From the ever sharp Arnold Kling -

"Libertarians see the state as just another human institution, with the same moral status as a supermarket or a bowling league."

The statement's a bit overally reductionist but c'mon, we're talking about a single sentence - and it certainly passes the test of being more true than false.   Instead of being some uber-guarantor of fairness or equality, for libertarians, the state's not much more than another type of free association.   Emphasis on the word free, of course.

Still, it's worth noting the (obvious) exceptions -

• the state has a fundamental monopoly on force - only the state is allowed to initiate the use of force
• the state is a monopoly within a geographic territory - for a given chunk of land, there's only one supreme state
• purely voluntary associations (for ex., the supermarket) are violable - I'm allowed to opt out of it at anytime.   Not so with a particular state (at least in terms of degree)