Government Reflection

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Much like the majority of political science classes, view and opinion are the basis to answering every question. At the start of this course I believed that as a citizen I have a role to contribute to society. I knew that I hold a responsibility to participate in elections and to remain informed. This is my responsibility to the government, but what is its responsibility to me? I could not give you a confident answer. Yes, I’m aware of the basics laid out in Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the many other federal laws, but striping it down to the basics I didn’t know what the base duty of the government for citizens was. Going into this class, I would have told you someone like Karl Marx would be amongst the top theorist to influence current government. The United States has moved more in the direction of capitalism and away from the importance of democracy. This course included reading …show more content…

In the Two Treaties on Government, Locke explains that personal liberties and freedoms can coexist with the state. He explains that the state only exists because the citizens allow it, and this is found at the ground work of the American Constitution. In his writing Locke (1690) considers government to be a social contract formed by the people and works only as a representation. The role of the government is to let the people live in freedom (as long as they don’t harm each other), protect the people from the members of government through natural rights, and to be responsive to the people through representation (Locke 1690). This is the most evident in the United States government. An example of this is found in former president Abraham Lincoln’s (1863) Gettysburg Address, “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the

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