The Proof

Fedayking kept grilling me late one night this week. He kept saying, "Why? Why? Why?" and demanding proof. How do you prove the proper role of government? Why do we have rights? Where do they come from? Why is force evil? What are the extents of our agency? How do you know that? Basically the topics from the first six chapters of our book. Thanks to him I wrote this nice summary of that first section of the book to tie everything together. Hope you enjoy. If it's without context, that's because it comes at the end of six chapters:

Here’s how everything so far is linked together. These concepts can be viewed in a pyramid-shaped hierarchy, with the upper levels dependent on, and existing because of, the foundation laid underneath:

Proper Government

Individual Rights

Force Destroys Freedom

Agency and Stewardship

Proper Life and Happiness

We have started with the foundational truth that you are alive. You exist in order to live in happiness to the fullest extent possible. Your life and happiness are the standard to be used to judge reality, your decisions, your goals and values, and your interactions with others, as good or bad.
Because you are alive it means you have a body. Unless prevented by some disability, you also have the agency to control that body. You have the responsibility to engage it in the use of productive, life-and-happiness-serving values. What you create with your mind and body in this endeavor are also considered your property - yours to do with as you see fit.
Because your life and happiness require it, you must be left free to act on your own judgement. Life is the standard. Thus any force initiated against you is evil since it prevents you from using your agency to pursue your fullest joy in the ways you rationally decide.
Because force destroys your freedom and agency, man’s life requires the recognition of certain moral principles to guide his actions among other men. Such principles are called individual rights. Force isn’t evil because it violates rights; rights exist because force is evil.
Because man must use moral principles in order to rationally guide his actions and protect his life and agency, he may join with other men to delegate the defense of those rights to a government. Thus we demonstrate the proof that the only proper role of a government is the objective and equal protection of individual rights. Anything more than this is tyranny; anything less is anarchy.