Most people are generally good and do not wish to harm another person.  This is basic human nature as enjoining a conflict increases the chance that one will be harmed.  The survivalist instinct usually tells us 'flight' is superior to 'fight'.  However, there are occasions when exerting one's rights entails the use of force.  So when is the use of force or violence justified?

Self-defense is the only morally legitimate use of force or violence.  If someone sticks a gun in our face and demands your wallet, we realize that the mugger's use of violence and the threat of force allows us to respond in kind to prevent harm upon person or property.  It matters not what the mugger will do with the cash in your wallet; he could give it to Mother Theresa herself and his actions would still be morally and ethically wrong. 

But when the mugger has a fancy costume and calls itself government, a vast majority of people in the U.S. and around the world see no problem with this use of force.  For them, it is perfectly fine for a group of people called 'government' to use the threat of violence or imprisonment to extort billions of dollars of wealth from producers to distribute to themselves first and then to the preferred special interest groups they represent i.e. not the people. 

The initiation of violence is wrong.  This principle is know as the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP).  It should be the basis of all political philosophy.  Unfortunately, the politics of the U.S. and most the 'developed' world rely on violence against people and property.  Only when the majority of people come to understand the morally bankrupt position of our current political environment will we begin to move towards a more just and peaceful society.  It is the job of freedom and liberty lovers to spread this message far and wide.