A Look Inside the American Government

Government: it's a sticky subject. Whether you like or not. it's something that is here to stay. The first topic on the agenda is limited government. The book's defeniton of limited government is: a government that is subject to strict limits on its lawful uses of powers and hence on its ability to deprieve people of their liberty.

. The American government has the grave task of making sure that the country is governed correctly yet at the same time, the methods of ruling are used within the confines of being fair and equal to all and also not putting one's liberty in jeopardy. This comes into play with the advent of applying limited government to its relation to civil liberties. People wanted civil liberties to be fully protected under the confines of the Constitution. In the end, the first incarnation of the Constitution was too broad and nevertheless didn't guarantee exact individual freedoms such as freedom of speech and the protection from self-incriminating yourself. Demands were high. Ten life, liberty and property respecting amendments were added to the already in place Constitution. They would hold a guarantee that the national government has to protect and respect the aptly listed three areas. These ten amendments which came to life in the year 1791 would be called the Bill of Rights. Civil liberties are a vital part of life. Without these, peoples lives would be interrupted definitely and the way of life as we know it would be in doubt of continuing as it does. Limited government makes sure that these civil liberties are protected and not overreacted to at the same time.

The Constitution is the backbone of this great nation. Is the definitive piece of yellow colored paper that explains and distills the way of American life the way our forefathers thought it should be and how the government will logically operate and how its procedures will operate and the places that it will function through. To this day, certain parts of the Constitution are put to the test daily in court. Freedom of expression is the first hotly contested right. It gives the right for people in America to gather and voice and let their views and opinions let known. People think that you should be allowed to say what you want to, where you want to and whenever you want to. Unfortunately, that's not the case. You basically can't say something that will threaten national security or put someone elses security in jeopardy. Yet at the same time, the First Amendment protects conscience, speech, assembly, press and petititon. The second hotly contested issue is freedom of religion. It enables everybody in the nation to believe and practice whatever beliefs or religion they freely choose to.

The government may not play favorites with one religion over the other though. Also people who don't practice religion are protected by a little thing called separation of church and state. This enables people to do things in live in certain places without having to worry about hearing or seeing aspects of religion that they don't believe in. Another contested issue is the right of privacy. This enables a certain number of rights to privacy for American citizens in which the government can not act upon and bust. One important one is the freedom for a woman to decide about abortion during the first three months of pregnancy. This was brought on by the landmark case Roe v. Wade in 1973. In my opinion, I think these are three of the most important rights granted to Americans that are contested to this day.

One major example of limited government and civil liberties working together is the post 9-11 world. Anybody in an airport, train station or dock is subject to search because they may resemble a foreign individual who may be a terrorist at heart. The government gives powers in which they are subject to search their goods in case of hidden weapons or information that may lead to a future terrorist attack, even maybe saving lives in the process. I hope you have enjoyed reading my take on limited government and its relation to civil liberties.