St. Norbert Times

Issue date: 3/8/10 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: www.media.photobucket.com

After seeing at the political theater coming from both politicians and the citizens themselves during the healthcare debate, and political philosophical debates in general, one could get a sense that an anti-government sentiment is getting stronger. Whether through the so called "tea party" or through politicians feeding the government hatred themselves, one has to wonder if this is healthy for the United States to be in such a state of turmoil. Yes, everyone could agree that there are tough decisions ahead that might question the basic tenements of the constitution, but do we give up, not take the intellectual challenge as a nation, and blame it on a government for which represents us? Should we just scrap government because it is not working at this current moment?

Remember in your basic science class when you talked about how animals go through some sort of evolutionary process to adapt to new physical conditions? Now, apply this to the "evolution" of government. Although there are some who believe that our government is a brand new creation, our democracy can be traced back from the classical Greek governments, to the British Parliamentary System that reformed an Absolute Monarchy to a Constitutional Monarchy (giving more power to citizens). We can also look at the history of social welfare in which the citizens demand more protection due to high demand in work intensity of a new economy. Protection, in the form of social welfare, has included unemployment coverage, basic educational standards and basic health services.

Each country goes through trial and error to figure out the best way to push their nation to increase their productivity and standard of living. Now it is our turn to figure out a way to tweak our social welfare system, which requires government involvement to figure out. If one were to look at the current political environment, with the dozens of watchdog groups and the 24 hour news media, it would be political suicide for any politician to fully take away services that are essential to many, just because they listen to the anti-government sentiment.

At the end of the day, should we scrap the government altogether because our policymakers are not making perfect solutions in a shady economy? The answer is obviously no. Remember, we still have opportunities to influence policy as citizens (via referendums, protests, and voting). The most foundational need of a modern democratic government is to have its citizens be politically aware so that policymakers can actually be informed representatives of their constituents. We must face the challenge of not only a new economy but also of our foundations of modern democracy. We cannot give up and let the extreme viewpoints take over the government of the moderates.

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