Claim: Major policy decisions should always be left to politicians and other government experts. Reason: politicians and other government experts are more informed and thus have better judgement and perspective than do members of the general public.

The topic raises a controversial issue whether we have to rely on politicians to make major political decision or to have members of the general public to participate in the decision making process. Surely, politicians are experts in discussing and making the policies. However, we should not overlook the fact that members of the public are also experts in the fields other than politics. Thus, I generally disagree with the statement that government experts are more informed about the issues since they are only experts in politics and would argue that all members of the public should participate in the policy-making process.

Admittedly, there is no trivializing that government officials are aware of the process, measures to accomplish the job, and informed about our budget when making policies. Take President Trump as an example. The Trump administration cut millions of budgets on the programs that sought for treatments and cure for HIV/AIDS. Considering the low ratio of HIV positive patients relative to uninfected Americans, his decision could have put the budget for other programs that can cover and benefit much more Americans.

However, there are more harmful effects when we heavily rely on government experts and politicians to direct major policies. Again, President Trump cut budget on the programs that tackle down HIV/AIDS as soon as he took the office. Based on his administration’s analysis and budget calculation, it could have been an ideal decision for the rest of HIV negative Americans. However, many infectious diseases specialists raised concerns regarding this decision. They claim that there are still one million Americans who wait for the cure of HIV/AIDS and point out that the budget cut will possibly increase the infection rate in overall. According to the statistics provided by the Department of Health in California, most of newly infected patients were young people who are sexually active. Thus, the specialists claim that it is important to constantly manage the infected individuals to stop the spread since those who are infected are likely to spread the virus to HIV negative Americans. Despite the advices from the infectious diseases specialists, the Trump administration has not changed its decision. Though we have not seen the results yet, it is evident that politicians can make a reckless decision without considering the recommendations from specialists and it may cause to a catastrophe in our health and well-being.

Furthermore, allowing government experts and politicians to make decisions without public’s opinion often reduces the freedom of people. Since politicians can gradually build their power through passing the policies that take away the freedom of people, we should not give the power to make policies to the politicians but continuously keep an eye on them. Under the Nazi regime, Hitler adopted a new policy, called “Positive Christianity.” It dictated behaviors of Germans and forcefully punish the ones who opposed it. Consequently, citizens lost their freedom to freely speak about anti-semitism, racial purity, and their leader but passively follow the imposed moral code. To prevent such extreme phenomena, it is crucial for the public to always participate in the policy-making process and not yield the power to the government experts.

In today’s world, we often avoid participating in political issues since we often face hatred from opponents. However, to protect freedom and well-being for all, all members of the society, whether you are a specialist in a field or not, must participate in making policies.