In reality government action ranges from incompetence, at best, to cruelty at worst. Or as Thomas Paine said: "Government, at its best, is a necessary evil, at its worst an intolerable one." In the name of progress governments destroy individual liberties, ruin economies and civil societes, and of course there are the millions of lives that have been lost in purges, quests to eliminate "lesser" races, great leaps forward, cultural revolutions, and attempts to turn the calender back to the year zero.
No form of government is perfect, but the closest thing we have is Republicanism. No, not the party, a republican style government with a clearly defined constitution and checks and balances on the government to prevent power from being centralized into the hands of one man or a group of people. But in order for there to be limited government the government needs to follow its own rules. In most cases that means following a constitution and adhering to the rule of law. Where this does not happen there is crisis.
Take Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe has ruled the country since indpendence, and has run it into the ground. What was once the bread basket of Africa is now the basket case. Commerical farms were seized by the government and now the ground lays fallow forcing the country to import food just to ward off starvation. There's government intervention for you. Mugabe frequently arrests and tortures dissidents, journalists and members of the political opposition.
State control of the economy has created astronomical inflation, and anger at Mugabe might be high enough now to get rid of the old thug. Opposition parties have taken over the parliment, though under Mugabe's rule it is a powerless body. The opposition also claims to have won the Presidential election, but Mugabe has sworn he isn't going anywhere. It's another example that it takes more than elections to have real democracy. Mugabe is so unpopular that his normal tactics of intimidation and vote rigging weren't enough to give him a victory. When a dictator can't even rig an election to his advantage you know he's starting to lose his edge.
Another example is Turkey. Ever since the AKP came to power there has been an undermining of the rule of law. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Erdogan is nothing more than Bin Laden in a business suit. He might differ in tactics but he doesn't differ at all in his goals from the terrorist leader. The Turkish constitution explicitly makes Turkey a secular republic, with no offical religion and strict seperation of religion and government. Under Erdogan these provisions are being undone. Women, once forbidden to wear headscarves in government buildings or schools are now permitted to do so, and it probably won't be long before they are forced to do so. Already there are reports of women being attacked by men for not being properly covered. (I guess having acid thrown in your face is how the religion of peace expresses displeasure at your wardrobe.) It's pretty obvious that these attacks would not be happening if the scum attacking these women didn't feel emboldened by government actions and felt confident that they could get away with it.
Erdogan and his goons attack and close businesses that sell alcohol, deeming it unislamic though it is not against the law in Turkey to drink, or sell alcoholic drinks. Then there is his attacks on the judiciary. He is removing judges who have been trained in the law and replacing them with men who only have training in religious schools. The signal is clear, religious law is on the way in, and secular law is on the way out.
There is a chance that Erdogan has overplayed his hand. The supreme court in Turkey has agreed to hear a case to determine if the AKP and like minded parties are legal under the Turkish constitution. Eight of the elven justices on the court are staunch secularists(it's a miracle that he hasn't had them all replaced with Saudi educated Imams) if the court rules that Erdogan and his party are illegal it could force the military to step in and remove him. Some would argue that it would be wrong, and undemocratic to remove, by judicial ruling, a government that has won two elections. Not when removing that government serves the interests of democracy, not when the government has changed the law, and the constitution to allow their leader to become Prime Minister, not when they are working to undermine the rule of law and replace it with sharia.
Democracy has to have safeguards, otherwise you end up with governments run by a Mugabe or an Erdogan. The rule of law has to be a foundation for an election, or you have dictatorships masquerading and copying the traditions of democracy.
