The Importance of Government Explained

John Lennons  Imagine is a beautiful song, but when he tallies up the  things he can imagine us living without—possessions, religion and so on—he never asks us to imagine a world without government. The closest he comes is when he asks us to imagine that there are no countries, but thats not exactly the same thing. This is probably because Lennon was a student of human nature. He knew that government might be one thing we cant do without. Governments are important structures. Lets imagine a world with no government. A World Without Laws   Im typing this on my MacBook right now. Lets imagine that a very large man—well call him Biff—has decided that he doesnt  especially like my writing. He walks in, throws the MacBook to the floor, stomps it into little pieces, and leaves. But before leaving, Biff tells me that if I write anything else he doesnt like, hell do to me what he did to my MacBook. Biff just established something very much like his own government. It has become against Biffs law for me to write things that Biff doesnt like. The penalty is severe and enforcement is fairly certain. Whos going to stop him? Certainly not me. Im smaller and less violent than he is. But Biff isnt really the biggest problem in this no-government world. The real problem is a greedy, heavily armed guy—well call him Frank—who has learned that if he steals money then hires enough muscle with his ill-gotten gains, he can demand goods and services from every business in town. He can take anything he wants and make almost anybody do whatever he demands. Theres no authority higher than Frank that can make him stop what hes doing, so this jerk has literally created his own government—what political theorists refer to as a despotism, a government ruled by a despot, which is essentially another word for tyrant. A World of Despotic Governments   Some governments arent much different from the despotism I just described. Kim Jong-un technically inherited his army instead of hiring it in North Korea, but the principle is the same. What Kim Jong-un wants, Kim Jong-un gets. Its the same system Frank used, but on a larger scale. If we dont want Frank or Kim Jong-un in charge, we must all get together and agree to do something to prevent them from taking over. And that agreement itself is a government. We need governments to protect us from other, worse power structures that would otherwise form in our midst and deprive us of our rights. The Founders of America believed in natural rights held by all persons as espoused by English philosopher John Locke. These were the rights to life liberty and property. They are often referred to today as basic or fundamental rights. As Thomas Jefferson said  the Declaration of Independence:   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, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.