The idea that unfettered freedom is good (i.e. no government) is uninformed, in my opinion... first of all, "survival of the fittest" is wonderful - if you're one of the strong... what about the handicapped, the poor unable to afford health care and education, etc? I know that SR is a free-market drug site, but the idea of "fighting the state" brings up other issues, too - social services, education, defense... should we "privatize" those services and, if so, why?
Assuming the state has to provide services like education and healthcare along with charitable services like welfare is lazy thinking, imo. The state tries to and mostly succeeds in monopolizing the most vital goods and services in a society (and as much of the others it can get away with). And we aren't talking about a natural monopoly here where one firm wins out by out-competing the rest. We're talking about a monopoly imposed at the point of a gun. In the USSR, the state had monopolized so much of the economy that when when it finally fell, people couldn't imagine private enterprises providing what was needed. When restructuring, even the most liberal leaders conceded at first that the state would have to provide, for example, the production and distribution of food. It made sense, how could such a vital thing be left up to private citizens? What if they screwed up? People would die! And this was coming from a nation where many were intentionally starved to death by their leaders!
Of course we wouldn't think twice about letting private enterprise handle the production and distribution of food. Look how well it does it! Can you imagine how badly government would screw that up if they took control? But that's an easy example, because we have real world evidence to support the claim that market participants competing for customers can do a much better job than bureaucrats taxing the populace and then using their "wisdom" to decide how the food should be produced and distributed.
To look at the hard examples, you have to abandon intellectual laziness and apply market principles to industries where the market has not been allowed to work because of government monopoly (education, transportation, utilities, security, justice, defense, charity etc). First of course, you need to understand economics and liberty (see signature). From there, I hope you will realize that a moral society is preferable for all but the elite who currently control the state apparatus. I'm talking about a society where no one is given the right to steal from another (taxation) or tell another what they can and can't do provided they aren't impinging on anther's same right (regulation), or kidnap and cage human beings for putting certain substance in their body ("criminal justice") or murder countless innocent men, women and children (war).
This isn't utopian bullshit either. It's the predictable outcome of using a voluntary market to organize. I hope you'll consider that there is a better way, even though it is untested. Read the books in my sig.
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