federal gov midterm

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  • 8/9/2019 Federal Gov Midterm

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    Identify, examine, and assess the dominant American political values. Explain how those valuesinteract with the prevalent contemporary American political ideologies. Additionally, assess how wellthese various political values and ideologies fit together. What tensions do they imply? How are thosetensions resolved? Can they e resolved at all?

    !here are many ways to categori"e the political values and ideas that people hold. #y and large,most of these issues come down to the $overnment%s role in people%s lives. &ome people advocate for a

    powerful or ' ig( government that provides many services to it%s people. If one was to sort people yideology, in name, these would e )i erals or &ocial *emocrats. +thers view $overnment interventionin their lives as strangling and taxing on personal freedoms and li erty. #y name, these would e calledConservatives, )i ertines, or opulists.

    In these camps there are, as there are in any complicated matter, nuances and su tleties that maynot e apparent on the surface. Conservatives may claim to want 'small( government, ut this tends toonly extend as far as regulations on trade and corporations. !hey are often strong proponents ofmilitary spending. Whether this propensity to fund the military-industrial complex is fueled y love

    sometimes read paranoia/ for their country or as a disguised power gra as also utili"ed y some)i erals/ must e decided on a case y case asis.

    )i ertines tend to e the most true to the desire for no government in people%s day to day lives.!his ma0es them and the way in which they loo0 at the pro lem of government uni1ue. While othergroups may ta0e for granted the role of $overnment, )i ertines start not with the 1uestion 'How doesthe $overnment%s role factor into this situation?( ut '&hould the $overnment even e involved?(#ecause of this star0 difference in approach, I elieve there will always e tension etween the)i ertarian party and other popular political parties. What most groups assume should e, )i ertariansdou t or outright deny it%s right to existence.

    As interesting as a case )i ertarians are, they account for a relatively small portion of the voting populace though they seem to e growing in num ers/. !he largest source of tension in the arena ofAmerican political values would e the ever deepening, if somewhat artificial, rift etween )i eralsand Conservatives, often represented as the cyclical competition etween *emocrats and 2epu licansfor control of Congress and the residency. 3any of the ig-tic0et differences are rather dichotomousin nature. Conservatives tend to e religious, )i erals tend toward secularism. )i erals often li0eredistri ution policies, Conservatives avoid them. Conservatives are pro-life, )i erals are pro-choice.!he list goes on, ut the theme is apparent and implied y their names. Conservatives tend to havemore traditional values that ultimately stem ac0 to their puritanical ancestry, while )i eral tend to e

    4ust that, more li eral, in their world views.!he views of these two sides are often irreconcila le and it often doesn%t come down to, 'what

    will ma0e oth parties happy( ut rather, 'what will ma0e oth parties least disappointed.( Ideally,tension is resolved through compromise. In reality, a compromise is often not met and one party will

    4ust ta0e advantage of its time in power until, inevita ly, popular opinion changes and the next ideologygets it turn in the spotlight.

  • 8/9/2019 Federal Gov Midterm

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    *escri e the ma4or ways in which the presidency has changed since the eginning of the twentiethcentury. #e sure to include a description of the changes and the reasons why these changes occurred.Include a conclusion to summari"e your 0ey points.

    In the eginning, the 5ramers created the office of the resident of the 6nited &tates. In itsinitial conception, the resident%s main 4o was to e Commander and Chief of the nation%s military. !o

    a lesser degree the president acted as an information aggregate that appointed and solicited opinions.5or a long time, approximately a hundred years or so, the resident conformed to the 5ounder%s vision.+f course, some officiants stand out in the way they individually helped guide America in her growthand development.

    A raham )incoln, for example, helped to pass radical legislation that would set free the slavesin the 6nion and start to ta0e the small a y-steps towards civil rights. 7ames 8. ol0 led the nationthrough the 3exican-American War, ac1uiring for the 6& much of it%s current &outhwest. In the 6nited&tate%s early history, the game-changing 'cele rity( president was the exception rather than the rule.6ntil the rise of the '3odern resident(, Congress was the main acting ody of the American$overnment. !his can e contri uted to the nation%s existence as an agriculturally ased society at thetime as well as the media paradigm shift that would occur after the introduction of the radio andsu se1uently the television. 3any people were doing what they could to survive and as a result lad lesstime to fill their heads with the goings ons up on !he Hill.

    !eddy 2oosevelt was the first '3odern resident.( He is cele rated as a leader of therogressive Era, a trust uster though he never really did much of that/ and as a cow oy. !he last

    detail is the one that I see as most indicative of his modernity. With !2, one can see a romantici"ationof the residential office and an interest in the pu lic of not necessarily his politics, ut his personality.After him, you get the li0es of Woodrow Wilson whose 9ew 5reedom programs were loudly andadamantly advocated for y himself/, 5ran0lin 2oosevelt who was the face of the 9ew *eal whichwas a series of Congress-passed law as well as presidential executive orders / then onto 8ennedy,

    9ixon and other unargua ly 3odern residents.As time marches on and the office of resident wedges itself more and more firmly into the

    u lic%s eye, the presidents ecome more and more involved in policy ma0ing and legislative action.!hough always having the power of :eto, the resident is now a leader of domestic and foreign policyas well as our military leader as well as the head of his or one day her/ political party.

    What started as a sort of Magister equitum evolved into a position of immense power andinfluence that does not loo0 very much li0e the office originally devised y the 5ramers of theConstitution years ago. !his shift occurred organically over time as a result of changing lifestyles,values, and a generally evolution in American political thought. 5or etter or for worse, the personelected resident of the 6nited &tates today has exponentially more power that their disposal than theirhistorical counterparts.