Big brother is watching

To me, government is supposed to serve the people. We shouldn't answer to them.

The role of government is to advance human civilization, like it always has. The worst human rights abuses occur not when government is strong, but government is weak. Chattel slavery occurred at the high tide of limited government and free trade. Civil war and human depravity of all sorts occurs when there is a vacuum in central authority. On the other hand the places in the world universally hailed as having the highest level of human development and least amount of corruption are those where government is strong.

I think the role of the government is to protect the people and very little else.

@Putin,
Chattel slavery is happening right now, and is also prevalent in strong governments. China being one of the worst according to this article: http://listdose.com/top-10-countries-infamous-for-human-trafficking/

I also think you have it backward, when Governments are corrupt, they lose support of the people, become destabilized, and no longer foster a human development. It isn't that when governments are strong, they become less corrupt, and a better environment for human development.

Are we debating now? I thought this was not a debate yet. Or do the libertarians get special rules?

Putin's right, let's hold off on arguing specifics right now. I want to give it a couple of days and see how some of the other forum regulars respond, because once we get down and dirty with the debating people tend not to respond to the OP.

"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...."

I can't improve.

Do people have to actually answer the question?

A few haven't, but the more people that answer the better, naturally.

If Putin didn't want to begin debating, then he shouldn't have defended his position.

huh?

His first sentence stated his position. The rest of what he said defended it.

I don't see it that way, he was expounding on his initial statement with supporting details, much like I did in my OP.

A true democracy that protects the human rights of its minorities is the only legitimate government. Beyond that, the government's role is to respond to the people constitutionally.

A bit more specifically, its role is to regulate the economy to correct the failings of the free market and protect/provide for things of non-economic value, and lastly but most importantly, maintain a monopoly on violence to maintain law and order and prevent violence.

So the government must uphold human rights and safeguard society's basic functioning.

Is the foregoing a controversial view?

Interesting, because I had a discussion recently with semck on this very topic.

I think the OP strongly depends on where the person in question is from. As a Dutch person from a densely populated, but extremely small country (in US terms twice the area of Massachusetts) I see my country as a relatively homogeneous cultural and economic region. This makes it well adapted to a parliamentary system with proportional representation (in contrast to America's district-based parliament). This kind of parliament in turn is best suited to a parliamentary system based on consensus rule rather than the Presidential system of the US. And as these consensus governments are composed of previously elected members, their de jure position with respect to the lawmaking branch is weak compared to the US executive, but their de facto position extremely strong. So for me, strangely, being from a small country translates into a much higher tolerance for a strong government, like Putin advocates.

Also, PE, I think you should specify what level of government you want to discuss. As a Dutchman what you call "Federal" and "State" government in the US for me is one and the same thing. I feel absolutely no need to "numerate" the powers of the Dutch government. I do feel this power should be checked by certain ground rules: non-discrimination, free elections, the basic hallmarks of a free society, and I also adhere strongly to our bicameral system, that privileges gradual over dramatic change. When the government goes too far or not far enough in its interpretation of its role in the country, we'll correct them during the next electoral cycle.

Tl;dr: as a European I'd say that as long as certain principles of a free, democratic and orderly society are respected, the role of the government can evolve somewhat freely as a function of our quadriennal national election.

Great points, redhouse. I actually was speaking about both levels of government from a US perspective in my answer here -- though I definitely agree that the closer the government is, in terms of accountability and geography, to its people, the stronger a government I'd personally be able to tolerate.

As a philosophical point though, I'd imagine that if the divisions of government (federal/state/etc.) were relevant to an individual's view of government's role, then they'd elaborate on the differences between them and why

I agree with PE -- government is to capture societal externalities a free market can't, not just general services and protections, but vacinations, infrastructure (electrification of rural america, interstate transport), etc.

Govertment is also to protect against natural mismatch of information -- free market works on the premise that explotation is limited by fully informed decisions. That is not reality. Be it mortgages, investments or insurance decisions. I am not saying government serves that role well, let alone perfectly, but govertment oversight/regulation creates a floor of faith in the markets to enable functioning and robust markets.

People are getting the process of development all wrong. Government did not come to exist to protect rights, rights came to exist to better facilitate state power. Parliaments formed to better enable the state to extract revenue. Concessions were made to the Estates in the form of privileges in order to mobilize for war. And the modern legal-bureaucratic authority which came to be the model of modern government originated with the powerful Napoleonic French and Brandenburg-Prussian states, not the puny trading city states of Italy or decentralized feudal principalities which seem to be the libertarian model.

PE, we live in the world we live in today. Re-define the role for today. Capture externalities (including for nationalistic advantage such as building industry domestically) and limit information mismatch to support confidence in markets.

Personally I believe infrastructure, healthcare, basic insurance (health, life, home, auto), retirement savings, and basic financing (student, home, small business) should all be nationalized. Supplimental can be private, but all of those are functioning under full faith and credit of the government for catastrophe anyhow, and why allow profit of 20% plus? That means government can be at least that much more inefficient and still provide the same value point.