AP Government Unit 1 Terms List

Government, Politics & Globalization

Pillars of the State
Government, Territory, Population,
Sovereignty, Legitimacy, Loyalty, Distribution
Nation v. Regime v. State
Strong v. Weak States
Government v. Politics
Power v. Authority
Systems of Government
Unitary v. Confederate v. Federal
Presidential v. Parliamentary
Dictatorship v. Direct Democracy v. Republic
Social Contract

Globalization
Interdependence
Transparency, Corruption

Supranational Organizations
G-8, United Nations, World Trade
Organization, IMF, World Bank
Democracy
Constitutionalism
Capitalism
Socialism
Communism
Oligarchy
Autocracy
Theocracy
Majority Rule
Fragmentation

Foundations of American Government

 What are the foundations (institutions & documents) that have supported the United States in one of the longest uninterrupted political traditions of any nation in the world?

 How are the theoretical Concepts of Democracy and the Principles of the Constitution seen in governmental practice in the United States?

 How has federalism been a persistent source of political conflict?

 How have Supreme Court precedents shaped the evolution of federalism?


Terms to Know

Articles of Confederation
Constitution
Declaration of Independence
Anti-Federalists
Federalists
Federalist Papers
Federalism
Democratic Theory – Republic, Pluralism, Elitism
Concepts of Democracy
Bicameral
Bill of Rights
Checks and balances
Elastic Clause
Rights of Society v. Rights of Individual
Enumerated Powers
Judicial Review
Preamble
Amendment process
Reserved Power Amendment
Separation of Powers
Supremacy clause
Block grants
Categorical grants
Layer cake federalism
Supreme Court precedents
Loose construction
Strict construction
Incorporation cases

9/11 2010: Are we out of Balance, out of Bounds?

London's Daily Mail has a great piece that shows the many personalities weighing in on the Florida pastor's plan (maybe now put off?) to burn a Koran on Saturday, 9/11. Ironically he says this is not about him, but will back off his plan if he gets a personal call from the President. Really?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1310444/Obama-Terry-Jones-9-11-Koran-burning-al-Qaeda-recruitment-bonanza.html

Then, for Monday read this article by Stuart Taylor, "Rights, Liberties and Security: Recalibrating the Balance after September 11:

http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2003/winter_terrorism_taylor.aspx

Answer the following questions for discussion. You could answer in the comment section of this post, or turn in a hard copy on Monday.

(1) Should the rules for pursuing terrorists be different than those for persuing drug dealers or bank robbers? Why/Why not? What are the dangers in taking a more aggressive approach, even when it may be essential?

(2) Taylor advocates the limited use of "preventive detention" for suspected international terrorists. Can thisexteme measure be squared with the ordinary constitutional guarantees of speedy trial, due process, and protection against self-incrimination?

(3) This article was written in 2003, in your opinion has the balance of policy been weighted on the side of liberty or security in the last several years? Is this a good/bad thing?

Jihad vs. McWorld

Benjamin Barber outlines threats to democracy in a globalized world in his classic, Jihad vs. McWorld. Read & take annotated notes on the article. Be ready to discuss and. You may also be quizzed on this reading. Also, think about the tone titles like, "Jihad vs. McWorld," or "Clash of Civiliations," set in the world today.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199203/barber



Speaking of McWorld....

RECENT renewed American calls for China to revalue its currency have so far fallen on deaf ears. China has rejected accusations that America's huge trade deficit with it is caused largely by an artificially weak yuan, which has been pegged to the dollar since July 2008. Economists point out that an appreciation of the yen did little to help reduce America's trade deficit with Japan in the 1980s. But the yuan is unquestionably undervalued. Our Big Mac index, based on the theory of purchasing-power parity, in which exchange rates should equalise the price of a basket of goods across countries, suggests that the yuan is 49% below its fair-value benchmark with the dollar.

The Economist's Big Mac index seeks to make exchange-rate theory more digestible. It is arguably the world's most accurate financial indicator to be based on a fast-food item. (Here is a brief explanation and video clip.)

The End of the WWW as we know it

Google: Don't Be Evil from MoveOn.org Official Channel on Vimeo.

Google and Verizon just announced a proposal that could literally kill the Internet as we know it. Their plan? To create two separate, unequal sections of the Internet—one for big business that would be high-speed and exclusive, and then the inferior, slow "public Internet" that would be available to you and me.

As Josh Silver wrote on Huffington Post:

For years, Internet advocates have warned of the doomsday scenario that will play out on Monday: Google and Verizon will announce a deal that the New York Times reports "could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content's creators are willing to pay for the privilege."

