Government ideals are implemented by flawed human beings. While we can never really achieve those ideals we can use them as guideposts and try to require that those we cede power to operate within a limited framework.

Are you talking about the ways our government violates the values we espouse, or are you talking about the failures of society itself. After all, some government failures aren’t failures per se, but the codification of societal biases or ignorance. We’ve had plenty of those, but some of the rage we’re currently dealing with is caused not by ignorant individuals, but by governments looking after their own rather than their citizens. One of my assertions is that municipalities, starved of revenue by citizens who refuse to grant them the cash they ask for have shifted their police department’s focus (and it’s actually most government departments) from public safety to revenue generation. The DOJ report on Ferguson does a pretty good job of detailing the issues, but Ferguson is a nationwide problem. Cities have adopted policies that prey on the poor and disenfranchised for additional revenue through fines. fees, court costs, parole fees, failure to appear fines, and incarceration for those who cannot afford to pay. I haven’t lived in poverty in many decades, but I personally know middle class people who have actually calculated the math comparing serving time in the local jail to retire fines, versus working and paying the fines out of income. Sometimes jail is more affordable. That’s insanity, and it’s happening every day. I think many poor, working class and disenfranchised people are legitimately angry at the police, but most of that anger is actually about the police being used to issue, collect, and enforce municipal fines. The current mantra that minorities are killed more often by police is a fabrication, but police departments across the country have been allowed to police themselves and create a culture with little or no accountability for police abuses. For example in Louisiana, investigators are prohibited from questioning any officer involved in a shooting for thirty days. Seriously? The rise of the surveillance state, a de facto police state has already occurred, with hardly a peep from people who should know better.

What do I think the role of modern government should be? The most important factors are the rule of law, as in everyone is subject to the same set of laws, regardless of money or power. Next, property rights, including intellectual property rights, national defense, international agreements, and a body of law or framework that the states must operate within that makes it relatively easy for any citizen to live, work or conduct business anywhere in the states. I think equality of opportunity, not outcome is also a very important ideal. Crony capitalism, regulations that handicap small firms through policies that are cost effective for large firms to follow, but impossible for start ups , licensing schemes, real estate permitting, all the various ways that governments actively favor one group over another are an abomination of our ideals.

I’ll send this back to you. What do you see as the primary functions of modern government?