Wutangistanians, a 12th grade US History class from Shorewood High School, Shoreline, WA, began their
journey through the Civic Mirror witha discussion of the role of government. The posts began with a question posed by instructor Ms. Un Chong Kim :
Based on your Hidden Agenda (without giving too much away), explain what you think is the proper role of government in our country.
The class posted many replies with differing attitudes and ideas, some of which will be posted here in the Civic Mirror Trenches. Citizen HaydenL was the first to reply:
It seems fairly obvious to me that the government of Wu-tangistan needs little command over it’s citizens and it’s economy, being already a long flourishing country. The government has little authority to tell our us how our businesses should be run, and certainly have no business owning them. This would give the government too much power and control.
The next few responses were all similar and generally in agreement with each other that the government’s role is to promote equity, even if it required a more involved government. One example is Citizen JasonP’s post:
“The main role of government is to have an economically fair country. I do not think that it should be possible for one specific person to have way too many hexes (or power) and I think that the government should control many hexes in order to set fair prices and prevent any national disorder. This would also have environmental benefits as well. If citizens do not own the river/tree hexes, then the environment would ultimately never get completely destroyed. People that start out with higher economical setups will eventually take over and there will be higher and lower social classes which means that some of us will be more successful than others. Massing nationalization on public hexes and making Wutangistan fair for everybody should be the main role of government.”
Citizen JuneP, however, disagreed:
“I believe that the role of our government should be kept to a minimum.
We the people of Wutangistanhave the right to pursue whatever we want. Our government should protect us from the dangers of society but at the same time, not restrict us from living our lives. The government should have better things to do than to interfere with our personal beliefs. The role of government is very important in our society but in order for us to live a happy and fulfilling life, we should live in a society where our voices can be heard.”
The next few postings were in agreement: government should be kept at a “minimum.” Citizen PhilM seemed to fall somewhere in the middle:
“The government is a good thing for society and they should have some role in our economy. People will be able to live the life they want with freedom and individual rights. Having your opinion on topics, speaking freely and debating over things make a good country. Government has a limit though when they can interfere.”
Citizen KameronG had another goal in mind,
“As I read some of the replies above mine I noticed that everyone is stating what WE need from the government, or what the government should do for US. We need to be thinking about the big picture, we aren’t the only thing that the government needs to be watching over. As a country we decided we need to provide for the common good. That’s not only having a rich economy and healthy protected lives, we need to take care of our most precious hexes, the trees and rivers. We don’t want to destroy our environment like we’re doing in the United States, we should learn from our mistakes and move forward.”
Much like citizens in many countries around the world, Wutangistanians seemed divided over the role of government. While many citizens agreed that the government should take care of it’s citizens, though many disagreed what that should look like. If Wutangistan is anything like those countries, the government will change many times. The question is, how will these citizens decide to live their lives through those changes?
