Anarchy is no guarantee that some people won't kill, injure, kidnap, defraud, or steal from others. Government is a guarantee that some will. -- Gustave de Molinari
Eyes roll when I say that most people hate coercive government. Common sense says people will never give up their welfare, unemployment insurance, Obamacare, or Social Security; or forgo occupational licensing, land zoning, union monopolies, minimum wage laws, immigration control, tariffs, and a zillion other government intrusions.
But which raises more passion when discussing government -- praising benefits or complaining about bureaucracies? That's a no-brainer: actions speak louder than words, the walk shows the lies of the talk. People despise how government messes with their lives, the complexity of taxes, the myriad conflicting regulations, the constant nagging, loss of privacy, general buttinsky attitude, and the helplessness of understanding anything associated with government, let alone trying to change anything or even get their due. "Good enough for government work" didn't appear out of nowhere; it originated at a time when only government militaries had the purchasing power to enforce standards, but quickly degenerated to commentary on government stodginess. People tell surveys they support the police, but they sure don't like getting traffic tickets or even seeing cops while driving. By comparison, the only time benefits raise people's blood pressure is when government threatens reductions; they've been paying into that damned fund too damned long to lose it now! The only people who see a moral duty for society to take care of each other are those who want others to pay for it -- to everyone else, it's all about getting back what they've already paid for and been promised.
Then there's the flip side -- politicians. They smother everything they say and do in enough lies, hypocrisy, and rationalizations to flip positions a dozen times, retroactively. At the same time, everything is cloaked in legal fig leafs for the rule of law. What turns people into politicians? It's a dread of having to think for themselves combined with jealousy of those who do, which carries over into thinking that everybody else is as duplicitous as they are, leading to the conclusion that the only alternative to enslavement is to enslave others first. You can tell how much they believe their own propaganda when they call their parasitical jobs "service".
How do I reconcile individualism with the electoral evidence that people want more from government? Because no one has ever known life without government butting into their own lives, or, more importantly, ready, willing, and able to butt into others' lives on their behalf. Even in the first few years of this country, politicians were front and center when authorizing roads, canals, and railroads, but were nowhere to be seen when they went bankrupt. It's long since passed the tipping point where it is more profitable to sic the government on your competitors than to (literally) mind your own business.
Compare that to voluntary associations. If your association got too oppressive, raising taxes to fund crony projects, restricting your business and life, you could just quit and find a more agreeable association, or start one of your own, or give up on them altogether. The extra time you'd spend managing your own pension, charity donations, insurance, and health care would still be less than fending off association parasites.
Imagine the simple change of government having no prosecutors, that the only way to enforce government laws is for victims (or their heirs or guardians) to prosecute, and that laws which the public does not enforce regularly and consistently are wiped from the books and all their past effects undone. That's half the charter world right there.
Here's an interesting hypothetical commencement speech, with four notable liberals extolling the primacy of the individual:
Steve Jobs, Stanford University, 2005: "Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."
Ellen DeGeneres, Tulane University, 2009: "It was so important for me to lose everything because I found out what the most important thing is, is to be true to yourself."
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Wellesley College, 2015 (I really like this one): "Do not twist yourself into shapes to please. Don't do it. If someone likes that version of you — that version of you that is false and holds back — then they actually just like that twisted shape, and not you."
Michael Keaton, Kent State University, 2018: "You have to take risks. ... Make mistakes, take chances. ... And what that will lead to is self-discovery, and it will lead you back to your natural authentic self."