I was listening to the radio a few months ago, and Drew Carey was being interviewed about his libertarianism.  He made an interesting observation:  Most people believe the government is for the people.  Drew believes the government is against the people, what with all the laws, the wiretapping, the copyright punishments, and the war on drugs.  While his views are a little crazy, he at least makes some sort of sense.  The government exists to punish the people who breaks its laws.  Sure, it provides nice things like highways, censorship, education, tax refunds, and military protection.  But it also does a lot of restricting and punishing. 

I've noticed this same thing with non-political things like the NFL.  NFL games are available on basic cable channels (ABC, NBC, FOX) for little money at all.  But if you happen to live outside your favorite team's hometown, you're out of luck.  NFL Sunday Ticket is a service offered through DirecTV that broadcasts every NFL game of the whole season for something like $80 per year (but only through DirecTV, which is a satellite provider).  The NFL also has a deal with Yahoo to offer streaming online versions of every game, all for the low-low price of $249.99 per year.  Oh, but it's not available in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and several other places, not because it's technologically infeasible but because the NFL doesn't want people to see all the games.  And that's what I don't get.  Why does a sports organization have so many restrictions about who can watch what games when?  Why can't I broadcast a game without the NFL's consent (that's why I think NFL on demand is illegal)?  It just seems like the organization exists solely to create rules and punish rule-breakers.  And that makes me want to become a libertarian.