Government is Force. It is the antithesis of freedom by its very nature.
Its existence is a trade-off of Freedom, because absolute freedom is simply Anarchy.
The only legitimate domestic function of government, from an American-perspective (mine, anyway)... is to preserve each individual's rights, by enforceing the Law,.
The Law as determined by consent of the governed through their chosen Representatives; the enforcement only following prescribed due process, also determined by the governed... and that due process initiated only by an action taken in violation of somebody's rights.
The process is never initiated at the discretion of the Government itself; that's called Tyranny.
This is the only way, that I can think of anyway, to preserve the absolute sovereignty of the individual while still delegating some portion of it by their consent, at the polls or simply by their voluntary presence in the jurisdiction, to an agent of the collective with both the resultant authority and the responsibility to protect their rights by force.
So you would agree had the introduction stated that "INDIVIDUAL freedom needs to be government's primary goal." ?
@pbuck0145 I would say that "The preservation of individual Rights needs to be Governments only goal." Domestically, anyway... we also use it to represent us to the rest of the world.
I don't really disagree with your original idea... except to point out what I think is an important distinction: Freedom and Rights are actually conflicting priorities.
Government preserves your rights actively: by lawfully restricting somebody else's freedom.
It only preserves your freedom passively: by otherwise staying entirely out of your life (the one thing that it is currently failing at, dramatically.)