2 November 2010: Directed Freewrite

Balance in the States

When anything is taken to an extremity, there are drawbacks and overall negative results. Taking an extreme position on any view, leads to a close mindedness in a person, that does not allow them to shift from their point; they are set in his or her ways and do not want to vary from that. With complete government control, people cannot form their own beliefs. They are restricted on the basis that when they enter into this world, much of what they can and cannot do is already outlined for them. They have many rules and values pushed on and forced into them by the society they are born in to. They never get to completely gain their own set of beliefs, and values. On the opposite side of the stratus, are people who believe in little or no government control. If this were the case, many things and ideas would spin out of control without an intervention from another party. My view lies in the middle of the two extremities of the continuum of government control.

I have a firm belief that the focus of what the government can control should be contained and determined primarily by each individual state, with little intervention at the national level. Each state should govern their people and make rules based on the needs of the people in that particular state. By doing this, people can choose to live in the state that most closely represents their beliefs and lifestyle. Everyone then can be free to choose where they live and what laws and regulations they want to abide by. There would be no national government restriction on everybody. This is originally how the United States was set up to operate. The founding fathers wanted to leave things up to each state to determine. We see traces of this still being the case in our society, but overall, every issue seems to end up at the national level. We as a country have largely drifted from this model, and I personally see many negative impacts because of it. The laws in Arizona should and need to be different than laws say in Nebraska. The demographic of people in both of those states vary immensely, and so the laws that govern them should be different also.

Think of all the issues that face our country right now. Abortion, immigration, homosexual marriage, the list continues on and on. Currently, each state is able to choose where they stand, but then these issues all end up at the national level, with everyone wanting to amend the overall constitution. If each state was able to contain a large part of government control, then each state could come up with their own things they want to control.

Strong communities lead to strong nations.  That is what we need to go back to and by returning to more of a focus on a state based government, I feel we would be a stronger nation. I believe my stand, which directly reflects the stand that the United States was built on, is a balance of the two extremes. People are still under government control, but they get to choose how much, and what they want to be controlled. It is choice and having a choice is freedom.