erica

Sadela Mclaughlin
Pol 120
Midterm
February 28, 2014
Midterm for American Government

2. The main differences in a positive and negative government are the way people perceive the government. A positive way means a person feels that the government is in favor of what they believe. When it comes to laws that government created for us, a person may feel that the government dictates on what can be done and what cannot be done. Some American’s feel that they relate more to a particular party more than the other party and they believe the views of that party.
Republicans and democrats have several different beliefs. The republicans are in favor of the upper class American’s why the democrats are more in favor of the middle; blue collar Americans. The democrats support gay marriage and believe in decreasing the spending while republicans believe in increasing the spending for America’s debt and oppose in same sex marriage.
3. The development of suburbia has increased in the past few years. Everyone is on social media and everybody like to view their opinion openly on media sites. I remember when I first got Facebook in 2006 it was only for high school and college students. Now my grandmother has a Facebook and she converse with her friends she grew up with. Suburbia has impacted our views on culture in many ways. When celebrities or a person we look up to view politics in a certain way, people my at all ages start to take a look at politics the way that person did. Recently when Obama ran for political office he had many current celebrities help campaign with him, he knew that the younger America looked up to these celebrities and he felt that having them on board with his campaign that he will gain that audience vote. This worked with Obama first ran for office he had many popular people to help campaign with him. Some say it’s one of the reasons he won office in 2008.
4. The four weakness of the Articles of Confederation are the congress could not force any states to create their own laws. Congress didn’t have any power to tax nor did they have power to enforce the laws. There was no leadership and congress had no army. When the Articles of Confederation was established on March 1st 1781 it was only in effect until March 4, 1789 when the Constitution took effect. The Articles of Confederation fell apart due to each state wanting their own government and no be willing to answer to no one but each other. Each state wanted to create its own currency, and military. Each state was beginning to fall apart.

6. Civil Liberties are giving to us from the government but is also our protection from the government. Our civil liberties are at risk when we as American’s decided to defeat the government and when we feel like our rights as citizens are put to a test. The right to bare arms means a person can defend their selves when they feel their life is threatened. In today’s society people take the right to bare arms meaning a little differently.
Every day in the news we see an innocent person being killed or gunned down by a person who felt they were in harm’s way. At the end the person that was shot or even killed wasn’t armed at all. I think our liberties will be at risk sooner than later do to the recent killings of innocent people. The government can’t take away a person rights but they can put limitations on our civil liberties.

7. The definition of social movement to me is a group of people of fight for certain rights as Americans. There have been many social movements in our history, but recently there have been many social movements on gay rights. In the news there have been states that felt the need to pass laws for business owners to have the right to not serve someone in the gay community. Congress didn’t pass this law. People were astonished that the law even mad it to congress. Businesses knew that if they chose to participate in this law that their business profits could and will decline.
An effective social movement first comes with an idea for change. Why is a movement necessary for this change? Having a successful social movement needs to be a group of people that believe that the change they want to happen in what other Americans are in need of also. When the gay rights social movement took place they were many people that oppose on the gay rights but there were also people who knew gay rights could change America for the best.