I would be lying if I said the situation didn't inspire urges of vigilantism in me at the time.

The government is a very, very scary thing. Because I'm disabled, I've had many encounters with the faceless and all powerful hand of the government, sometimes it feels like they'd want a medical certificate just to allow people like me to keep breathing. But paradoxically, I believe in a fairly strong government, I think it's best to have an organization at the top which is explicitly defined to serve the need of the people, rather than whatever would rise to the top in its stead. As long as one remains aware of how terrifying the government can be and is willing to go out and throw a few bricks at government buildings. I think it's served us well, comparing my country to the rest of the word.

Yeah, agreed. The mistake a lot of individuals make when they fall in the intellectual trap of Libertarianism is that power doesn't care about labels. Sure the state "has a monopoly on violence" but that is not an intrinsic thing. A weak state quickly finds violence being adopted by other centers of power within a society (just look at Haiti). We attempt to concentrate certain powers in government because it's the easiest way to keep those powers in check. In the end you don't want any center of power to get too powerful as it makes systems overall less stable. The best counter for a strong government is strong civic engagement and democratic norms as government is need to act as a counter to private centralized power (both legal and extralegal).

Sometimes the easiest way to keep the powers and check are to simply not grant them to the state. Some problems are better solved by decentralized power, even if it is imperfect and has collateral damage.

Sometimes is a real weasel word here. The unfortunate truth is we can’t trust government, but every other option tends to be vastly worse.

Government contractors introduce horrible conflicts of interest at every level. The US used to get projects done early and under budget before contracting took over, but that doesn’t make anyone wealthy.

Private individuals run into the tragedy of the commons.

etc etc

I dont think it is clear at all that every option in worse.

You might make a case that federal employees would do better than 3rd parties, but this beside the point I am trying to make.

You cant have abusive legal guardianships without state involvement, contractors or not.

Abusive legal guardianships demonstrate we can’t trust individuals not just the government.

So, my point is if you can’t trust people, companies, or the government then what’s left? IMO, the best option is to simply limit the number of things we need to trust. You don’t need to trust news organizations for them to act as a balance on government corruption. That only goes so far, but it’s still useful.

I also agree with limiting the number of individuals or institutions you have to rely on and Trust.

In this case, if durable legal guardianship against the wishes of the ward did not exist, there would be no need to trust anyone, the government or otherwise.

To be clear, what I'm proposing in this case is that nobody can have their assets seized without their permission.

Similarly, I don't have to invest trust in my underwear stain inspector, governmental or otherwise because nobody has the right to stop me inspect my underwear.

There isn’t a trust nobody solution to the guardianship issue. Your solution just means trusting the individual. That seems reasonable on the surface, but results in unpleasantness due to degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's etc. It’s an extremely vulnerable population that constantly get targeted by scammers who prey a people with diminished mental capacity.

To be clear I am not saying government is the right solution, just that the problem does exist. Not just because people get taken advantage of but because taxpayers gets stuck taking care of people who have lost everything.

PS: Being able to trust children is one solution that works at the individual level, but it unfortunately doesn’t scale.

In my example I'm not trusting the individual but individual may be trusting themselves.

I think that is a crucial difference morally, legally, and politically.

It is one thing to give up your own autonomy because you don't trust yourself, which is entirely reasonable.

It is another thing to give up everybody's personal autonomy because you don't trust yourself.

Giving the government the power to strip someone's rights and place them in guardianship I'm sure avoid some elder abuse and suffering.

My point is that I don't think it is ethical for those who want this protection to make that decision for everyone.

Arguing about the ethics is one way to shape policy, but it doesn’t make problems disappear.

Every day people do lose the ability to make informed decisions without preparing for that change. How and why we respond to that doesn’t change the underlying biology.

100% agree it doesn't change the biology. Ethics just determines the acceptable collateral damage from our policy solution.

How many beneficial guardianships are an acceptable trade for one abusive guardianship?

Maybe the answer is absolutely 0 and this should be off limits for policy.