Why Do We Need a Government?

Mr Corbett Ball started an interesting discussion with his 10^th Grade Future Forums class at Waterloo-Oxford Collegiate Institute in Baden, Ontario, who make up the nation of Bacon Falls, when he shared this statement:

A dude named John Locke said the following, and I paraphrase:
WE NEED GOVERNMENT IN ORDER TO PROTECT OURSELVES FROM

(drum roll please)

OURSELVES.

Do we need government to protect ourselves from ourselves? We know that everyone will have a different opinion, and that there is no right or wrong answer to this question. But the discussion is one that has kept philosophers thinking for many years, and has these 10^th Grade students thinking deeply about our government, our world and human nature.

Many students believe that the above statement is correct, as Garner states here:

I think all there is to say is, look at every nation without a strong government. Their counties crumble because war lords take over, and citizens are forced to live being afraid for their lives and living in poverty. Not saying life with a strong government is perfect, bad things still happen and people still have very poor living conditions, but as for the general public, life is good with the iron fist strength of government.

The ‘iron fist strength of government’. Interesting theory Garner, and I’m sure a lot of people agree with you. But I wonder, is there a point at which a government can become too strong for its people? Leah. F has some interesting things to say:

 The government itself is made up of humans not unlike everyone else. There are people in our government who are not there because they want to help people; they are there to get power and money and to make things go their way. This causes problems. Our government overcomes these problems by having many representatives in power. However, our government is still flawed and it will never be perfect…  If everyone was responsible, in control of their actions and had some general common sense I think that the role of the government would be a lot smaller. This however will never happen to everyone because NO ONE is perfect and no one ever will be.

No one is perfect, and we know this, yet so many people still expect perfection from our leaders. Why is this? Through the Civic Mirror, citizens of Bacon Falls are thinking on, and discussing, an idea central to the whole structure of our nation. How great is that!