The deal marks the beginning of the end of the Internet as you know it. Since its beginnings, the Net was a level playing field that allowed all content to move at the same speed, whether it's ABC News or your uncle's video blog. That's all about to change, and the result couldn't be more bleak for the future of the Internet, for television, radio and independent voices.

How did this happen? We have a Federal Communications Commission that has been denied authority by the courts to police the activities of Internet service providers like Verizon and Comcast. All because of a bad decision by the Bush-era FCC. We have a pro-industry FCC Chairman who is terrified of making a decision, conducting back room dealmaking, and willing to sit on his hands rather than reassert his agency's authority. We have a president who promised to "take a back seat to no one on Net Neutrality" yet remains silent. We have a congress that is nearly completely captured by industry. Yes, more than half of the US congress will do pretty much whatever the phone and cable companies ask them to. Add the clout of Google, and you have near-complete control of Capitol Hill.

www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-silver/google-verizon-deal-the-e_b_671617.html

The FCC being a bureaucratic federal agency under the executive branch, is this another example of a failure of our government or at least corporate control of it?

You can sign an on-line petition stating: "Google: Say no to the reported agreement with Verizon to kill Net Neutrality and the open Internet." at //pol.moveon.org/google/index.html

Two Current Profiles in Courage

(From the JFK Library)

John F. Kennedy had long been interested in the topic of political courage, beginning with his senior thesis at Harvard. The thesis, later published as Why England Slept, was a study of the failure of British political leaders in the 1930s to oppose popular resistance to rearming, leaving the country ill-prepared for World War II. Kennedy’s election to the House in 1946 and the Senate in 1952 gave him personal experience in dealing with the conflicting pressures that legislators face. When Kennedy took a leave of absence from the Senate in 1954 to recover from back surgery, it gave him the opportunity to study the topic of political courage. The project resulted in the publication of Profiles in Courage, which focuses on the careers of eight Senators whom Kennedy felt had shown great courage under enormous pressure from their parties and their constituents. His own battles with physical pain and his experiences in World War II as a PT boat commander also gave him inspiration. Profiles in Courage, which Kennedy dedicated to his wife Jacqueline Kennedy, received the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1957.

The subjects of Profiles in Courage are:

• John Quincy Adams
• Daniel Webster
• Thomas Hart Benton
• Sam Houston
• Edmund G. Ross
• Lucius Lamar
• George Norris
• Robert A. Taft

In the preface to Profiles in Courage, Senator Kennedy discusses the “problems of political courage in the face of constituent pressures, and the light shed on those problems by the lives of past statesmen.’’

www.jfklibrary.org/Education+and+Public+Programs/Profile+in+Courage+Award/Profiles+in+Courage.htm

Reading the editorial on today's Chicago Sun-Times, highlighted two men taking courageous stands currently and I thought about how they fit the principles then-Senator John F. Kennedy laid out in Profiles in Courage.

Two men take a stand for America's values

One man is East Coast, the other is West Coast. One is a politician, the other a federal judge. But in two historic developments this week, both men stood up for what is right, even sacred, about our country and our Constitution.

How refreshing it was, bordering on inspiring, to see two public figures champion without apology our nation's most fundamental values -- civil liberties and religious freedom -- giving no quarter to baser sentiments.

If only their strong public commitment to our noblest principles did not seem so exceptional. Unfortunately, we live in intellectually dishonest times.

First, on Tuesday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the building of a mosque near the World Trade Center site, Ground Zero for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Bloomberg refused to pander to those who would block the mosque out of a misguided notion that all Muslims and their religion, rather than a radical minority, are somehow to blame for the 9/11 attacks.

"Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans," Bloomberg said. "We would betray our values -- and play into our enemies' hands -- if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to terrorists -- and we should not stand for that."

Then on Wednesday, Vaughn R. Walker, chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, struck down California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriages, issuing an eloquent ruling that drove to the heart of the matter.

"California's obligation is to treat its citizens equally, not to mandate its own moral code," Walker wrote. "Moral disapproval, without any other asserted state interest, has never been a rational basis for legislation."

But might there be a "state interest" in banning same-sex marriage? Walker emphatically said no.

The Proposition 8 campaign, he wrote, "relied heavily on negative stereotypes about gays and lesbians and focused on protecting children from inchoate threats vaguely associated with gays and lesbians. The evidence at trial shows those fears to be completely unfounded."

Every day, we turn on the radio or cable TV and hear manufactured outrage about manufactured stories based on manufactured facts.

Broadcast hucksters trample on the American ideal of tolerance -- for Muslims, for gays and lesbians and for immigrants. People believe this stuff, and opportunistic know-nothing politicians ride the wave of anger and misinformation to ever-higher speaking fees.

