US Governmental Power

Other duties: deal with foreign powers, justice through courts, and creating laws are a few which come to mind.

Government authority comes from the people. If the people don't like the government then they can affect the creation of new laws, amendments to the constitution, and even the attempt to creat a new country as the Declaration of Independence states. The people of the United States have given the United States government the power to protect you from yourself.

 

Right, the government has those duties, and in executing those duties, they only have authority to take action that protects and preserves our rights.
You really misunderstand me, I'm not hung up on how much power the government has, i'm hung up on how its power is used.

 

1. Isn't the argument of how much power the US government has also an argument on how they use it?

2. I also said that the Constitution doesn't limit the government to only protecting rights. The tenth amendment even says that the federal government has more power than outlined, as long as the people and states allow it.

 

look up social constructs.
it explains exactly why governments are formed.

Not really, I think that governments should have all the power they need to protect our rights, theres no risk of the government getting oppressive if you follow that.

 

1. I do know about Social Contract. This does show that you're well versed. Debate maybe? For the readers and definitions, I'll explain Social Contract Theory. It works as such: people give up certain rights to their government while the government in turn protects the citizen's rights. If the government fails to protect the people's rights, then the people have a right to start a new government. The Declaration of Independence is based off of this theory.

2. I haven't seen anyone arguing against the government having enough power to protect its citizen's rights. In fact, I would agree.

3. On the other hand, the US government cannot become oppressive very easily, as it is the people through elected representatives who decide how the government acts, and people don't want a government which oppresses them.

4. I understand that you're saying you think the government should only use its power to the extent of protecting its people's rights. I must first ask about what a all the rights the government should protect. Here's a short list of some governmental powers and departments which should be removed if the US government can only use power to protect current listed rights in the Constitution (a list which the Bill of Rights says is incomplete): FDA, postal service, department of education, department of agriculture, department of transportation, and the department of energy. If any of these should stay to protect rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then we can see that the government already does everything in regards to the rights of its citizens, meaning the government can and should protect you from itself because some of these programs are created to protect people from themselves.

 

Life, liberty, property, pursuit of happiness. That can be broken down into specifics, but those are the four natural rights IIRC.

FDA is oppressive, I'm all for it informing people how dangerous drugs are, and creating lists of sanctioned drugs, but they should all be legal. I fail to see how the postal service is trying to protect people from themselves, A basic education is vital to the pursuit of happiness, the department of agriculture is just regulations, right? I'm not well versed on any actual regulations it has, but it in concept isn't a oppressive department. The department of transportation & energy are also vital to pursuit of happiness.

 

The government should guide our lives, not control them.
(Unless it comes to Marijuana, Abortion, etc)

 

The FDA is constitutional due to the authority granted by the Commerce clause and upheld by the interpretation of that clause by the Supreme Court.

 

Murder...

 

1. I was trying to make a point. People say, "follow the Constitution," but we can see that the different parts of government all do follow the Constitution. Constitutionality will not affect this debate much as there are very few debated issues which are unconstitutional. We must judge what the government does from there our selves using logic and debate, as there is no specific outline to tell us instead.

2. At the very least, we must all agree that the FDA shouldn't just allow any product, as no one has a use of poison for anything other than murder.

3. @Blue_marlin98 , I like what you said somewhat, but I want to know this: what is the line where the government should control compared to guide.

 

umm, control you when it comes to affecting society but guide you to make good decisions??

 

More of "follow the social contract" "follow the ideology".

I am 100% for restrictions, taxes, controlling substances, but there should be reasonable way to procure the substance. There are numerous restrictions the FDA could use to make it so someone trying to get poison would be placed on a watchlist of some sort, stuff like that.

 

Government watch lists don't do much. No agency wants to work with the next and share their information.

 

All I really have to say on this topic is that I think, in my relatively uneducated and undeveloped opinion, that the Constitution failed to limit the federal government's ability to expand its own powers, and as such failed to create a permanently stable government that will manage to avoid becoming tyrannical indefinitely.

 

It can always amend the Constitution!

 

Why marijuana? why? We spend more locking them up then they could potentially drain

I've been thinking a bit, and I think your right on this. the FDA should be able to ban substances that can be used reasonably easily to harm others, but I really don't think the government has any job telling me what I should do to myself.

 

@MeepLord27 i have made clear why in the Marijuana thread. Marijuana can negatively effect other people in society. So it isn't just harming you.

 

To the issue of deciding whether the government should regulate because people could harm themselves:

People make dumb decisions. The government isn't protecting you from yourself now, but your future self. People make dumb decisions, people make mistakes, people end up in terrible situations. It would be great for the government to wait until people change, until they no longer want to be living a life destroyed by themselves, but a government can't so easily do that.

The government cannot wait for people to decide that destructive behavior no longer should define them. There is no earthly power great enough for that. We cannot wait, because we cannot truly fix people's mistakes and we cannot truly bring them back to how they once were. There is a reason some feel a federal government isn't only in a position where it should save people. More importantly, there is a reason some feel a federal government is in a position where it must save people, the only way it can.

It would be great to let people learn from mistakes, but the power to save people is often beyond a government's power. We must instead turn from waiting, and yearning, and hoping for a policy that can never happen, and instead know that there is a way to protect future people from their own mistakes: by saving them now from making them.

 

Think about what your saying.
The government shouldn't, and in most cases can't, save people from themselves.
Let the stupid people kill themselves.

 

Except you, or the government, have no right telling me how to live my life, unless I'm hurting other people. It's not your business and it's not the governments. People inherently don't have the right to force people to live a certain way and those who attempt to do so are the worst kind of person.