[annalex]

Actually, the purpose of government is to enforce justice [and not to protect individual rights].

We don't have a real argument, do we? Rights are the basis of justice.

there is evidence that no Muslim had any legitimate grievance against the US foreign policy of the 1990s

Exactly so.

[roughrider]

Higher things always supercede the lower. As rights cannot be exercised in an environment where injustice is the rule rather than the exception, justice is superior to the rights it guarantees. The exercise of rights in a civilized society is contingent upon the status of justice in that society, and nothing that is contingent upon a thing can be superior to the thing upon which it is contingent.

What is a lawless government, besides a tyranny, if it is not organized injustice? In fact, all such lawless governments represent is a kind of top-down anarchy, and probably a thing more to be feared than the anarchy of lawless individuals. At least where there is no government, people can gather together into voluntary communities where some sort of just society, with the resulting liberties, can flourish. When a government stands for nothing but injustice, and has a monopoly on the power of the sword, there is nothing but the hierarchial anarchy of tyranny and totalitarianism.