Bastiat nailed it—government's real job is to shield people's lives, freedom, and wealth, not to cushion them. Here's the thing though: whenever the state tries to provide for some, it's gotta extract from others first. That extraction mechanism? That's just legalized plundering dressed up in bureaucracy. The moment redistribution becomes the core function, you're no longer protecting property rights—you're actively violating them to fund the machinery itself.