Totalitarian Government A Citizen's Life example essay topic

How far should government go to maintain the rights of the people, provide public necessities, and promote equality among the people? One argument is that the government should control every aspect of the lives of its citizens. The opposite government is one that leaves all control in the hands of each citizen. It seems that a perfect government would be somewhere in the middle. Totalitarianism is the type of government in which the state has complete and absolute control over almost every part of a person's life. The government makes a person a slave to the state and gives no freedom of choice to any of its citizens.

This type of government may be viewed as an extreme form of conservatism. Conservatism believes that the main purpose of the government is to maintain order though out the people. Conservatism puts great effort into continuing traditions. For example, a woman serves only in a domestic role and religion is a necessity in the family and in school life. Totalitarianism would take the process a step further by controlling how each member of the family will serve the government and dictating what particular religion all citizens will practice. Totalitarianism is an extreme extension of conservatism because it does not just want to keep people in order it wants to control every part of a person's life.

Finally, totalitarianism believes in total equality within the government's tight restrictions, but conservatives do not believe in using the governmental forces to control the lives of its citizens. Totalitarianism is often considered a dictatorship type of government because in most cases the totalitarian government is ruled by one political party head. Most totalitarian governments disagree with groups such as labor unions and trade associations, but a libertarian government prohibits a restriction on individual action laws such as drinking, marijuana and other drugs. The second type of government is libertarianism, which gives a person his or her full individual rights. It disagrees with all government actions except the ones that are necessary to defend life and possessions. Libertarianism favors a laissez-faire economic system, which means, "let people do as they please".

Libertarianism is an extreme extension of liberalism. Liberalists believe that the people should be free but also believe that the government has a duty to help out the disadvantaged. Liberalism does extend many rights to its citizens but has a government structure that funds social programs. Libertarianism does not support a government that interferes in any way, even to offer assistance with social programs. Liberalists believe that individual freedom (libertarianism) cannot work because the government must control obstacles in order for the people to enjoy their freedom. This is the extreme opposite of totalitarianism, which does not allow any freedom of choice for its citizens and in many cases does not provide for the basic needs of its citizens through social programs.

Even though these governments have many different qualities they do have some similarities. Both totalitarianism and libertarianism exist in countries today and have existed in countries in the past. These governments have helped the countries to prosper in the world. Some examples of successful totalitarian governments in the past are Germany under Hitler, USSR under Stalin and Italy under Mussolini. Other times these governments have tried to succeed in certain countries but have failed. Sometimes a change in the type of government is necessary to fit the present state of a particular country.

The two governments are alike in another way because neither has an established constitution. Under a totalitarian government a citizen's life is controlled by the decisions of a dictator so a constitution would not be relevant. Libertarianism is a free government allowing each citizen to make his own choices so a global constitution would not meet the needs of each person. Finally, representatives of both forms of government have tried to persuade the American people to abandon democracy. For example, the Libertarian Party had a candidate in each presidential election from 1972 through 1996 but not one of these candidates got more than 1 million votes.