1. Keeping in mind the material covered in this lesson, describe how you understand ideology in YOUR OWN WORDS.
-To me, Ideology is a personal set of beliefs, values, and ideas that someone has that affects the way they personally view the world. Everyone, to an extent has their own “ideology” to which they align with and see the world in a certain lens, which is the reason that although most people have similar morals, everyone has their own view on what is good and bad in the world. For example, if we were to use something like political ideology, different people have different views (whether it be something like democracy, socialism, liberal, conservative) that shape the way that individual personally believes the government should be run. Some people believe in more of a conservative, traditional set of values, while other people believe in a more liberal progressive change, and both have different ideologies which make them see the world differently and affect what they see as right and wrong.

2. How do you understand the difference between conservative and liberal ideology in US politics? What seem to be the big differences, the dividing line? Given an example to backup your arguments.
-The difference between conservative and liberal ideology is the way they believe that the government should be run. Liberals believe in things like progressive change, heavily support the LGBTQ+ community, support abortion rights, believe in a bigger government to take care of social issues. Conservatives on the other hand have completely different ideals, they believe in more traditional values, smaller government, and don’t support things like free health care for Americans.

3. How do you understand Althusser’s definition of ideology? Paraphrase it in your own words. Given an example. -Althusser says that ideology is a system of both belief and ideas that shape the way they personally see the world. He uses examples that there are many different ways that ideology works through things like religion, media, and school, who all teach people what is right and wrong, and teaches individuals to accept certain values. For example, someone who grows up in a catholic household, and goes to catholic school all their lives will have a very different outlook of life (ideology) than someone who goes to regular school and grows up in a non religious household.

1.Ruth Gilmore says that capitalism will stop being racial capitalism, when all the white people disappear from the story. What’s the connection between “whiteness” and racism, do you think?-Ruth Gilmore states that capitalism will stop being racial capitalism once all white people disappear. What she means by this is that the system of capitalism has been affected so much by race that capitalism treats people different simply due to their race. The connection between whiteness and racism is that typically white people (in this case “whiteness”), have power and privilege in society compared to everyone else in society, so the rules are basically different for them, and give them a unfair advantage.

2.Gilmore makes the point that criminals are actually being created by the criminal justice and prison system (she says “the category of ‘criminal person’ can be perpetuated”). According to Gilmore, how does that happen, how does the prison system create new “criminals“? Do you agree with her view?-Gilmore says this happens because the system punishes people for crimes and immediately labels them as criminals, when in reality the reason many people commit crimes is due to systemic issues in our society like poverty pushes certain ethnic groups to commit crimes because they don’t have the same advantages as white people, and once you go to prison it gives you a criminal record and makes it hard for you to get a job, which pushes you back to crime. In my opinion I completely agree with her view. It is true that many people commit crimes, but not all people that commit crimes due it because they are criminals, a lot of times it comes from being poor and having things like lack of resources which pushes people to break the law.

3.Describe how your understand what Prof. Gilmore – in the last part of her video – calls “liberation struggle”?-Prof. Gilmore at the end of the video talks about “Liberation struggle”.-She talks about liberation struggle as the fight against systems that oppress people due to things like racial capitalism in which oppress people and don’t give them the same chances as their counterparts simple due to their race, and how liberation struggle’s” goal is to make sure everyone gets a equal chance at making something off themselves.

1.What did the Supreme Court decide in the Wal-Mart case? And more importantly, how did it justify its decision? (HINT: the key word is commonality”(and how it related to “class section lawsuit”). Try to understand what this legal terms means, as it is key to the courts decision).-The Supreme Court in the Wal-Mart stores case denied the class action suit. The reason that the case was denied was due to the plaintiffs failure to establish “commonality”. With the case the thing is that the women failed to prove one common issue in which it would end up linking all of their claims when it came to the case. The main problem was that the Supreme Court said that pay and promotion decisions towards people are based on managers, so since the manager decides it’s not possible to sue the whole company since the whole company can’t be held responsible for manager decisions, especially when there are various different experiences that women have had. Because of this the Supreme Court had to rule that the case did not meet the requirements for a class action and it was thrown out.

