Government's Roless?

[anvi]

I want to ask a basic philosophical question of the forum about the role of government in society.  I want to see if I can get a sense of the forum's basic political worldviews, but in terms that are not married to the policy issues we normally argue about here.  Let's forget, for the moment, about the current specific debates over entitlement programs, defense, foreign policy, religion.  Say you are building a government from the ground-up, and let's say your twin, primary goals in establishing a state are ensuring prosperity and justice. 

What should the government do for the citizens?

What should the government leave the citizens to do for themselves?

If you don't want to write a lot, perhaps merely list five things under each question.  I just want to get a little more of a principle-based sense of what people here think government's roles are, and what roles it properly ought not to assume.

Thanks! 

[anvi]

Thanks for those who have contributed so far.  It's striking that no Democrats on the forum have decided to outline their vision of government.  But, some common ideas so far about what government should ensure are:

military/police
courts (along with I'm assuming standard criminal and civil law)
infrastructure
currency standardization
enact and enforce laws guaranteeing civil rights and property ownership rights
enforce laws against economic forms of criminality
formulate and enact immigration policy
provide for public education
provide temporary assistance to those who can't afford healthcare

I do find noteworthy here the recognition of a mixture of "negative rights" and "positive rights" that government should help ensure.  In other words, the citizens have negative rights not to be interfered with by the state, as regards their civil rights and their rights to own property for instance.  But they also have positive rights, the provision of education and health care for the poor and long-term disabled, forms of assistance which, if not present, would diminish a citizen's freedom.

So then, one question becomes, as a matter of principle, where does one draw the line with regard to negative and positive rights?  According to what has been volunteered so far, the state should be allowed to infringe on negative rights for purposes of security, enforcing laws and presumably with regard to economic freedom insofar as taxation will be required in some form to assure all of the state's functions.  The state also has the duty, according to what has been submitted so far, to ensure positive rights, by providing for education and assistance to the poor.  So, as a matter of principle, where does the state draw the line on negative rights it cannot impinge upon and positive rights it has no duty to provide for?  Or, is there no line in principle, but rather we only draw lines given practical considerations that are most pressing at the moment?  (There has been some disagreement about this issue so far, with TJ saying that ideally governments should be enabled to encourage marriage (perhaps a slight limitation on negative rights) and dead0man suggesting that things like public education and catastrophic medical insurance (extensions of positive rights) are under certain conditions "superfluous.")
 

[anvi]

feeblepizza, Which constitution, the one that was written at the founding or the present one as amended?  Doesn't the very fact that the constitution can be amended allow for the possibility that our notions of negative and positive rights, and the persons these belong to, can and do change over time?

wormy:  what would be the consequences of abolishing government entirely?