Question 3: a good government always does what its people want.

Do
you agree?

Name: Dhyana Srinivasan

Class: O6

Index: 08

The Third US President, Thomas Jefferson stated, “the purpose of

the government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness.

Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors”. Jefferson

tried to say that the reason for the existence of a government is to allow people to

live safely and happily. He also mentions that the government exists for the wants

and needs of the people, not for themselves. A government is defined as an

administration which has authority over a country. A good government is a

government that reaches up to the expectations of its people. Some of these

expectations are protecting them from terrorist attacks, having good relations with

other countries and intercultural harmony. The question of what is a good

government is very subjective, as every individual has contrasting opinions. The

word “always” is defined as every single time. All together the phrase ‘a good

government always does what its people want’ refers to an organisation that reaches

up to the expectations of the people every single time. It is true that good

governments listen to the people, but I disagree that a good government should do

what its people want all the time. In this essay, this stand will be explained and

viewpoints will be given; one on how a good government sometimes does what its

people want and another on how a government should not always do what its

people want.

Firstly, I disagree that the government should do what its people want

all the time. A “good” government is for the safety of its people even if the people
might not agree with the methods they use. Recently, continuous checks are have

been held on people in Singapore by the government, and it has actually proven to

be useful since these methods have helped the police find two men who almost

joined ISIS. The checks are conducted by the government upon your social media.

People might not agree with this due to concerns about the invasion of privacy but

this surveillance turned out to be successful when the government were able to find

criminals. According to the Straits Times, “former delivery assistant Suderman

Samikin had joined a pro-ISIS Facebook group and was prepared to help two pro-

ISIS elements”. Therefore, a good government does not always do what its

people want because it needs to protect its people before it takes their wants into

consideration.This example shows that the government conducted social media

checks to know whether there are people posing a threat to the national security of

Singapore. (so, how does this relate back to the topic sentence?)

Secondly, I disagree that a good government does not always do what

its people want because a ‘good’ government will agree with the majority of the

people, especially when it comes to social values within a society. The “people”
are not unified on one single idea because people have different expectations about

social values in society. An example of this is the LGBTQ community in Singapore

who want the law 377A to be removed. They hold rallies such as Pink Dot, which

believes that everyone deserves the freedom to love regardless of sexuality. The

majority of the people in Singapore however think that same sex marriage is wrong.

This conservative mindset is held by religious groups. The people who participate in

the Pink Dot event did not succeed in getting the law 377A repealed because

according to an IPS survey in 2019, only 11.4% support the LGBTQ and the other

89.6% oppose it. The percentage of people who support the LGBTQ community is

very low, which means that the government will not be able to remove 377A.

Therefore the government will appeal to the ideology of the majority in this situation

because they want to have better popularity among the people. (Again, link back to

question)

However, a good government sometimes does what its people want,

especially when the people protest to express their dissatisfaction. In this case the

government accepted because the protest was affecting the daily lives of the

citizens. The yellow vest movement in 2018 is an example to show that after

protesting about certain laws for a long period of time people are able to get what

they want. The yellow vest movement are a group in France that protested to ask for
increase in wealth tax and help improve the quality of life for the poor. The yellow

vest movement was able to make the government stop increasing the fuel tax. One

such law they were protesting about was the cost of diesel increasing by about 20

percent in the past year to about 1.49 euros per litre. This really affected the middle

class who use their own transportation to get to work. The protest caused casualties.

The government's response to this after seeing how it affected the economy and the

day to day life in France said that they will suspend the plan of increasing the fuel tax

for 6 months. This shows that when government responds to what the people want, it

results in higher quality of life and economy in certain cases, especially when it

seems like a specific group of people are being favoured while groups with fewer

privileges are being undermined(Good elaboration) . Therefore, a good government

listens to the people and does what the people want when they protest about what

they are unhappy about.

In conclusion a good government does not always do what its people

want because their priority is to keep their population safe and adhere to the social 


and religious values of the majority. Every democratic government makes decisions

and balances out the needs of the people with their own authority and the best

interests of the country. In France, there is a history of public protest, therefore the

governments need to be responsive. Conversely, in Singapore they have their own

challenges. Furthermore, free speech is not allowed so the government can only

change their laws on their own accord.

Bibliography:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_movement

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/happening-france-yellow-vest-movement-
explained-181204153014250.html

LIM, ADRIAN. “2 Radicalised Singaporeans Who Intended to Join ISIS in Syria

Detained under ISA.” The Straits Times, 26 July 2019, www.straitstimes.com/

politics/2-radicalised-singaporeans-who-intended-to-join-isis-in-syria-detained-

under-isa

. Accessed 12 Aug. 2019.

https://www.straitstimes.com/politics/2-radicalised-singaporeans-who-intended-to-join-isis-in-
syria-detained-under-isa
https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/singaporeans-more-liberal-towards-homosexuality-
ips-survey-finds
https://pinkdot.sg/