If government can only take away life, liberty, and property, and seems to be some kind of scheme, are the founding fathers, who studied governments all over the world, scoundrels or criminals for setting up a government here?
Giving themselves authority to take away our life, liberty and property.
It depends on whom you ask.
Sure, they wrote the Declaration of Independence, which postulated the right of the people to “alter or abolish” their government, the concept on which anarchism is based; and they wrote the Bill of Rights, which enumerated the most important rights of the individual, and forbade government from violating them.
On the other hand, they wrote the Constitution of the United States, which caused the formation of a coercive national government. This national government was able to tax, legislate, control international trade, and wage war. Anybody who understands liberty should understand that creating new governmental institutions is a very bad idea; they will grow in power and be impossible to control, even if they are founded with the most benign intentions.
Also, they waged the Revolutionary War. This is either very honorable, or diabolical, depending on your view of political violence.
Kinsella was talking about this on LRC around the 4th of July. Its been suggested that the Revolution was brought about in order to create an American oligarchy.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/029056.html
The Revolution was a step away from the liberal common law tradition from the very beginning.