It is of the commons. That's the problem. If the government were pmiller2's property, nobody could take it over, you'd defend it.

But because the government/state is ill-defined and shared, it can be abused and it's much harder to do anything about it.

Private property is selfish but efficient and clearly separated from the rest (in general) while public property is altruistic, not that efficient and generally not that well delineated from the rest.

Our government has more characteristics of private property than the commons, then.