“A ruler always assures his victims that their loss of liberties is the price they must pay for the additional security (order) he purports to establish. Well might we question whether the ruler has either the intention or the capability to reduce the degree of social disorder. Plenty of evidence exhibits state-ridden societies boiling with disorder. In the United States, for example, a country brimming with official “protectors” of every imaginable stripe, the populace suffered in 2004, according to figures the government itself endorses, approximately 16,000 murders, 95,000 forcible rapes, 401,000 robberies, 855,000 aggravated assaults, 2,143,000 burglaries, 6,948,000 larcenies and thefts, and 1,237,000 motor vehicle thefts (U.S. Census Bureau 2007, 191). The governments of the United States have taken the people’s liberties—if you don’t think so, you need to spend more time reading U.S. Statutes at Large and the Code of Federal Regulations, not to mention your state and local laws and ordinances—but where’s the protective quid pro quo? They broke the egg of our liberties, without a doubt, but where’s the bloody omelet of personal protection and social order?” ~ Robert Higgs