Few would begrudge a man the right to sell his wares in a free-market environment. If you've got some, say, furniture to sell, well I see little reason to allow the government to play any role in your methods.
But some things are less easily exempted from a community's relationship to them. Few still argue against having fire departments, police departments, the FDA, the SEC, a national defense, etc (we all know the examples of government that have few detractors).
Anti-government rhetoric is an idea that has been so thoroughly debunked by history that it baffles me that it still gets, not just credence, but hero-like adulation. Ronald Reagan's entire legacy is built upon it, and it is a positive legacy, despite the fact that his trickle down policies have been unequivocally debunked (check this out).
Nobody loves plumbing, and nobody loves government (not even this radical leftist), but what is the alternative? As unwieldy as it is, government is our only voice.
We are afraid of government. It is not just radical righties, but independents and even liberals who have a knee-jerk belief that the government is ultimately and inevitably corrupt and tyrannical. I myself would be considered a radical progressive (though i think of myself as a conservative - which is why i refuse to use the word conservative for right wingers - because time marches on and challenges are unavoidable and I believe it is conservative to confront them with the most sober and sensible answers, even if it requires change) yet I would champion no government I have ever learned about. "Champion" being the important word here, because government, even at its best, is like good plumbing, and nobody champions good plumbing.
Yet, as any good plague will demonstrate, we need plumbing. The alternative is, well, shit everywhere. Shit banks, shit defense, shit roads, shit cities, shit markets, shit industrialization, and yes, shit health care.
What is that great saying: "if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice". In the vacuum that is left by a boycotted government role, tyrants have arisen to power. The greatest thing that ever happened to predators of all sectors of society was the conflation of patriotism with small government or anti-government sentiment. It has been fueled by the wealthy since the dawn of this nation because nothing has helped the vulture class more, than to convince everyone that despising the government is uniquely American.
Yet after 233 years, there have been no successful answers to the next question. If no government (or a small, drownable in a bathtub government), then what? All evidence verifies that without the plumbing of government we have shit all over the place. Who wants to abandon the U.S. military in favor of voluntary militias? Who wants to abandon the FDA in favor of buyer beware? Who wants to go back to a pre-FDR wall street? Who wants to kill Social Security or Medicare?
Anti-government rhetoric is the biggest straw man of all. Everybody's tired of the shit in the living room. we're trying to decide how we're going to fund and build a toilet to carry away the feces, and crazy uncle jim is running around yelling "no socialist plumbing!!!"
I don't like government, but what's the alternative?