> There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.

I guess it’s true that some people in positions of power view themselves as rules over others, but I always thought that most people here in the western world held the view that the government exists to serve the people, not the other way around. Is this not the case?

There is plenty of things the government can spend their time on that is actually beneficial to its people, including:

- Regulating industry where necessary to protect employees and the public from harm; physical, economical, psychological, privacy, or otherwise.

- Negotiate with other countries so that mutually beneficial agreements are reached with regards to import and export of goods, as well as immigration, emigration and travel relating to the exchange of labor forces.

- Creating and enforcing laws for how the public is allowed to act so as not to cause harm. Things like laws that prohibiting DUI etc.

- Coming up with ways to protect and help people that get sick or have permanent illnesses or handicaps, to ensure that everyone can have quality of life.

That is what government should be about, not about control for the sake of control itself.

> but I always thought that most people here in the western world held the view that the government exists to serve the people, not the other way around. Is this not the case?

You can say that it exists to serve people but then you have to say which people exactly :) Because I think the willingness of the government to serve people is directly proportional to the depth of the pockets of the people in question.

But if this process like most things has diminishing returns, then wouldn't after a while government use up all the "easy wins", leaving only things to do that have a mix of good benefits and bad side effects. And once the best of these things were done, the remaining options would be more and more "bad side effects" and less and less "good benefits".

I appreciate the Dr. Ferris quote. It's pretty scary to see so much of Atlas became reality.

>The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.

This just isn't true. The rest is garbage in, garbage out.

Such an unrelated libertarian quote that gets blindly posted and blindly upvoted. The EU is having a problem with the US companies running the show over their internet space. They don't intend to lock ordinary people up with this law. So you think it' be better for the companies to hold unlimited power and control people? That'd be much worse than moderate and sensible government regulations.

An apt quote indeed.

- Ayn Rand.