Since Men Aren't Angels

Government - the external variety - is necessary.

There is a not insignificant sentiment that exists that supposes that the law is arbitrary; indeed I've argued with many people I consider friends on the improper absolute that suggests that free men should be free from external government. While the body of laws governing the Republic undoubtedly contains some arbitrary legislation, it is worth repeating that morality is a component inseparable from the law.

I have been sitting on this quote for a couple of days, waiting for a time when I'd have a few precious minutes to share the wisdom contained therein. And from one of my favorite Founding Fathers, no less. Enjoy, courtesy of the Patriot Post:

To grant that there is a supreme intelligence who rules the world and has established laws to regulate the actions of his creatures; and still to assert that man, in a state of nature, may be considered as perfectly free from all restraints of law and government, appears to a common understanding altogether irreconcilable. Good and wise men, in all ages, have embraced a very dissimilar theory. They have supposed that the deity, from the relations we stand in to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is indispensably obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever. This is what is called the law of nature....Upon this law depend the natural rights of mankind."

-- Alexander Hamilton