If we choose not to be self-governing, we become inhuman slaves.
Unfortunately, the evil design of human government and its built-in perverse incentives always divert it from the noble ideal of "protecting us from others." Consequently, we need to be protected from human government. Human government cannot simultaneously be servant and master.
There's an interesting organization called the Zero Aggression Project. They call what I generally speak of as "human government" the "state." Other than that different terminology, I greatly admire the clarity with which they explain these things.
The core flaw of the state is the presumption of a right to use force and coercion to accomplish its will against good and bad alike. Here's an excellent article about that: