How can one group of human beings come to enjoy a right to enforce its authoritative commands on other human beings? In other words, how does government come to enjoy a right to rule, and how do citizens come to incur a duty to obey?
I consider the answer over at e3ne.org. The reasoning depends heavily on Michael Huemer’s book, The Problem of Political Authority, which I have reviewed here at Pileus. As a moral Lockean, my own view is that the U.S. government is illegitimate because it does not have a valid social contract with its citizens. That doesn’t mean the U.S. government is evil, or that we should try to overthrow it, but it does mean that the government doesn’t have any rights that ordinary citizens don’t also have. The U.S. government and its citizens are in a state of nature.
PILEUS 
You might be interested to consider the argument in Charles Murray’s new book, By the People, which urges widespread civil disobedience in the face of the American government’s systemic “lawlessness.”
Sounds radical. And intriguing. I’ll check it out.