So it was with real appreciation that we listened to Bloomberg's speech, given before a backdrop of the Statue of Liberty, and read Walker's ruling.

"We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors -- that's life and it's part of living in such a diverse and dense city," Bloomberg said. "But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11."

Yes. Exactly right.

"Proposition 8 was premised on the belief that same-sex couples simply are not as good as opposite-sex couples," Walker wrote. "This belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate. The Constitution cannot control private biases, but neither can it tolerate them."

Yes. Exactly right.

Some people say they want their country back. We're not sure what country they're talking about.

We'll take the America of Vaughn Walker and Michael Bloomberg, from California to the New York Island, the one that's made for all of us.

www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/2571128,CST-EDT-EDIT06.article?plckCurrentPage=0&sid=sitelife.suntimes.com

Following a Rainbow to the Supreme Court?

Use this blog post as sort of a timeline on the issue of Same Sex Marriage. As far back as 2004, the issue has been on the domestic political agenda for various reasons. In 2004, GOP strategist Karl Rove helped get 11 marriage referendums on swing state ballots, like Ohio. In all 11 of those states where gay marriage was defeated, George W. Bush won on his way to the presidency.

But first some comparative government gay marriage news. CNN International Reports:

(CNN, August 6, 2010) -- Mexico's Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a Mexico City law that legalized same-sex marriage. In an 8-2 vote, the high court found the law, which went into effect in March, constitutional.

The ruling comes a day after a court in the United States found a law banning gay marriage unconstitutional.

The justices upheld the law in Mexico City, but did not decide whether their decision affects jurisdictions in the rest of the country. The court will take up the issue again next week, the state-run Notimex news agency reported.

Mexico City's law also allows same-sex couples to adopt children. The constitutionality of that part of the law will be decided next week.

The lawsuit against the gay marriage law was presented by the federal attorney general's office, which challenged the legality of the measure.

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Mapping the future of Gay Marriage in U.S.
(From Political Warrior, Jan. 12, 2010)

Use these resources as a way to prepare for Wednesday's deliberation of same-sex marriage as a Policy Issue or a Constitutional issue.

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First, starting today, former Bush solicitor general Ted Olson attempts to persuade a federal court to invalidate California's Proposition 8—the voter-approved measure that overturned California's constitutional right to marry a person of the same sex.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/229957/page/1

____________________
On the California case Perry v. Schmarzeneger, the U.S. Supreme Court Monday temporarily blocked a federal judge's plan to broadcast the trial over California's ban on gay marriage by posting video on YouTube.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60A3II20100111

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Check out the maps, of where this is going here:

The Los Angeles Times has produced a nice interactive map showing that state-by-state status of gay marriage. The map is also a choropleth map on a red to green scale with each color share representing a different level of rights (interesting color spectrum, no?) Related is a map that shows the projected future of gay marriage in each state (I would have reversed the shading of the colors, personally).

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Last week, the New Jersey legislature rejected legalization of gay marriage. Earlier in Gay marriage became legal in Vermont and Iowa in 2009 and takes effect January 1, 2010 in New Hampshire.

In the District of Columbia, a city council vote passed same-sex marriage.
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A Marriage Made in Heaven
(From Political Warrior, May 24, 2008)

While the Class of 2008 was preparing to walk across the graduation stage to their future, a couple of weeks ago the California Supreme Court ruled, 4-3, to legalize same sex marriages. Gay couples can begin the marriage application process next week.

This wedge issue in the culture wars gives us an opportunity to review some terms as we reflect on our values. Article IV of the Constitution states that "full faith and credit" must be given to the laws, records and court decisions of other states.

However, for more than a decade, conservative activists have erected a series of legal barriers to prevent one state's move toward recognizing gay marriages from setting in motion a national wave. In 1996 they won passage of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which said that same-sex marriages performed in states that allow them do not have to be honored by the federal government or other states.
Bans on gay marriages are expected to face legal challenges

And they won laws in 42 states to limit marriage to a man and a woman. In 27 of them, these are constitutional amendments that cannot be overridden by judges or lawmakers.

Marriage is also a reserved power of the states (10th Amendment). Both by court decisions, now California and previously ruled Massachusetts, legalize same sex marriage. Massachusetts' ruling limited marriage rights to that state, California's ruling is more broad. That may make this a ruling a center piece in the 2008 presidential election.