1.In what ways is the court system better suited to protect the individual, than are the elected branches of government (such as congress and the president or the mayor of NYC and the NYC city assembly)? Give an example to illustrate your argument.-The court system is better at protecting individual rights over the elected branches of the government due to the fact that typically judges will make their decision based on the law instead of something like politics since typically elected officials to an extent have to do things in order to keep their position since largely the reason they make certain decision (whether they actually agree with it or not), unlike judges who on the other hand since they are appointed they usually stay judges for long terms and don’t have to worry about doing things to remain in their position. A example of how the court system is better suited to protect an individual was the Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. This was because even though there was a lot of elected officials that supported segregation (because of the time period) the Supreme Court ended racial segregation in America due to the 14th amendment.

2.Think about how federal judges get to become judges – unlike Presidents, Mayors and members of Congress (and other legislatures), they are not elected, but rather appointed. Many Americans have thus called the federal courts system, and especially the Supreme Court, anti-democratic PLACES IN OUR GOVERNMENT. Do you agree that the Supreme Court, for example, is an anti-democratic part of our government? What could be the reason for this way of choosing judges in federal courts? (HINT: think about our discussion of “Federalist #10”, and which social class plays a leading role in our government system.)-One of the reasons that many people consider the Supreme Court to be anti-democratic is due to the fact that judges are appointed, not elected, which means they strictly stick to the law and constitution when it comes to choosing judges rather than political influence. The thing is however we vote for a majority of things in our government, so since we don’t vote specifically for the judges appointed it doesn’t represent the citizens of the United States and what they may want. However I do agree with the supreme courts way of choosing its judges even though it may seem anti-democratic since we don’t elect them directly, but choosing appointing its judges based on the law and constitution over political influence is a good thing since political influence usually can cause elected officials to not go based off their beliefs but more so whatever is necessary to keep them in their position.

1.P.Williams writes in her essay, that the war on terror is a new type of war. What’s new about it, how is it different from traditional wars?-The war on terror is a new type of war because traditional wars are wars that are typically between nations, in which different nations send their own military force to fight against each other, and the typical reason for traditional wars starting are due to either fighting over things like territory, materials, political power, etc. On the other hand, war on terror is war on terrorist organizations, and how it is a global problem since terrorist organizations can exist practically anywhere. What P.Williams does talk about is how the war on terror affects things like civil rights and human rights, and how the war on terror indirectly can cause an increase in things like discrimination towards certain groups of people.

2.In what ways does the “Roving wiretaps” of the patriot act seem to violate the Bill of rights? Which amendments does it seem to violate and why?-The Roving wiretaps seem to violate the bill of rights because it potentially violates the 1st and 4th Amendment. This is because the 1st amendment guarantees that all citizens have freedom of speech, but if people believe that they are being monitored, it may make people less likely to express themselves or have certain opinions, and it potentially violates the 4th amendment since technically the 4th amendment protects United States citizen from being searched without a warrant, or probable cause. In other words it protects us from unreasonable searches, but the problem is that if something like the “Roving wiretaps” allows the police to monitor devices without specifically specifying which device it will be, how many, or the location of device, which gives police the way to violate our 4th amendments rights in a way since if they do this they can track and monitor multiple devices at a time which could then lead to an unreasonable search.

3.What about “sneak and peek” warrants?-Something like “sneak and peek” warrants also violate our 4th amendments rights since they can delay going to get a legal warrant that gives law enforcement probable cause to search and investigate since they can end up conducting searches without notifying what the goal of the investigation actually is. This in turn violates our fourth amendment rights since it allows unreasonable searches to take place.

1.Describe how you understand the “establishment cause” and the related “lemon test”-The establishment cause of the first amendment to the United States prohibits the establishment of religion by the government and favors one religion over another. This allows everyone to practice their own religion freely without the government being able to interfere. The lemon test is used to make sure that the establishment clause of the first amendment of the constitution isn’t being violated.

2.Is the burning the US flag protected by the first amendment? Explain by referring to the relevant court case discussed in the reading.-The burning of the U.S flag is protected by the 1st amendment. In 1989 the Supreme Court case Texas v. Johnson ruled that burning the flag, although it was very offensive the government simply could not prohibit burning the US Flag because it is a form of expression .

3.What does it mean when someone says “Im taking the fifth”-When someone says they are taking the fifth, this is referring to everyones constitutional right under the fifth amendment which gives them to right to not self incriminate themselves.