The Happy Medium

It seems as though choosing one side of the libertarian/governmental spectrum would be a little bit drastic. I don't even want to think about what America would be without the government and laws. Millions of people live in this country, and if all of our ideas were used because there were no rules to stop them, mayhem would quickly occur. Because of this, there must be a happy medium between allowing people to have independent thinking and ideas and having set rules which govern a group of people.

In Josh McHugh's essay, he describes encryption technology and the effect it can have if it is not stopped. If something like this was allowed to run freely without the FBI having a say in how it is run, imagine what the world would be like. First, digital money could start to replace paper money, which would take away all forms of controlling finances and would therefore give people infinite amoutns fo money (McHugh 441). He also mentions that the internet takes away a sense of authority, which in many ways is plausible (McHugh 440). If there were no laws which determined what can be shown on the internet, search engines like Google could be used to find the secret information that only the government knows and should not be public information.

Since it is obvious that allowing free will and no laws would result in disaster, what about total control from the government? Would taking away people's free will and the chance for positive change to occur be better? New ideas result in new ways of doing things which can lead to improvements, and taking this away would not allow for any change. A government completely controlling the people would force everyone to think the same thing and act the same way, and would take away individuality which makes everyone unique. Due to this, it is apparent that allowing some government control along with free thinking is what is necessary to have a successfully running society.