"A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defence

"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights....
    "A 'right'… means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.... A crime is a violation of the right(s) of other men by force (or fraud)... This provide[s] the only valid justification of a government and define[s] its only proper purpose: to protect man’s rights by protecting him from physical violence....

    "The necessary consequence of man's right to life is his right to self-defence. In a civilised society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initi­ate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physi­cal force a moral imperative.The nature of the laws proper to a free society and the source of its government's authority are both to be de­rived from the nature and purpose of a proper govern­ment.
    "A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defence....
    "Observe the basic principle governing justice ... : it is the principle that no man may obtain any values from others without the owners' consent­ and, as a corollary, that a man's rights may not be left at the mercy of the unilateral decision, the arbitrary choice, the irrationality, the whim of another man....
    "Such, in essence, is the proper purpose of a govern­ment: to make social existence possible to men, by pro­tecting the benefits and combating the evils which men can cause to one another...
    "The proper functions of a government fall into three broad categories, all of them involving the issues of physi­cal force and the protection of men's rights: the police, to protect men from criminals - the armed services, to protect men from foreign invaders - the law courts, to settle disputes among men according to objective laws. ... [W]hat is essential here is the principle to be implemented: the principle that the purpose of law and of government is the protec­tion of individual rights.
    "Today, this principle is forgotten, ignored and evaded. The result is the present state of the world, with man­kind's retrogression to the lawlessness of absolutist tyran­ny, to the primitive savagery of rule by brute force."

~ Ayn Rand, composite quote from her essays 'The Nature of Government,' 'Man's Rights,' 'Galt's Speech,' and ''Political' Crimes'