The government has a wide range of means at its disposal to protect the right of its citizens. The most important is the rule of law. In the United States, citizens' rights are enshrined in the Constitution, which it is the duty of the government to protect. The government can act to enforce constitutional provisions such as those contained in the Bill of Rights, or it can enact laws that give added strength to their protection.

Of course, the government doesn't always fulfill its duty, and the history of America is replete with examples where governments most certainly did not protect citizens' rights. But the rights contained in the Constitution do, at the very least, represent a standard to which governments should aspire.

Governments can also use force to protect the rights of their citizens. This is what happened in 1957, when President Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard in order to enforce school desegregation. For good measure, he also sent in members of the 101st Airborne Division to ensure that the rights of those African American students known as the Little Rock Nine were protected.

In such a situation, where the law was being ignored and obstructed by the Arkansas authorities, there was no choice but for the federal government to use force to protect the students' right to an education at a desegregated school.

The rights of citizens are theoretically protected by the rule of law. In practical terms, the government protects these rights with violence and the threat of violence.

In most modern, democratic states, the government, subject to certain restrictions, has a monopoly on the use of violence. In return for this monopoly, it gives two guarantees. First, the government will protect its citizens from violence inflicted by others, whether foreign powers or private citizens. Second, it will not use violence against its own citizens unless they break the law, and then in a proportionate manner.

These guarantees are backed by the most vital principle of the rule of law: that it applies to everyone equally, including the highest officials of the administration. Even the president or king is not above the law and can be charged with a crime in the same way as anyone else.

When the state is functioning properly, the violence with which the government protects the rights of its citizens remains latent and invisible most of the time. It is seen principally in clashes between the police and individual criminals. However, in times of civil unrest, the picture becomes more complex. This is because a good government must protect its citizens from itself and its successors, as well as from third parties. When a government is seen by many citizens to be acting unreasonably and to be depriving citizens of their rights, this is when it becomes apparent how effective the checks and balances on government power really are and whether citizens rights are properly protected.

There are many things the government can do to protect the rights of its citizens. One thing the government can do is to guarantee these rights in a written document such as the Constitution. The first ten amendments to our Constitution, called the Bill of Rights, guarantee basic freedoms of the American people. For example, freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, and freedom of religion are guaranteed rights.

The government must also protect its citizens when there is an attempt to take away their rights. Currently, the government is fighting the threat created by terrorist attacks. By working to stop terrorists, who want to take away some of our rights and freedoms, the government is working to protect the rights and freedoms we have. In World War I and World War II, we fought to preserve democratic governments and the rights people had under these governments.

Sometimes, the government will pass laws to protect our rights. People who do things to violate our rights, like stealing our property, are punished when they break the law. The government creates laws to help keep people safe and to help safeguard their rights.

There are many things the government can do to protect our rights.

Often, our rights are being protected from the government.  This would be, for example, when our freedom of religion or freedom of speech needs to be protected from government action.  In such cases, the government does not really do much to protect us.  You could say that the government protects us by not passing laws that infringe on our rights.  You could also say that the government protects our rights from itself by having created the Bill of Rights.  But these are not really positive actions that are being done by the government.  Therefore, we cannot really say that the government protects these kinds of rights.

However, the government does protect some of our rights from other people.  For example, it protects our right to life and to property.  It does this by making and enforcing laws.  The government creates laws, for example, that make it illegal to steal from us by force or bilk us out of our money by fraud.  The police try to enforce these laws, thus deterring people from trying to do these things.  In these ways, the government protects our rights from people who would infringe upon them.