<p>Prompt </p>
<p>Many people believe that our government should do more to solve our problems. After all, how can one individual create more jobs or make more roads safer or improve the schools or help to provide any of the other benefits that we have come to enjoy? And yet expecting that the government- rather than individuals- should always come up with the solutions to society's government-rather than individuals-should always come up with the solutions to society's ills may have made us less self-reliant,undermining our independence and self-sufficiency.
Should people take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities or the nation in general? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading,studies,experience,or observations.</p>
<p>My response is</p>
<p>While it is the governments job to address the issues that citizens force, the government is only a system that derives its power from the people. Without people working at the foundation, a governments power cannot extend past legislation. To this day, most reform in society has only been achieved by the concentrated efforts of responsible citizens.
Many of the injustices of the society were only righted when people formed organizations to bring those issues to the forefront. One of the most obvious examples is the women suffrage movement of the 1800s. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton spear headed their cause, calling of men that 19th century women lacked, when more moderate proponents of female empowerment, such as Abigail Adams, waited on the government to solve the problem, there was almost no significant result. While Abigail Adams reminded her husband, the then president John Adams, not to forget the women, very few, if any, officials took notice. After Stanton and Anthony publicly defied the law by voting, however, suffrage became an important issue, and was granted within 20 years.
Another Hugely important example was the Civil Rights Movement. During reconstruction, the government took it upon itself to empower black men, and was successful to a degree. However, they were met with hostility by the Southern White populace and most of the African- American population as well. Without the support of the very people it was trying to help, the government quickly abandoned its plans for racial equality, and the south plunged back into racism and oppression for 60 years. Not until a charismatic Black revered named Martin Luther King Jr African-Americans to empower themselves did the government refocus itself on civil rights, which it granted by the late 1960s.
Throughout history, it granted progress has only been achieved by responsible citizens who took matters into their own hands. Only after such leaders took initiative did the government follow up with official legislation and enforcement.</p>