Alexis Jackson

Dr. Holyoke
PLSI 2H
1/26/15
Essay 1
The government is supposed to be an organization that betters people. It is like a
parent to a child; the goal is to make the child as capable, happy, and productive as
possible. A government should foster an environment that allows every individual to
achieve their fullest capacities so as a whole, the people can be creative, productive, and
happy.
A miserable child under authoritarian parenting forced to play the violin, under
threat of severe punishment, may become extremely adept at playing the violin. However,
the child will immediately cease to play the violin when severe punishment is not
threatened. The child may even rebel and intentionally break their violin and seek out any
opportunity to get out of playing the violin. Being forced to play the violin for hours at the
expense of all other activities prevents the child from learning how to learn and handicaps
the child for the rest of their life. The child will know how to follow orders, but will not
know how to take initiative for themselves, which will be a severe disability in adulthood.
Such handicapped adults will be unable to manage finances and be incapable of
monitoring themselves or handling foreign emotions that arise from novel situations. These
people will have to learn how to make decisions without an authoritarian figure shaping
the decision. Simple activities like grocery shopping will be overwhelming with the large

variety of choices available. Even when not overwhelmed with the demands of life, such a
crippled adult will despise the act of living and will sit in apathy during idle moments. This
is similar to how many workers drag themselves through a day and only have the desire to
pull a cold drink out of the refrigerator and sit in front of the television for hours. A child
raised in a supportive environment, encouraged and allowed to inquire into the things that
intrigue them, will naturally put forth their best efforts in work and life. They will also take
joy in life and remain active even when not under orders to do something.
The government is staffed by extremely competent elites, not in the sense of
wealthy individuals, but by the most capable individuals in society. The complexities of
managing and guiding the multitudes of people and wide variance in individual
preferences are a mammoth task that is beyond the capacities of average individuals. A
person that struggles to comprehend basic concepts will not be able to make decisions
benefitting the people. Sadly, many people are extremely deficient in basic knowledge of
subjects like economics or warfare and would be unable to properly manage a country in
those areas. An individual ignorant of economics may see falling wages as a detriment to
the people under the assumption that workers are becoming poorer. However, if the
purchasing power of the wages increases, falling wages can be indicative of an extremely
good economy with low inflation and increasing buying power. A leader of a country can
consult with experts but if the leader cannot understand the information provided, the
knowledge of the experts will do the country no good. Extraordinarily talented
policymakers will be able to comprehend the plethora of mechanisms that make a country

run and will be able to optimally maintain and improve those mechanisms for the benefit of
the people.
In the present society, money is god. The more money a person has, the greater
their social status. Two men of identical height, weight, and complexion can be judged by
society. The man with the largest display of money will be considered superior to the
other. This is why people are obsessed with obtaining the latest fashion, large houses,
sports cars, and other conspicuous displays of money. If a person discards all of their
clothing for new outfits every few years that is indicative of the person possessing large
quantities of surplus money. The converse is true as well. A person who refuses to
purchase new clothing every few years is looked down upon for being out of fashion,
which implies the person does not possess large sums of money. A leader adhering to the
societal value of money is god would be swayed by the potential for increasing their
wealth or obtaining conspicuous goods that would garner awe from people. Individuals
guiding the affairs of a nation must be able to overcome the societal programming instilled
in them from a young age and make decisions without regards to how much wealth they
could gain.
A government should foster an environment that allows people to attain their fullest
capacities (Cosgrove-Mather). A car thief stealing someones car will take a vehicle worth
thousands of dollars and receive several hundred dollars for the car to be turned into scrap
or parts. The victim loses their vehicle and will be unable to travel to distant locations in a
timely manner. The victim will have to deal with the inefficiencies of waiting for public
transport, wasting valuable time, or contrive some other method of travelling from one

place to another. A person murdered will have their life cut short and be unable to achieve
what they would have been capable of. The family is bombarded by grief and humanity
loses a worker or a leader. Criminals stealing and murdering for petty gain at the great
expense of others are punished or imprisoned to prevent crime from harming the people
(The Purposes of Government). Additionally, a strong sense of family, community, and
nation should be fostered. People who live their lives without knowing the names of the
family living across the street cannot count on anyone to come to their aid if misfortune
befalls them. The complete and total absence of family or community in North Korea leads
parents to banish children under the age of eight from the house, claiming they are too
difficult to take care of (Four Corners). The children are then condemned to live as North
Koreas street children where they see their friends die of cold and they themselves take
ragged clothes off of corpses (Four Corners). A strong sense of family, community, and
nation creates an environment where people will come to the aid of one another and this
aid allows people to avoid the crippling fall of misfortune.
A government allows personal freedom without allowing purely detrimental
activities. This is an extremely fine line that is delicate to manage to allow the people a
wide range of personal freedoms, but also serving to protect the people. People claim that
smoking marijuana or tobacco is a personal decision and a freedom that the government
should not intervene in. Tobacco increases the risk of miscarriages and birth defects and
causes cancer. The smoke wafting in the air around a person smoking exposes all of the
surrounding people to the detrimental effects of the smoke. A pregnant mother who
smokes can condemn her child to be a cripple. There are laws against mutilating another

human. Slicing off another persons arm or leg will permanently remove the other person
from many capabilities. A person missing a leg can never run or travel on stairs. A mother
deforming her baby is committing the same crime by mutilating her baby and condemning
that baby to the life of a cripple. Marijuana permanently damages the brain, like cocaine,
and renders a user incapable of sustaining higher level thinking. A person will be
handicapping themselves through brain damage by utilizing marijuana. A person high on
marijuana imagining themself as jelly floating down a stream is severely harming
themselves. Consumption of purely detrimental substances is forbidden to protect the
people from the extraordinarily harmful effects those substances can cause.
People should be taught how to think, not what to think. Many schools teach by
having children memorize and recite facts. A middle school child can state what the
Revolutionary war was, but will not be able to explain how to figure out a novel situation.
How would you fit a giraffe into a refrigerator? Many people are completely at a loss when
trying to answer the question. Logically, a giraffe is much larger than a standard sized
refrigerator and would not fit inside. Young children who have not been indoctrinated into
the mentality of what to think easily answer, Open the door and put him in (English
Language). A person who knows how to think can function at a much higher level
throughout life and will make fewer devastating mistakes because they understand how to
make decisions, not just what decisions should be made.
Unfortunately, the power government wields over people is often utilized to further
the agenda of a minority at the expense of the vast majority (Huetteman and Shear). This is

not what a government is supposed to do. A government is to wield its power to improve
the people as a whole.

Works Cited
Cosgrove-Mather, Bootie. "The Purpose Of Government." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 12
July 2004. Web. 03 Feb. 2015. <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-purposeof-government/>.
Four Corners. "Four Corners - Inside North Korea." YouTube. YouTube, 24 Mar. 2014.
Web. 05 Feb. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wklRc1tdtU&feature=youtu.be>.
"Giraffe | Elephant | Refrigerator." English Language Smart Words. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Feb.
2015.
Huetteman, Emmarie, and Michael D. Shear. "House Democrats, Facing Long Odds, Take
Inspiration From the Top." The New York Times. N.p., 29 Jan. 2015. Web. 3 Feb.
2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/us/politics/house-democratsare-feeling-inspired-by-obama-despite-facing-a-tough-task.html?_r=0>.
"The Purposes of Government." US History. Independence Hall Association, 2014. Web. 3
Feb. 2015. <http://www.ushistory.org/gov/1a.asp>.