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The Roots of American Government

✤ What is the key function of a government?

✤ Make public policy decisions for a group of people

✤ Is this only on a national level?

✤ In order to do this, institutions must exist

✤ What is an institution?

✤ On a national level, we have the Congress, the president, the court system, the bureaucracy

✤ What are some institutions on the local level? In Arlington?

✤ What is the main problem with government?

✤ If govern means (basically) to control, how do we decide what the government should be allowed to do?

✤ Basic questions are:

✤ How should we govern?

✤ What should government do?

✤ Americans believe that the best answer to the above are through a democracy

✤ How is the democracy to do these?

✤ What Americans believe has become known as the functions of government-

✤ Maintain a national defense

✤ Meaning?

✤ US spends about $650 billion a year on national defense

✤ Provide public goods and services

✤ Meaning?

✤ Collective goods: Things for all that cannot be denied to anyone and shared by all

✤ Who do you think supplies these?

✤ Government. Why?

✤ If collective goods are provided by the government, who supplies the rest?

✤ Private sector (sometimes by government)

✤ What is an example of a collective good and what is an example of something provided by private industry?

✤ Preserve order

✤ Meaning?

✤ Socialize the young

✤ Meaning?

✤ Some say: indoctrination.

✤ Also known as nationalism. Why?

✤ Collect taxes

✤ Why?

✤ About one out of every three dollars earned in America goes to, in some part, the national, state, and local government

✤ These functions go to assist the people (citizens) by providing for public goods, equality, freedom, order

✤ Equality-

✤ Means different things, depending upon the time

✤ Political: Each citizen gets one vote

✤ Social: Wealth, education, status

✤ Opportunity: Each person has the same chance to succeed in life

✤ Outcome: Society must ensure that people are equal and that government must design ways to do so

✤ Freedom-

✤ Can be freedom from and freedom of

✤ FDR: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom from fear, freedom from want

✤ Freedom of: ability to do something

✤ Often called liberty

✤ Examples: speech, religion, press, assembly

✤ Freedom from: fight against exploitation and oppression

✤ Often called civil rights

✤ Order-

✤ In the Constitution, it is referred to as “domestic Tranquility”

✤ Usually seen as protecting life and preserving property

✤ There is social order

✤ Patterns of authority in society and traditional modes of behavior...means, the way things have always worked

✤ Established through police power

✤ So, equality, freedom, and order...how?

✤ Different methods of governing bring different advantages and disadvantages

✤ Monarchy

✤ Rule by one person to benefit their subjects

✤ Totalitarianism

✤ Government should have unlimited power controlling all aspects of society

✤ Oligarchy

✤ Few people ruling for their own interests

✤ Democracy

✤ What about it?

Baron de MontesquieuUnderstanding the Principles of Government and law of Baron de Montesquieu

✤ Look at the picture and answer these questions:

✤ What is the cartoonist trying to illustrate in this picture?

✤ Why is Andrew Jackson standing on the U.S. Constitution?

✤ How is President Jackson violating the philosophy of separation of powers?

✤ What is the cartoonist trying to illustrate in this cartoon?

✤ Why is it important that the bald eagle is trying to regain his position?

✤ How does this cartoon represent the belief in equality under the law?

✤ Read Montesquieu biography

✤ Study guide quotes

✤ Since you’ve been introduced to Baron de Montesquieu and his main ideas, reword his quotes on the sheet you’ve been handed out, and rate how much you either agree or disagree with his statements.

✤ What does Montesquieu mean by these (put into your notes)?

✤ Separation of powers

✤ Republican government

✤ Equality under the law

✤ What do you think about Montesquieu?

✤ How do you think Montesquieu would respond to the political cartoon ‘King Andrew the First’? What problems would he see with this picture?

✤ Would Montesquieu agree with Bill Mauldin in the ‘I Want My Seat Back’ cartoon? What is the importance of laws and whom do they protect in this illustration?

✤ Do you agree with Montesquieu’s thoughts about a republican government? What advantages does he believe this form of government has over a democracy?

✤ Translate them into simpler language. 2. Identify which of these concepts the philosopher was discussing:

✤ Separation of powers

✤ Republican government

✤ Equality under the law

✤ Inalienable rights

✤ Equal rights

✤ Authority from consent of the governed

✤ State of Nature

✤ State of War

✤ Limited Government

RousseauUnderstanding Rousseau’s theories on equal rights, unalienable rights, and consent to govern

What do you see in this picture?

What message do you think the artist wants you take away from this painting?

Do you believe that people receive equal treatment before the law? Why or why not?

What is happening in this picture?

What does the placement of the U.S. flag indicate?

Who has a right to claim the moon?

✤ Rousseau biography


✤ Since you’ve been introduced to Rousseau and his main ideas, reword his quotes on the sheet you’ve been handed out, and rate how much you either agree or disagree with his statements.

✤ What does Rousseau mean by these (put into your notes)?

✤ Inalienable rights

✤ Equal rights

✤ Authority from consent of the governed

✤ What do you think about Rousseau?

✤ How do you think Rousseau would respond to the painting by George Giusti?

✤ Would Rousseau understand and feel the same way as Margaret Walker?

✤ Is there a relationship between any of the quotations from the study guide on Rousseau used in this lesson and the painting and photograph studied above?

✤ Does the U.S. government function under a social contract? Do citizens have ways of making the government accountable to them? How?

Thomas HobbesA lesson in the principles of limited government, state of nature, and state of war

What image is the artist portraying in this picture?Whose rights are being violated and why? Who is responsible for the “trail of tears”?What is the relationship between the “trail of tears” and the idea of limited government?

✤ Hobbes biography


Questions to consider:What event in history in does this image portray?

