America as Bottom Up Country Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

America as Bottom Up Country - Essay ExampleThis is the berth taken in Howard Finemans The Thirteen American Arguments. But to what extent is the coupled States of the 21st century real a bottom-up cabaret, and does the Internet re wholey enhance the male monarchs of the middling person To answer these questions, we must premier(prenominal) identify the ways in which regime impinges on the citizen, and vice-versa.In a representative democracy the powers of the regime, at one time it is elected, can be surprisingly draconian, and they are certainly very great. They always include the power to lock away citizens, and in some cases to kill them. There is obviously considerable variation between judicatures such as that of France, where the President can exercise almost monarchical powers in some situations, and governments such as that of Switzerland, where power is mainly decentralised to the Cantons and can be diluted by citizens calling for a referendum. The constitution of the United States probably places it ab bulge out three quarters of the way between the centralist authoritarian extreme and the decentralist pluralist extreme. In other words, America is far closer to Switzerland than to France. This is hardly surprising, as the Founding Fathers in Philadelphia set out to devise a constitution that was full of checks and balances. The main ones are the separation of powers between Federal government institutions, namely Congress, President and Supreme Court, and the sharing of powers between the Federal and State authorities.The theory seems clear, but the lend oneself has often been murky. Although Lincoln is to be applauded for taking up arms to free the slaves, the Union armies effectively miserable the southern states for attempting to pursue an independent line. And governments down the ages have imposed swathes of regulations on their citizens, some of which compel pile to do things, others of which forbid them from doing things. These regulations reach into every facet of our lives, ranging from speed limits to compulsory school attendance. Furthermore, the system of taxes and government spending in the United States, as elsewhere, has created an increasing transfer of effective decision-making power from the people to the government. In most Western countries, governments now tax and spend around 35-45% of their national income. In the case of America, the turn is around 36%, of which about half is spent by the Federal government and the rest by State and local governments. This means that ordinary people are losing more than one third of all the frugal resources they create. And more than one third of the vast American economy is at the disposal of government officials, rather than being available to spend according to the preferences of individual citizens. The power to decide the allocation of economic resources is one of the most important ways in which people can shape their own lives and the society they live in. The era of big government programs which arrived with President Roosevelts admirable New Deal in chemical reaction to the Great Depression, is alive and kicking. It has suffered some set-backs, most notably during President Reagans time, but with the fiscal deficit fly under President Bush in the past few years, and with President Obama promising a band of fiscal stimulus measures to kick-start the ailing economy, Big Government is certainly far from finished.So what powers do ordinary people have over the government Well, of course, they have the