These examples illustrate the problems that arise when government oversteps its proper bounds. The proper function of government is to protect individual rights, such as our rights to free speech, property, and contract. Only those who initiate physical force or fraud can violate our rights. A properly limited government thus protects our rights by protecting us from criminals who steal, murder, rape, and so on, as well as from foreign aggressors. But it should otherwise leave honest people alone to live peacefully.

Whenever government exceeds those proper bounds, it violates honest citizens’ rights, rather than protecting them. Rather than the guilty, the innocent thus bear the costs.