This may be nitpicky, but I don't think we should use the phrase "rights of the government." It implies that the government has some innate justification for th

This may be nitpicky, but I don't think we should use the phrase "rights of the government." It implies that the government has some innate justification for those actions, and I think it leads to a slippery slope whereby we create rights of the collective. For example, if the government has the right to jail people, the jail is there to protect all of us. As a society, that gives us the right to beg for anyone to be thrown into jail "for the good of society." It also gives legitimacy to any government action: if they have a right to throw people in jail, you can't really complain about it when they do so even if they're clearly in the wrong.