An interesting passage...
by Steve M
From: Faith and Freedom by Benjamin Hart
In the minds of the framers, politics was nothing more than the perpetual struggle between the passions of those in power and the rights of the people. As Thomas Gordon put it in Cato’s Letters an influential work of the period, "Whatever is good for the people is bad for the governors." The nature of power, wrote one 18th-century American poet, is that "if at first it meets with no control [it] creeps by degrees and quickly subdues the whole."
Until the founding of the United States, power had always emerged victorious over freedom. Individual liberty directly challenges the domain of authority. It is, therefore, not in government’s interest to permit freedom to flourish. Moreover, restricting choice is what government is supposed to do. Government acts as umpire, regulator, jailer, war-maker, and, sometimes, executioner. Its function is to force people to do things for which they would not otherwise volunteer, such as pay taxes, or stand in front of a firing squad. The trick is to prevent government from compelling people to do these things illegitimately. Virtually all 18th-century Americans believed that individuals have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the protection of property, and that it is government’s responsibility to protect these rights. But it is the very essence of government to take away all three. More importantly, it is in government’s interest to do so.