Political Autobiography Assignment
My name is Hugo Bouillon from France and currently studying abroad in the United States. My learning of U.S. politics started two years ago when I decided to become an exchange student at Queensbury high school. I realized, not a long time ago, that my coming to this country was influenced by its politics. Indeed when I was in France the image of the United States was a prosperous country, where everyone had a chance to succeed. The cultural shock was bigger than what I had expected, and contrary to my country, people in the U.S. are more involved in politics than in my country. I had the chance to arrive during the presidential campaign period, which gave me the opportunity to enlarge my knowledge about U.S. politics. My girlfriend who was a fervent supporter of Bernie Sanders brought me to one of his meetings in Albany. I found it interesting to listen to what he had to say and I was happy to agree with many of his ideas because most of my personal thoughts are libertarien. Happiness and social harmony can only be reach by giving the most liberties possible to people and the least power possible to the government. The same night, after the meeting, Donald Trump was giving a speech in Albany. My personal opinion about him was negative. I did not agree with his way of thinking, but I also did not want to be influenced by other people’s opinion. I chose to watch him on TV. Donald Trump spent more time kicking people out of his audience than talking about political issues. I did not agree with many of his ideas. But it is not because I agree with Bernie’s belief that I am a Libertarian. Indeed, I would identify myself as independent. In fact, many of my political convictions are a mix of ideas from different political parties. I would vote for a candidate on issues rather than for a political ideology.
It is important for a population to have a government that has the power to sanction people rightly. Personal authorities cannot work in our societies. It brings the temptation to use one's powers for oneself, to take power and dominate others. It is why we do need a government, but my idea will be a libertarian government. Libertarianism is not against authority. Libertarianism is against improper authority, which is what I support. An improper authority will be an authority that is illegitimate to give orders. It could be interesting to turn some part of the actual government into advisory authorities such as the the European Parliament. Authority often means power which pushes people to be fearful and it deprives them of their freedoms. Laws must be applied the most humanly possible way, which is still a libertarian approach. Talion's Law “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is a principle we need to exclude from our society because it would give too much power to the government. To explain what is Talion’s Law we could use the following exemple: if I killed someone I will get in return the exact same sentence which is the death penalty.
The main interest of a government should be to provide different types of help for people in need or with physical disabilities. American people should be more concerned about all the money they spend for college. School should be something affordable for everyone and according to the libertarian party one solution to change it will be to end subsidies and mandates from the government so competition will force colleges to decrease their tuition or go out of business. The best colleges should be reserved for the people who get the best results not the ones who have the most money. I believe parents are the biggest influence to children so they should also be in charge of the choice of their education which is again a libertarian thought. Health care is a big topic in the United States. We do understand when we know the price of medicine according to the the World Health Organization, the U.S. is ranked 37 out of 191 countries about the performance of the health system. It is not enough for a country that proclaims to be the first nation in the world. An affordable system of health insurance should be available for everyone, but not mandatory because people should have the right to choose to purchase it or not. Today big companies make a lot of profit with the fact that they control the price of their medicines and it is not moral to make money on people’s back. The government should help fight against lobbies that do not act in the interest of everyone. Ecology is also one of our biggest challenges in the 21 century. Going out of the Paris agreement was not a good choice for several reasons such as the scientific proofs on climate changes and also the fact that it will impact our future generations. In doubt, it is better to preserve our environment instead of destroying it. Government should encourage people to respect nature by offering discounts on electric cars or promote the use of green energies by helping investments. France already offers this type of help and it could be a good thing to see the same things here. Libertarians believe in climate change and they think it is important to preserve our environment from the biggest polluter which is the government itself. All those elements make me a libertarian, but like I said earlier I am an independent. Indeed on gun control I think people should not be able to have automatic weapons and the government should control the kind of weapon sold on the market. American people should keep their right from the Second Amendment but they have to establish more control. In France it is extremely rare to have a shooting because my country does control gun and if we compare it is better like that. This kind of idea will be considered as a democrat idea. All these ideas are the fruit of my education I received in France.
My way of thinking and my comments are the result of the education provided by my family. I am extremely lucky because they gave me good values. They have always been here for me and supported me and I owe them a lot. My father’s family are French people from France, the other part of my family from my mother aren't originally from France which taught me to be tolerant to immigrant people. For example, I had the chance to travel over sea at La Réunion (island in the Indian Ocean ) to visit my mother’s family. The plurality of religions on this small island was really impressive; it was possible to see a mosque next to a church or a Buddhist temple and everyone was fine about it. This kind of memory will always stay inscribed in my head and I am convinced that concepts such as racism or inequality of races are wrong. My parents always pushed me to resolve problems by myself and today thanks to their education I am not scared to study in the United States by myself, which allows me to have a double vision on things. Indeed, I am able to make a comparison between the French government and the U.S. government, then express what I think is right or wrong. I also grew up in a country with important values that could be described by three words: liberty, equality and fraternity. School was my second biggest influence. I grew up under my teacher’s influence who shared the value of tolerance. My classes have always been diversified with people from different origins, but in France we have to respect secularism at school which allowed me to not get influenced by any religious thoughts.
I always tried to not get influenced by media on TV because with the time I understood that media managed for our government and they would not necessary show important events. People should have a better critical mind and try to get informed on other media than TV.
Last year was the French presidential election and it became obvious to me that media were used to manipulate the population and thanks to them Emmanuel Macron became President. It is also the first time of my life I was getting involved in politics. I tried to read all the political parties programs online and watch some debate in order to make the right choice according to my political beliefs. Now that I am in the United States, I am directly impacted by politics. Indeed, I have a student visa, which means I have the right to study but I cannot have any job even during the summer when I will be free. I could get kicked out if my supervisor found out I worked somewhere. It informs me a lot on what kind of politic is in place in the United States and it pushes me to be against the actual political party in charge of the country because I think I should be able to do something. For example, I could be tutoring people for French class.
I am pretty sure my political beliefs will change with the time because I will learn new concepts and experiment with new things. Many factors and steps can influence us such as our age, our living situation and our personal experiences. It will be wrong to say I will never change and I do believe we will all change our mind on some cases because of events or experiences we had during our lives. Only fools do not change their minds. I am now a student, but in couple years I will have a job and hopefully leaving with my own money. This big step changes our way of thinking. For example, we may be more informed about the value of money so we could change our old ideas for new ones more in our interest. In the future, I may orient myself to the center and become more democrat. There are ideas I do support now such as the fact that people can own some kind of gun, but later I could change my mind because of my future responsibilities. For example, my future kids will push me to allow less liberties to people in order to protect them. Because of my situation and the education I received, I may not be a republican. I will continue to try to discover new cultures by traveling because it gives me another idea of the world and the different ways of thinking.