Political Landscape

1
Political Landscape

• Why do we need government?
• Where did our Founding Fathers get their
  enlightened ideas?
• American culture today, the changing
  characteristics of American government, and the
  American people

2
Purpose of Government

• Would it be possible for all Americans to live
  as they choose with total freedom and without
  government?
• Why? Does society need government to exist?
• What is government?
• How should we be governed?
• What should government do?
• What does government do?

3
National State Local

4
Origins of the State Theories

• Force Theory
• Control taken by one or group
• Evolutionary Theory
• Early family structure, head of family
• Divine Right Theory
• 15th 18th century royal birth given divine
  right to rule.
• Social Contract Theory
• Rule at consent of people
• voluntarily gave up some rights for protection
  by the government

5
Lockes Foundations

• Natural rights philosophy
• Influenced Founding Fathers
• Based on imagining what life would be like
  without government
• Government exists at the consent of the people
• Locke believed that there is a law of nature even
  in the state of nature, characterized by reason
  tolerance.
• Thomas Jefferson called these the Laws of
  Nature and of natures God in the Declaration of
  Independence
• All men are created equal
• Life, liberty, property and justice

6
Hobbes Foundations

• Government is necessary to regulate humans who
  are basically evil
• People must surrender to rulers in exchange for
  protection
• Social Contract
• Mans natural state is war and monarchies were
  needed to restrain it
• People must give up certain rights to the monarch

7
Rousseaus Foundations

• Man is good by nature, but corrupted by society
• Political order is necessary
• Ideal society has a contract between men, not
  between men and government
• Direct democracy
• Government should be controlled by the general
  will of the people
• Laws are acts of the people

8
Would anyone have the right to govern you?

• What would they say?
• Locke ?
• Hobbes?
• Rousseau?

9
Would you have any rights?

• Life, liberty, and property
• Right to defend these rights if necessary
• Locke called these natural rights
• We now call them fundamental, basic or human
  rights

10
Lockes Solution

• Best way to solve the problem of the state of
  nature is a Social Contract
• People give up natural freedoms in order to gain
  protection for their rights
• The creation of a government which can establish
  and enforce laws should be agreed upon by those
  involved
• A social contract is also known as a compact or
  covenant