Say that you and I, our families, and many other people live together in a town. It's not a "city" so no mayor or council or police or anything. (Maybe a volunteer fire dept.)
In this situation, each person has equal rights to all others. No one has the right to tell any other person what they can or cannot do -- so long as they don't violate the equal rights of others.
Now imagine one person thinks there should be a community park. If she wants, she can try to convince the residents to voluntarily contribute funds to the cause. However, it's very hard to raise money that way, and anyway, the park will be open to everyone, so it's only 'fair' that everyone should pay a small amount.
She sends out a paper to everyone with the question: "Should everyone have to pay for a park that's open to everyone?" About half the town reply, and of the replies, a little over half (55%) agree that everyone should pay. But hundreds of people can't come up with exactly how to get this done, so she sends out a list of people to choose from. The top five people selected among the returned ballots are then chosen to make the decisions.
The five people decide that only the people who own land have to pay based on how much they own. But what about those who refuse? They decide that they will simply take the property the refuser owns and sell it to raise the funds for the park and pay for all the overhead for having to sell it.
Of course, no one would simply leave their home, so part of the money is used to hire a man and give him a gun, and he will force people out who don't pay. They will also build a cage to keep people who resist leaving their home.
Where do the five people derive the right to tell others what they must do with their peacefully-gained property?
If most people think you should give money to a cause, does the fact that they are a majority mean it's okay for threats of violence be used against you?
Continued...
Now no one wants the same five people making rules all the time, so they have regular elections for the seats. Elections, however, cost money for the candidates.
The owner of the biggest hardware store in town is annoyed that several smaller stores are undercutting his prices because they hire teens at $5/hr where he can't get a competent adult for anything less than $12/hr. So he promises the five council people lots of money for their campaigns if they enact a minimum wage law of $12/hr.
Of course, the people of the town see right through the scam and force the council to pass a rule that no candidate can accept more than $20 from any individual.
The council, however has advantages the challengers don't, such as name recognition, public events, and regular communication with the people which puts their name out much more than any challenger could hope for. Also, the rich hardware store owner can't be stopped from paying for his own billboard ads for the council's reelection, after which the minimum wage law passes unanimously.
Now... Where is the root problem? Should there be tougher laws against buying billboards before an election? Should there be more restrictions on how people should spend their money?
Or maybe the real problem was allowing a few people to make rules, and use violence to enforce them.
