How is that not the world we live in? What is the alternative? At some point someone's deciding what's a right and what isn't. Other people may disagree. Rights aren't a law of nature, they're a fuzzy category, subject to conditions and caveats and shifting over time.
> "is there any such thing as a government that does not force people to do things they wouldn't voluntarily do?" - no there isn't. That's why it should be limited to protecting other people's rights.
But a lot of the things government does that don't fall within that narrow limit really, really appear to make my life and the lives of the people I care about much better, at relatively little cost (for a broad definition of cost). Few or none of the OECD states seem too bad, to put it mildly. None are unqualified disasters, or even close. Meanwhile a "drown it in a bathtub" government coexisting with an advanced economy (correct me if I'm wrong) remains hypothetical—indeed, I think it's fair to call mainstream the view among experts that governments' special ability to overcome coordination problems and take action to nurture markets is vital to an advanced economy—as do the effects of such a system. So it's definitely going to be an uphill battle convincing me that our government "should be limited to protecting other people's rights", without some other state practicing that and full of citizens telling me "no, really, it's pretty great".
Will we ever see this in reality? No. But, the closer humans have gotten in history the better off they've been.
I'm having trouble figuring out how this doesn't still boil down to people making judgement calls on what is and isn't a right, just with a level of indirection, so maybe this other question will help me see what you mean:
> Will we ever see this in reality? No. But, the closer humans have gotten in history the better off they've been.
Do you have an example in mind of when and where we've come especially close to this ideal?
It seems like a standard is just a reason for choosing a given set of things to call rights and a given role for government, and we're all set to circle right back to where we were—the people with the power to affect government choosing those things, based on reasons (which was implicitly the case before, anyway). At some point there must be compelling evidence for selecting a given standard over any other, and one would hope that standard may change in the face of new evidence.
arches eyebrow
Is that not the poster child for extensive government intervention in markets and public/private partnership done right?
The purpose of government is to protect our rights.
It sounds like you also think "you logically have a right to the services of someone else", otherwise who's doing the protection?