I enjoy how your response is not to engage with any of Rayiner's actual arguments and instead try to turn it into a character issue. If you look at the history of American law you'll find that historical scope of the 4th amendment and similar was always a lot narrower than most people today conceive it to be.
In a broader context, it's particularly instructive to look at the history of Shays' Rebellion, which took place a mere decade after the founding of the US; the people running the government at the time, including founders such as John and Samuel Adams had no hesitation on dropping the banhammer on the rebels, to the point of suspending habeas corpus.
The Constitution was most certainly not written with the intention of producing weak government. Like it or not, it invests the federal government with far-reaching powers, and such limits as it does put in place are partly to limit the Federal government's authority over the states, as opposed to individuals.
The U.S. is awesome. I bet there is literally a handful of countries your average HN-er would rather live in than the U.S., and before the economic liberalization of Europe in the 1990's, it was probably less than that. Our prosperity has been supported by an incredibly stable government, one that is, 224 years after its founding, freer than it ever has been (read up on the Alien and Sedition Acts).
It's easy to take what we have for granted, but it's important to maintain perspective. The cause of the republic is not served by those who declare it hopelessly broken and disengage. In the light of historical perspective, you realize that there have been many times in the past when the government was more corrupt than it is now, when society was less free than it is now, and that's a liberating thought because it means that the trend of government does not point inevitably towards corruption and repression.
As a European, I'm pretty impressed by it and the rest of the US legal system, notwithstanding its numerous faults. The US has been through a lot worse than this efore, and emerged better as a society; the NSA processing data in bulk in nothing compared to, say, McCarthyism and the Red Scare.
>I enjoy how your response is not to engage with any of Rayiner's actual arguments
True, though in precisely the same way his response was not to engage with any of Spooner's actual arguments. I am perfectly willing to yield every one of rayiner's positive claims; they only provide more fodder for the rejection of state legitimacy on normative grounds.
In a broader context, it's particularly instructive to look at the history of Shays' Rebellion, which took place a mere decade after the founding of the US; the people running the government at the time, including founders such as John and Samuel Adams had no hesitation on dropping the banhammer on the rebels, to the point of suspending habeas corpus.
The Constitution was most certainly not written with the intention of producing weak government. Like it or not, it invests the federal government with far-reaching powers, and such limits as it does put in place are partly to limit the Federal government's authority over the states, as opposed to individuals.