I guess I don't like labels either. That might seem untrue based on my focus on libertarianism, but my main reason for hitting on labels so hard is that left unchallenged, we hear non-anarchists refer to anyone who thinks government should do different things than they do referred to as "statists." We're "holding a gun to their head" and "stealing" from them when we suggest government should provide a social safety net.
I consider anything short of anarchy "government holding a gun to our head," and I think it's a cop out to be able to rest your arguments on such a strong moral claim (that people you disagree with are essentially fascists).
I also think it's worth pointing out how much of our wealth isn't earned outright, but simply claimed and defended as our own. Further, when the good ol' days of "small government" are looked fondly upon, even though in the South we basically had slavery-enforcing (and later terrorist-sympathizing) police states and at the federal level we had an entity that could force me at gunpoint to put my life on the line, I think it's laughable to call this "small government" with a straight face. It was the government that
some felt was small because it didn't feel like it was bothering them. Tell that to someone who died in a trench in WWI or was returned from the North just to be whipped back into work for trying to escape the slavery of the South. Try to tell them that they're free because taxes are lower or because government spending as a percentage of GDP is super low. This wasn't "small government." It was hunky-dory for some and murderous coercion for others.
That's where I think labels are important. Unless you're an anarchist, don't come to me with grand moral claims that I'm a "statist" or that I'm "holding a gun to your head," because you're holding the same gun to my head, but just for different things. We need to argue about what those things that are worth having government for on merits OTHER than whether the government's holding a gun to our head because that's what government is... A coercive entity... one that we can hopefully use in the most fair, productive, prosperous, and "free" ways possible.
My main measure of how "evil" government coercion is (with the knowledge that everything it does is essentially coercion) lies in how many true options citizens have. The holocaust and slavery were so bad because people were treated like trash and had NO options. They were going to live their life in servitude or die. Pure and simple. The draft is far less horrible but still pretty bad, because if you're a man of physical means you have to go fight in a horrible war. Taxes, on the other hand, leave people with plenty of options: Leave the country, don't earn as much, pay your taxes and enjoy what's left over with your family, or even cheat and probably get away with it most of the time.
Is it a value judgement to decide taxes aren't as bad as slavery? Maybe... but I think I'm using a pretty objective measure. Or as objective as you can when you're talking about an entity that is, in and of itself, coercive in nature.
How to measure any good that government does (as opposed to how "evil" its coercion is) is a very different discussion. I'll leave that for another time.
"Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."
- Thomas Paine