Gov Term

So my dad bought me a new car, I pretty much worked my butt off to pay it off, and one day, my father and I end up getting in a fight about something, and he tells me that I cannot

drive it anymore, that I’m stuck with my old car, until “my behavior” changes. I don’t think it’s fair that my dad gets to tell me whether or not I can drive my car, the drain I poured my blood and sweat into. I chose not to argue with him because if challenged him, I knew he could defend himself with the same sly remark he always uses, so if I told him I paid for the car,” he would simply reply calmly, “well since you paid for it, you may as well pay your insurance and your gas.” I think the federal government represents my father in a way as the state governments are a representation of me. The federal government is getting to a point where it believes it is in control. There is much controversy about what is expected from the government at the national level, but I believe the national government is doing what they have to do for the safety of the citizens of the U.S. Every once in a while the federal government does pull something out of their sleeves that seems unfair to the state government, but really, they seem to do it for the good of the people, even if it means less money for the state. The federal government makes mandates according to the people, laws are amended, and court trials are judged by the supreme court, whom interpret the constitution.

If you ponder it, I’d conclude that high school students are not very responsible, including myself. Drinking in general is not smart unless planned out, and it usually isn’t, people end up driving home intoxicated, and that not only put a danger on you, but more importantly it raises a dark cloud over others that are driving around you. According to the FARS, every 32 minutes there is a alcohol related accident and 32 minutes, and 38.6 percent of the total fatalities in the year are alcohol related fatalities. One mom decided to form a group called Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), then there were alternate groups that grew because of hers, called SADD, Students Against Drunk Driving. One person cannot be heard but groups of people looking for a change can be spotted. The state governments felt that it was their choice to raise their drinking age or not. Though politicians didn’t want to be accused of supporting under aged drinking and driving, 19 states raised their drinking age to 21 but the other 31 wanted the law to stay the same for their state, mainly because alcohol sales to 18 year olds brought in a lot of money for the state. In such a case, the federal government wanted to increase the drinking age because they did care about the safety of American lives, they told the states that it’s okay if you leave your drinking age at 18, but they put a little disclaimer in they’re opinion. The federal government said that if the states decide not to raise their drinking, Congress used the Carrot-and-Stick approach, and they proclaimed that if the state governments didn’t raise their drinking age to 21, they would withhold 10 percent of the federal highway aid from states that did not raise legal drinking age, and by the end of 1989, every state had a legal drinking age of 21. This is an example of the federal government achieving a good that is not appreciated by 31 of the states. Even though it might be unfair to the states, this is one of those topics that I would side with the federal government on because of it’s great importance and role it plays in the lives of the American Public.

Commerce in my opinion is one of the vastly abused powers in the federal government. Even thought the courts spent many years just making a decision for commerce, the cases before Gibbons v. Ogden(1824), were somewhat unfair. In the case of Gibbons v. Ogden commerce is defined as the movement of goods, but also radio signals, electricity, telephone messages, the internet, insurance transactions, and much more. There were many cases that made commerce what it is now. The federal government implied in McCulloch v. Maryland; a broad definition of interstate commerce, that created a source of national power as long as congress employed it’s power for economic development, but this interstate commerce gave Congress no constitutional right to control local commercial activities, such as safe work environments and child labor. In the Supreme Court case