Do you believe that this picture represents a man in a state of nature? Why or why not?

Questions to consider:What is the conflict represented in this picture?

Do you believe the fighting between the Israeli’s and the Palestinians illustrates a state of war?

✤ What does Hobbes mean by these (put into your notes)?

✤ State of Nature

✤ State of War

✤ Limited Government

✤ What do you think about Hobbes?

✤ Is our government limited or unlimited? Does this painting illustrate a belief in limited government?

✤ How do you think Hobbes would respond to the painting The Trail of Tears? Is justice being “equally administered to all degrees of people” as he thought government should do?

✤ Do you agree that without government, humans would naturally be in a state of war? Is government a necessary element for society?

✤ Locke believed that in a state of nature “no one ought to harm another in his life, health, or possessions”. In other words, he had a positive view of human nature. Compare this view of nature to that of Hobbes. How do these men illustrate contrasting views of human nature? Who do you believe is right in their view?

John LockeLearning about Locke's theories on limited government, unalienable rights, equal rights, and the consent of the governed

✤ Locke biography

✤ Use the information you just read to answer the following questions in your notes

✤ 1. What are 3 of John Locke’s beliefs about government?

✤ 2. What U.S. document(s) are based on the idea of Locke?

✤ 3. How can Locke’s influence be seen in this document?

✤ Explain what you think these concepts mean (put into your notes):

✤ 1. Consent of the governed

✤ 2. Natural rights

✤ 3. State of nature

✤ 4. Inalienable rights

Norman Rockwell’s The Problem We All Live With

What is happening in this painting?

Which principles of democracy are illustrated by this painting? (Equality? Natural rights? Liberty? Inalienable rights?) Explain.

Dave Cutler’s Flag With Male Symbol

What is happening in this painting?

Which principles of democracy are illustrated by this painting? (Equality? Natural rights? Liberty? Inalienable rights?) Explain.

Tiananmen Square, 1989

What is happening in this photo?

How does this relate to limited government?

✤ Look at the excerpts from Lockes writings.

✤ Answer the questions for your section of the Second Treatise

✤ Reduce your section into 4 bullet points on the back of your sheet

✤ Share your answers, and bullets, with the rest of your group

✤ What do you think about Locke?

✤ How do you think John Locke would respond to Norman Rockwell’s painting? Dave Cutler’s?

✤ How would John Locke respond to the events in Tiananmen Square?

✤ Are all rights equal or are some more important than others?

✤ How do we balance a limited government with the protection of equal rights?

✤ The different philosophers discussed all influenced the founding of the US which based democracy off of it

✤ Lead to the basic form of democracy (equality, freedom, order) at the beginning by providing 5 things:

✤ Equality in voting

✤ Effective participation

✤ Enlightened understanding

✤ Citizen control of the agenda

✤ Inclusion

✤ Theory is that American democracy is now one of three different things

✤ Pluralist

✤ Policymaking process is very open to the public, including to organizations and groups with shared interest

✤ No one group controls the policymaking process

✤ Because of this, the public interest prevails

✤ Elitist

✤ There is an upper class elite that holds power and makes policy

✤ Society is divided along class lines

✤ Can be outside of a formal governmental organization

✤ These elites do not influence policymakers, they are the policymakers

✤ Belief is that who the president is does not matter, corporate giants hold the power

✤ Hyperpluralist

✤ American democracy has groups that are so strong that government is weakened

✤ The influences on the policymaking process of the government are so strong and too numerous to be controlled

✤ These groups use the fragmented policymaking process to their advantage

✤ No clear policy can be made because the politicians yield to too many outside interests

✤ Is democracy the only thing out there?

✤ Socialism

✤ Based on Marxist theory

✤ Government extends into ownership or control of the basic industries that produce goods and services

✤ Unlike communism, it still allows for private industry

✤ Most socialist countries today are democratic

✤ Give civil liberties and citizens to determine the extent of the governments activities

✤ Done through elections and political parties

✤ Libertarianism

✤ Opposes all government action except that which is necessary to protect life and property

✤ Believe that the government is necessary for basic protection of life and property

✤ Example: Traffic laws = good. Helmet laws = bad. Social programs providing food, clothing, shelter = bad. Giving out of individual choice = good. Government regulation of the economy = bad. Laissez faire = good.

✤ Anarchism

✤ Opposes government of any sort

✤ Values absolute freedom with no laws or central powers whatsoever

What the government is to do is based on your personal belief (ideology) of what the government

should do. Or, should not do.

✤ Politics

✤ Part of democratic government is politics

✤ “Who gets what, when, and how”

✤ Media focuses on the who

✤ The what is the substance of the government

✤ How refers to the ways that people participate in politics

The Policymaking SystemPeople:

Interests, problems, concerns

Linkage Institutions:

Parties, elections,

media, interest groups

Policy Agenda: Political issues

Policymaking Institutions:Legislature, Executive,

Courts, bureaucracy

Policy:Expenditure

s, taxes, laws,

regulations, non

decisions

People:Impacts of

policies

Building on Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Montesquieu to understand the principles of government and law in the United States today

First: transcribe the text you see in the picture. What is this?

Which European thinkers do you think influenced this? (think back to Locke, Hobbs, Rousseau and Montesquieu)

What are some of the key concepts of these men that you see in here?

Now you should have copies of the Virginia Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Using what you have learned in past lessons abut Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Blackstone and Montesquieu work in groups of 4 to identify key points in the text that correlate to a specific theorist and their theory.

Be prepared to discuss your group findings with the class at the end of the activity

Primary Document Activity

What parts of the text do you think are good examples of theories from Locke? Rousseau? Hobbs? Blackstone? Montesquieu? Explain.

The Virginia Constitution


The Declaration of Independence


The U.S. Constitution

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