Totalitarian Government

The Good and Bad in the Government

(Discussion on Totalitarian Governments Today) Everywhere we look, there is good and bad; without one, we can't fully appreciate the other. Black balances out white, good balances out bad, etc. This is seen throughout the world in people, places, and even governments. When looking at negative governments, totalitarianism is commonly thought of. Totalitarianism is the concept where the state has total authority over a society and holds control of all aspects of life. This type of government is introduced to us through Hannah Arendt's work. Arendt was born and educated in Germany, and was a very influential writer as many of her works discussed topics of government, moral values, modern society, and many other themes. From her work The Origins of

This form of government is still seen in the world today, Iraq being one of the places that we can identify it. There are a couple basic characteristics that help identify a totalitarian government, the first being complete power. The government in Iraq has total control over its people. From the political to economical to even social issues, the government controls what the public has access to. The next identifier is an all-powerful lead, which in Iraq was Bin Laden. He was extremely powerful and had many followers that obeyed every order and demand he gave to them. These two characteristics strongly signal a totalitarian government, nevertheless, there is yet another aspect that contributes to it. One of the final characteristics that is an identifier of totalitarianism is an ideology. Iraq's ideology deals with terrorism and the goal of attaining complete power. They use terrorism to conquer countries and gain control of them. From the evidence given, it is clear that there are still countries around the world that are governed by