mano22

Lately I have been having trouble defending one of Ayn Rand's positions. For the longest time I have taken for granted that the only "service" the federal government should provide is the protection of individual rights. That is, courts, police, and military. This is Rand's stance, and it always seemed so obvious to me that I never even thought to question it. But in arguing with leftists (I dread using the world liberal as the mainstream media does, since most "liberals" are anything but) against universal health care, it was pointed out to me that it is arbitrary for the govt to provide these 3 services (courts, police, military) and not more or less. And after thinking about it a little bit, I cannot figure out a reason why this is not true. In any of Rand's works does she talk about why exactly it is proper for the govt to provide these 3 services and not less? I know that I would never want the govt to do more than this, but is it possible that in an ideal society there would be no government at all? I feel like Rand must have thought this through and written about it somewhere, but I cannot find anything on it. There must be a specific rational justification for it, even though it seems so obvious. I also have read some works by Murray Rothbard of the Austrian school of economics (whose opinion I greatly respect), and he advocates going a step further than Rand to anarchy. This is only adding to my confusion. Anarchy does not seem like a good social system to me at all. I assume that I am simply missing a piece of Rand's argument, and that once I find it everything will click. If anyone can shed some light on this it would be greatly appreciated.