Should we get fired up over this issue again? A new poll finds that for the first time in the state's history, a slim majority of voters supports same-sex marriage, which the state Supreme Court declared legal this month.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20080528-9999-1n28field.html

In 2004, George W. Bush won 11 states that also passed "Protection of Marriage" referendums. It was one of karl Rove's winning strategies. One wonders whether if this change election will wind up being more of the same.

Opponents in California are pondering a constitutional amendment to counter the court’s decision. Gay and lesbian activists are now setting their sights onto a larger platform. Prepare yourself for an onslaught of talking heads, each with their own authoritative angle. Richard Kim, in The Nation, suggestions that rational thought will disarm culture war.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080609/kim
The 2 Regular Guys at CBS2School offer a primer on marriage here:

"Marriage as we know it in the United States is based on the model established by Protestant reformer John Calvin in Geneva in the year 1546. Geneva was to be the model city. This model would later be used by Puritans coming to the New World. In 1546 Geneva officials passed the Marriage Ordinance, a comprehensive policy explaining the purpose and affect of marriage on a civil society.
The Ordinance, written by Calvin, began by establishing “God as the founder” of marriage. Marriage was seen as a covenant, built not only upon the laws of God but the laws of nature. Therefore, marriage was to be between a man and a women. For our purposes the more interesting point is the fusion between church and state. In the Ordinance Calvin discussed “ . . . the dual requirements of state registration and church consecration to constitute marriage.” It is this point which snags our debate today.

Some would argue that a solution to our current debate may be found when we remember that a marriage is made in heaven and not inside a government building.

It would seem that we have resolved the issue over the distribution of rights as it relates to monogamous couples, gay or straight. The issue today is over the word “marriage.” Who is its protector?

History suggests this is a church - state issue. A consensus has been built separating these two important spheres. "

Graduates and seniors to be chime in, when you get married will marriage still be exclusively between a man and a women? Or is the institution about to change? Should it change?

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A Pew Foundation poll result I heard this week (8/5/2010) stated that if you are 50+ you support Gay Marriage at just 34%. If you are under-50, you support it at 54%.
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Irish musician Bono, left, sits with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore while addressing a conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Gore's Gay Marriage Gambit
(From Political Warrior, Jan. 25, 2008)

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and (my guy) Irish rock singer Bono warned the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday that efforts to tackle climate change and global poverty were lagging, and not improving conditions as much as is needed.



At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, G-8 Nations were urged to speed up global warming, hunger efforts.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/24/business/main3747503.shtml

But much coming out of the talking heads of the MSM on this side of the pond came over what Citizen Gore said about Gay Marriage this week.

Gore, who as vice president supported the Defense of Marriage Act, has put up a video on his Current TV Web site in which he stands up for gay marriage:

“Gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women — to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage, and I don’t understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage…”

Gore’s statement, notes Ben Smith at Politico, “pushes the Democratic establishment that much closer to a position he now shares with Eliot Spitzer and some other leading Dems, and is prompting a bit of grumbling in gay political circles that this batch of candidates aren’t quite there.” He continues:

Gore’s words come after the leading presidential candidates have tiptoed up to, but not crossed, the line of support for same-sex marriage. All three support equal substantive rights for gay and lesbians couples, and they’ve sought to woo gay voters in other ways: Elizabeth Edwards has voiced her support for same-sex marriage, for instance, and Barack Obama recently scolded the black church for homophobia, in a speech to an African-American congregation.

Will Gore’s comments up the ante for the candidates if they want to be seen as sincere? And taking both issues into account, is there any doubt that Al Gore, private citizen, has done more to move the global political debate than Al Gore, elected official, ever did.

14th Amendment No. 1 in litigation

With big wedge issue district court decisions coming down on Arizona's Immigration Law and California's Prop 8 gay marriage ban, the 14th Amendment has once again become the most talked about constitutional amendment cable news and political blogs. It is also the most cited constitutional amendment used by attorneys in litigation.

So before we get into dealing with these political, legal and sticky social issues when we begin class, what exactly did the "founders" (or the author's of the post-Civil War amendment) put into the law of the land in 1866. It is shaping up to be an inconvenient truth for some conservatives who claim they love the principles of the constitution -- gays and Mexicans in America, apparently not so much:

14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
(From the Library of Congress)

Free! Lithograph, color. 1863. Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction Number: LC-USZC4-2521

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868, and granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed. In addition, it forbids states from denying any person "life, liberty or property, without due process of law" or to "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” By directly mentioning the role of the states, the 14th Amendment greatly expanded the protection of civil rights to all Americans and is cited in more litigation than any other amendment.

So how do you interpret the 14th amendment as it relates to: 1) Babies born in the U.S. to illegal immigrant parents; and 2) The right of homosexual couples to legally marry?

For more:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129007120