In a perfect world, what would be the role of government?

(crowd chanting outside) "An Ar Chy! An Ar Chy! An Ar Chy! An Ar Chy!"

Friend (think stereotype of the general population): Dude whats with all the noise outside. Why do they want an Arch key?

Me: Are you serious... Anarchy... they are protesting the power structures not demanding a key.

-What? well what's anarchy? Are they protesting democracy! These commies just want to see the world burn

Oh come on, are you completely ignorant. A true anarchist would get rid of all government, institutions, and power structures. He would want absolute freedom to do whatever he wants, that is what most Americans think they want anyways.

-Oh, well yeah, that actually kind of sounds pretty awesome.

Yeah it sounds great doesn't it, no taxes, no rules, no regulations...

-Totally! I'm going to be an anarchist now!

I didn't finish...

-You don't need too, An Ar Chy!

Oh be quiet, you are so impressionable. Anarchy wouldn't just mean no taxes and no laws, it would mean no government at all. Do you like your health care? Or how about your firefighters? Or even the road you use to drive to work?

-Hold on, all of that stuff can be privatized

Really? I mean I would sure hope that firefighters stop every fire not just the ones people pay for. Same with all of our current public services.

-Okay yeah, but that could be done by getting everyone to pay for it.

That doesn't really make sense, but okay fine. How about publicly protected resources? And how do you prevent people from committing crimes, or even punish them after they do.

-That's what the police are for!

The police, the army, the lawmakers are all parts of an institution, and you now don't stand for them.

-Okay so maybe institutions aren't that bad. But I still don't like paying taxes!

Of course you don't, but you like it when the government spends money to do all the things we've been talking about.

-Well yeah I guess, yeah I suppose they have to get the money from someone. But why does it have to be me! Why can't they tax those rich people!

How is that fair? If they just taxed everything the rich had, what would be the incentive to get rich? And why should the rich have to take care of you anyways?

-Well obviously you wouldn't tax Everything they had, but they have an obligation to take care of us! We should tax them just enough that they aren't stupidly rich.

What do you mean obligation?

-Well who do you think made them rich? We make them powerful with our hard earned cash, and then they go around just stealing more from us? They owe us everything!

So you've gone from far right to anarchism to far left in about 2 minutes flat... Well do you think it's the responsibility of the government to balance things out or do you think the people will do it themselves?

-Of course the government has to do something, those greedy corporations wouldn't give anyone dime. They need to tax them and enforce laws and regulations to stop them from ruining the environment and stealing my pension!

You are all over the place here...

-I guess what I'm saying is that anarchy would be nice, no rules and regulations would be great if people had a conscious, but here in this world the government needs to stop people from corrupting the system. However, they need to...