American Government essays

American Government essays American Government Government is the institution through which society makes and enforces its public policies. It is the agency through which the state exerts its will and works to accomplish its goals. Government consists of the machinery and the personnel by which the state is ruled. The type of government we have in the United States of America is a democracy.A democracy can be defined as a system of government in which supreme authority rests with the people. With this system of rule, the individual has a lot of power. The 1st,4th,and 14th Amendments attempt to uphold the sentiments of The United States Declaration of The 1st and 14th Amendments protections of free speech and a free press serve two fundamentally important purposes. One is to guarantee to each person a right to free expression- in a spoken and the written word, and by all other means of communication, as well. The other important purpose is to ensure to all persons a full, wide-ranging discussion of public affairs. This means that the 1st and 14th Amendments give all people the right to have their say and to hear what others have to say. Though the 1st and 14th Amendments guarantee freedom of freedom and expression, no person has unbridled right of free speech or free press. Many reasonable restrictions can be placed on those rights. No person has the right to libel or slander another. Libel is the false and malicious use of printed words; slander is such use of spoken words. Similarly, the law prohibits the use of obscene words, the printing and distributing of obscene materials, and false advertising. These Amendments protect the rights of an individual, though there are some slight Another Amendment that attempts to uphold the sentiments of The United States Declaration of Independence is the 4th Amendment. This Amendment grew out of colonial ...

Free sample - Education is not a Fundamental. translation missing

Education is not a Fundamental. Education is not a FundamentalThe   federal constitution of the united states of America doesn’t give a right to free Education to its citizens. This right is found in the constitutions of the various states. The states have put provisions in their constitution which   guarantee   free Education through the twelfth grade (Armor, 1995). This provision is popularly referred to as the Education article. This is evidenced in the ruling of the   case San   Antonio Independent School   District v Rodriguez , 411 U.S. 1 in the year 1973. In this case, the united sates supreme court reversed a Texas three - judge District court. In a case instigated in the federal district court for the western District of Texas , where   members of a group called the Edgewood Concerned Parent Association representing   their children   sued several school Districts such as San Antonio,   the judge contented that Education was a fundamental right. The verdict said that Education wa s a fundamental right and therefore discouraged discrimination on the bases of poverty. The parents had claims that the District of Edgewood was poor with a low tax base as compared to other Districts ( Armor, 1995). The case advanced through the legal system up to the supreme court but now with the Texas state as the defendant. The case reached the Supreme court in 1972 with a new set of judges being appointed to listen to it. Justice Lewis Powell actually acted as the swing vote in the case (Armor, 1995). The Verdict in part stated that Education was neither explicitly nor implicitly protected in the constitution and that the state of Texas which was the defendant in the case had failed to create a suspect class related to poverty. The court therefore held that Education was not a fundamental right under the U.S. constitution and therefore leaving it upon the states to determine all matters pertaining Education in their areas of jurisdiction. The supreme court also doesn’t explicitly empower congress to legislate on the subject of Education. This means that most federal education legislation falls under the spending clause of the constitution. This is a clause which empowers congress to tax as well as spend for the general welfare. The constitution however gives stipulations as far as the provision is concerned. It requires   that the provision has to be consistent with other constitutional rights provided by the federal government. These include the fourteenth Amendment’s right to protection under the law and the first Amendments right to the free exercise of, as well as the non establishment of a religion. Through this stipulation, the federal government   ensures a provision free of racial segregation and other forms of discrimination. Reference   Armor, D. (1995). Forced Justice : School Desegregation and the Law. New York : Oxford University Press.