Reading Log 14

In this reading we learned about the different views of the role of the government and the people. During the middle ages in Europe the government was a federal system. The belief was that the leaders where choosen by God to rule the people and therefore the people should obey these leaders. Because God choose the leaders it was a sin to go against them. Over the years different philosophies have been developed about how the government should best function and even today people still debate over what is the best way to rule. During the 17th and 18th centuries Thomas Hobbes and John Locke amoung others beleived that human beings originally lived in nature, and although humans may have essentially been good human nature and greed causes humans to endanger eachother by violently taking away others freedoms and possestions. Thus, government is needed to protect the people and allow them to pursue self interest in a fair environment and be treated equally. As the age of reason progressed new ideas about government developed. For example liberals during the 17th and 18th century saw the role of the goverment was to help the individual reach self defined goals by eliminate hurldes such as social privilege, blood rights, authoritarian instituations and the church. However not everyone agreed with this. Edmund Burke beleived that the individual alone could not make good decisions and that a collection of people in a large group together would make the best decisions. He saw society as an organism whose puropse was to promote the good of the whole by the individual being served by the promotion of the community. Today in the US the liberals value social services, educations, and taxing large corportions, while the conservatives beleive that individualism is a hurtle and value the whole over the individual. They do not support social services and spend more money on the military. Conservaties also beleive that individuals are responcible for there own well being and therefore the goverment should not interfere by provided aid to the poor or disadvantaged.

In my opinion so far there is no perfect political party. Like everything each party has it pros and cons. I personally tend to support the liberals because I value education and beleive that the conservatives mostly have a disregard to the environment. Although sometimes the parties overlap. For example Arnold ran for govenor as a republican, however he has put a lot of energy into finding environmental solutions to solving problems. This is different from most republicans and you would usually expect a demacrat to take on these challenges.