Governments, forces for good or 'evil'?

Free reighn? No, they need to have the people helping them. Power does corrupt. Strict checks are important to keep things in order. The people needs to keep the upper hand and be assured that government is doing what they are supposed to be. And i don't think they should be able to vote themselves raises.

GOvernment should be for the people by the people not government for the government

History shows that you get corruption. How about governments getting out of the way and letting people who have motivation, succeed. Those that want to sit on their laurels, will have that to eat in the winter.

Governments grew out of a need that became apparent when human societies began to exceed the 25-30 population numbers of hunter-gatherer groups. Often they resulted in monarchies being established. But even a monarch was responsible to his people, their well-being and defense. The funny thing is that governments, which have always been allowed by the people, are now considered some separate entity from the people, when in fact "the state" doesn't even really exist. It's just a group of people. When those people who make up "the state" have as a priority the perpetuation of the state, then government ceases to be an instrument of the people and is no longer a protector of the people. That is what we have today, government as a protector of government. Government of this type cannot do any good for the people, because the people are only important when it comes to feeding the economic needs of the state. People can do good. Individuals can be charitable. A government that exists to perpetuate its own power and scope cannot be either, not if it wants to exist very long. Until people take responsibility, instead of shrugging off these responsibilities and trying to achieve them through the state, the state has an interest in being corrupt and powerful. We allow that to happen because we will not take the responsibility and power away from the state. It's a shame, because the framers of the Constitution made it so clear, but our memories are so short.

I think our Founding Fathers got it right with no one element having complete power. We each have to answer to the other.

I do think, it is difficult to eradicate the government system particularly the corruption practice. It needs a lot of time. Have a great day!

http://www.libertarianism.org/people/john-locke Most people no longer have a clue as to what government is for. During the political upheavals of the 17th century, when the first libertarian agenda developed, the most influential case for natural rights came from the pen of scholar John Locke. He expressed the radical view that government is morally obliged to serve people by protecting life, liberty and property. He explained the principle of checks and balances to limit government power. He favored representative government and a rule of law. He denounced tyranny. He insisted that when government violates individual rights, people may legitimately rebel. Locke’s two treatises on government were published in October 1689 with a 1690 date on the title page. While later philosophers have belittled it because Locke based his thinking on archaic notions about a “state of nature,” his bedrock principles endure. He was concerned about arbitrary power, which “becomes Tyranny, whether those that thus use it are one or many.” He defended the natural law tradition whose glorious lineage goes back centuries to the ancient Jews: the tradition that rulers cannot legitimately do anything they want, because there are moral laws applying to everyone. “Reason, which is that Law,” Locke declared, “teaches all Mankind, who would but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions.” Locke envisioned a rule of law: “have a standing Rule to live by, common to every one of that “Society, and made by the Legislative Power erected in it; A Liberty to follow my own Will in all things, where the Rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, Arbitrary Will of another Man.”Locke established that private property is absolutely essential for liberty: “every Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his.” He continues: “The great and chief end therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property.” Locke believed people legitimately turned common property into private property by mixing their labor with it, improving it. Marxists liked to claim this meant Locke embraced the labor theory of value, but he was talking about the basis of ownership rather than value. He insisted that people, not rulers, are sovereign. Government, Locke wrote, “can never have a Power to take to themselves the whole or any part of the Subjects Property, without their own consent. For this would be in effect to leave them no Property at all.” He makes his point even more explicit: rulers “must not raise Taxes on the Property of the People, without the Consent of the People, given by themselves, or their Deputies.” Then Locke affirmed an explicit right to revolution: “whenever the Legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience, and are left to the common Refuge, which God hath provided for all Men, against Force and Violence. Whensoever therefore the Legislative shall transgress this fundamental Rule of Society; and either by Ambition, Fear, Folly or Corruption, endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other an Absolute Power over the Lives, Liberties, and Estates of the People; By this breach of Trust they forfeit the Power, the People had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty.”