The Role of Government

It is the year 1776. Amid widespread financial, political, and religious suppression, you have been given the task of designing a form of government for a nation of 2.5 million citizens consisting of numerous different races, ethnicities, religions, languages, and cultures.

What would life look like for the citizens of your country under the government you construct? Would you have a minimalist approach? Would you choose to have high taxes, but offer numerous free services (health care, education, job skills, food, shelter, ect.)? Would you place yourself as a warlord to extract the maximum amount of resources from your citizens to maximize revenue for you and a select handful of your closest friends/family?

Saddam Hussein: 1937 - 2006

I encourage you to submit your ideas to republicofruss@gmail.com. A list of various forms of government may be found here: Forms of Government (Wikipedia).

I also highly recommend the Netflix Instant Streaming series: America: The Story of Us. I am no historian, and I am certain there are inaccuracies, biases, and omissions of key historical events, however, the series gave me a broader understanding of how our country has been shaped by historical events. The clip below is from the series.

My beliefs on what roles a government should fulfill shape my opinions on a variety of issues. Listed below are the functions I believe a country’s primary (or federal), state, and local governments should entail. As a disclaimer, the list may be incomplete and changed in the future as I research current and potential government functions/systems. I will highlight my rational for each function in numerous ensuing blog posts, thus you will again be left with a cliffhanger :)

Functions of Government:

Federal –
1) Protection a.k.a. Homeland Security from foreign threats
2) Legal System

The legal system can be broken down into:

• Legislative system – oversees the proposal, ratification, and approval of laws
• Judicial system – essentially our courts system today. Judges will hear cases and appeals and determine verdicts based off of pre-existing laws passed by the legislative system
• Law Enforcement – method of enforcing the laws approved by the legislative system and carrying out the verdicts of the judicial system

3) Macro-regulation

• Standardized currency
• Less certain of this now (02/2014)
• Pollution Controls
• Many more

4) Welfare System

• Basic level of care
• Will be defined extensively later
• Includes a minimal amount of food, shelter, clothing, and health care
• Retirement system
• I would support a voluntary retirement system, however my views are straying away from a forced retirement system such as Social Security (02/2014)

5) Large scale disaster preparation and response

• Funding allocated to assist state governments when a disaster overwhelms local and state resources.

Hurricane Katrina 2005

6) Taxation

• Government must collect resources from it's citizens to carry out functions listed above.

State and Local -

• State governments can do anything not prohibited by the federal government. State governments will have their own legislative, judicial, and law enforcement components as well as forms of taxation..
• Vague I know :) - I simply want to give power and greater freedom to individual states in governmental decisions which will affect the citizens in their jurisdiction.
• Example
  
  A good example is whether or not to legalize marijuana. This is an issue I would much rather see left up to individual states who can decide for themselves. Those individuals who are strongly against the legalization of marijuana can move to states where it is illegal, and those individuals who are strongly for its legalization can move to states where it has been deemed legal.
• Local governments have the same freedom and restrictions as state governments, only they find themselves under the authority of both the federal and their respective state government. 

With the various roles I see a government needing to fulfill, a method to accomplish them is needed. Answering the question I posed in the beginning, I would choose to construct a republic. A republic being defined as a government where the citizens of a country elect representatives by popular vote within their designated jurisdiction. These elected officials will in turn represent their citizens in a governing body. The United States currently uses this system and it is one I agree with.

In regards to the level of governmental involvement in the lives of citizens, I believe two of our nation's founding fathers articulate my views far superior than I am able to, especially considering the pressures they faced in forming a new nation:

“A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity. “ - Thomas Jefferson
	Thomas Jefferson 1743 - 1826

Patrick Henry 1736 - 1799 “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government." - Patrick Henry

Jefferson's, Henry's, and other founding father's words on limiting government and achieving a balance of powers powerfully resounds with my limited experience as a citizen under the authority of the United States government. In the ensuing posts I will attempt to further expand upon the broad roles listed above.


Next Week's Topic: My Voting Issues