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Could Thoreau's idea of a simplistic life work in today's society?

Results so far:

Yes
66% 271 votes Total: 409 votes
No
34% 138 votes

by Kyle Pynn

Created on: January 02, 2009

There are two primary reasons that American society is not capable of leading a simplistic life. The first idea is American dependence on government and second is American government interference in everyday American life.




In order for a simplistic life to be possible for American society we would have to become less independent of our government. Many American's seem to thrive for government interference in most aspects of their lives. American society has taken the approach to life as that of only doing what big brother tells us to do. A prime example is the US industry bailout. Why is the U.S. government stepping in to provide bailout money and then wanting to have more oversight and decision making power over our auto industry? It is because; we as a society allow this to happen. I will go one step further and say that we believe this is owed to the American people; but why? I can not think of one logical reason as to why we are owed this. Sure we don't want to put people out of work if auto industry implodes, but that is not the governments' responsibility. It is the responsibility of the auto executives to take responsibility for the care of their employees. Oh! but we can't have that. Big brother, big government, needs to step in. That is a far cry from a simplistic life.




Everyone knows how complicated a situation becomes when we allow more opinions to be heard. Take a simple color such as blue. Depending on the shade of blue you will get various opinions as to the actual color; blue, light blue, dark blue, or some other variance along the blue spectrum. When government is allowed to interfere you bring in with it the various opinions on a particular subject. Of course this is how our government was created which begs the question did our founding father desire simplicity in our style of government? The more complicated a matter can become the less chance for one side to take advantage of the opposing side; a form of checks and balances? When we allow a situation to become complicated in resolution it is much harder for one side, or in this case one of our branches of power, to have complete power over a situation.




The precedent has been set in allowing government interference. The individual in society is not able to provide for his security from international threats. With such threats in existence there needs to be one unifying element to ensure national treasure and resources are protected. The world has become far to precarious to allow for a simplistic life with no government interference.

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