms society as a whole since society is made of nothing but individuals.
All rights are, at their foundation, property rights- concerning either your body, or the products of your body and life. When government employees start violating rights (with permits, licenses, prohibitions, and enforcement of "laws" against anything other than theft or aggression) instead of protecting these rights, they are behaving counter to their job's only possible justification and that job needs to be abolished.
A government which violates individual rights invalidates itself.
A large part of the problem is that very few people today understand what rights actually are. All real rights are "negative rights"- things you have a right to not have someone else do to you or your property.
"Positive rights"- things others are required to do for you- are the imaginary product of socialism.
"I have a right to housing, so you can be forced to provide it for me".
"I have a right to an education, so I'll vote to tax you in order to pay for it."
"I have a right to enjoy my property, so you have to get approval to use yours."
The right to use your property as you see fit, within your property lines, without asking permission from anyone, is inalienable. The imaginary right to control what others do with their property, for "the common good", is the perversion which has been normalized through the belief in the existence of human "authority"- which is a dangerous superstition.
Almost all law enforcement now done is nothing but violating Natural Rights and Rightful Liberty- while collecting money to finance even more of the same. As soon as a government starts violating individual rights, including property rights, in any way, it becomes the problem rather than a solution. When it becomes a way to collect fees or fines for the "privilege" of exercising your inalienable rights to your property and the fruits of your labors it becomes a protection racket, not a protector. Don't support or defend this abomination, or the individuals who enable it.
.
