Middle School Grades
This lesson introduces you to some of the basic ideas which were of great importance to the Founders. They used these ideas when they developed our government. You will learn why they thought we need a government in the first place. You will also learn how they believed governments should be created and what they ought to do.
Think of a right you believe all people should have. For example, you probably agree that everyone in the United States has the right to be protected from robbers and burglars. The belief that everyone should have this protection is shared by most people in the United States. We hear about it on television, in the newspaper, and in discussions.
Individually or in small groups, explain how you think rights like the one you have identified can be protected.
Most people in the American colonies believed that everyone had a right to life, liberty, and property. These rights were called natural rights . (Sometimes these are now called basic rights or fundamental rights.) The idea of natural rights means that all persons have these rights just because they are human beings. Everyone is born with these rights and they should not be taken away without a person's agreement.
Many of the Founders believed people receive these rights from God. Others believed that people have them just because it is natural for people to have them.
John Locke was a famous English philosopher. He lived from 1632 to 1704. He had written a book called Two Treatises of Civil Government (1690). In that book he wrote about natural rights. He said that the main purpose of government should be to protect the people's natural rights. He also said that kings should not have absolute power, that is, power without limits. They should not be able to deprive people of their natural rights.
Many Americans had read Locke's book, and they agreed with what it said about government. Those who had not actually read Locke's book knew his ideas from newspapers, political pamphlets, church sermons, and discussions.
Although people agreed on certain natural rights, they worried about how those rights could be protected. Locke and others thought about what life would be like in a situation where there was no government and no laws. They called this situation a state of nature . They were afraid that in a state of nature their rights would be taken away.
Imagine what life might be like in a state of nature. Think what your classroom might be like if there were no rules. Think what might happen if the teacher didn't have the right to tell anyone what to do.
Work together in groups of about five to answer the following questions about such a situation. Then choose a person to explain your answers to the rest of the class. Then compare your answers with John Locke's which follow.
You may have seen the same disadvantages in a state of nature that John Locke saw. Locke believed:
John Locke and other philosophers developed a solution to the problems that exist in a place without government. In a state of nature, people might feel free to do anything they want to do. However, their rights would not be protected and they would feel insecure.
Locke argued that people should agree with one another to give up some of their freedom in exchange for protection and security. They should consent to follow some laws in exchange for the protection that these laws would give them. This agreement is called a social compact or social contract . A social compact is an agreement people make among themselves to create a government to rule them and protect their natural rights. In this agreement the people consent to obey the laws created by that government.
In a later lesson, you will study the Declaration of Independence. You will see how the Founders included all of the ideas you have studied in this lesson in the Declaration.
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The Importance of Government in Society
John Lennon's "Imagine" is a beautiful song, but when he tallies up the things he can imagine us living without—possessions, religion and so on—he never asks us to imagine a world without government.
The closest he comes is when he asks us to imagine that there are no countries, but that's not exactly the same thing.
This is probably because Lennon was a student of human nature. He knew that government might be one thing we can't do without. Governments are important structures. Let's imagine a world with no government.
I'm typing this on my MacBook right now. Let's imagine that a very large man—we'll call him Biff—has decided that he doesn't especially like my writing. He walks in, throws the MacBook to the floor, stomps it into little pieces, and leaves. But before leaving, Biff tells me that if I write anything else he doesn't like, he'll do to me what he did to my MacBook.
Biff just established something very much like his own government. It has become against Biff's law for me to write things that Biff doesn't like. The penalty is severe and enforcement is fairly certain. Who's going to stop him? Certainly not me. I'm smaller and less violent than he is.
But Biff isn't really the biggest problem in this no-government world. The real problem is a greedy, heavily armed guy—we'll call him Frank—who has learned that if he steals money then hires enough muscle with his ill-gotten gains, he can demand goods and services from every business in town.
He can take anything he wants and make almost anybody do whatever he demands. There's no authority higher than Frank that can make him stop what he's doing, so this jerk has literally created his own government—what political theorists refer to as a despotism , a government ruled by a despot, which is essentially another word for tyrant.
Some governments aren't much different from the despotism I just described.
Kim Jong-un technically inherited his army instead of hiring it in North Korea , but the principle is the same. What Kim Jong-un wants, Kim Jong-un gets. It's the same system Frank used, but on a larger scale.
If we don't want Frank or Kim Jong-un in charge, we must all get together and agree to do something to prevent them from taking over.
And that agreement itself is a government. We need governments to protect us from other, worse power structures that would otherwise form in our midst and deprive us of our rights.
The Founders of America believed in natural rights held by all persons as espoused by English philosopher John Locke. These were the rights to life liberty and property. They are often referred to today as basic or fundamental rights.
As Thomas Jefferson said the Declaration of Independence :
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men , deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Home — Essay Samples — Philosophy — Thomas Hobbes — Reasons of Why Do We Need Government
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Home / Essay Samples / Government / American Government / The Role of Government in Society: Why is It Important
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Function of government .
Branches of government .
Legislative branch, judiciary branch, levels of government .
State and territory government, local government, system of government.
Federal system, confederate system.
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