According to MLK , we can tell the difference between a just law and an unjust law if the law goes against natural and/or moral law as well as degrades humanity. MLK believes that just law is one in which applies to everyone and does not create groups that are inferior to others as the natural law/moral law is that all humans are equal.
Yes i do believe that this distinction is very important as laws are meant to keep order and be impartial when the time comes. By having laws that treat others as inferior to another it cause the law to treat those they deem as inferior under the law harsher then those they seem as superior, essentially creating discrimination. This discrimination greatly effects peoples lives as shown during the Jim crow era as it forced people of color lives to be different from white people. This end up effecting politics because then we start creating policies that further harm and discriminate people. We need to determine when a law is just or not to promote equality and fair treatment under the law.
An example of a just law is the civil rights act, which gave protections to groups of people so that they won’t be discriminated on the bases of gender, race, sexuality, religion ect. This law is just because it protects groups from facing discrimination, which aligns with the idea the humans are equal. An unjust law currently would be redrawing of voting maps. This is unjust because it potentially gives one group more voting power then another group and this is used mostly communities of color so that their votes won’t count.
The Supreme Court decided in the Betty Dukes V. Wal-Mart case to deny the back pay owed to the women. The reason why this was the case was because the suit failed to meet its requirement of Commonality. This rule states all parties in the suit need to share a common problem so that they can give a common solution to all. They argued that because all the moment experienced their discrimination to varying degrees and by different managers and pay, they could not be brought together all at once. It made it difficult to determine exactly why in each case the women were treated differently, which then made it difficult to decide what compensation was appropriate for the women if they had different degrees of discrimination and thus was the main reason for dismissing the case. This case opened the question of how difficult it is to determine Discrimination in general and could be explained away easily.
How I understand the establishment clause of the U.S is that the government is not allowed to make any laws that that promote or establish a state religion to impose on its citizens. Religion and government policy is supposed to be separated and the government should not make laws forcing its citizens to follow a religion. In special cases like the government promoting a specific religious practice it must satisfy the requirements of the lemon test. Those requirements being that 1. it must not lead to excess government involvement with the religion. 2. it must be neutral. it cannot advance or inhibit the religious practice and 3. The law has to have a secular purpose. A reason outside of religious justification.
Yes burning the U.S flag is protected by the first amendment because it is a form of speech regardless of how offensive it is and thus cannot be punished by the government. This was established in the Supreme Court case Texas v. Johnson 1989 which they ruled that burning the flag was a form of speech that is protected.
When someone says they plead the fifth they means that they are using their fifth amendment right. which says that they are given the right to silence and prevent self incrimination so that it can’t be used against them in court.
The primary difference in the role of citizens in government can be summed up as to who holds the power. In a federalist system the government is divined into state and national governments with power given from the people. In a confederation system the power is held by the states over the national government. In a Unitary system the power is held by the national government over the states.
How I understand divisions of power is that its divided into multiple sections so that all the power isn’t concentrated into one point. The different sections of the divisions have power and roles that the other group don’t have and often checks each other.
The federal government shape the actions and roles of the government by imposing on them regulations that they must follow. For example the US government gave regulations to the NY during covid to try and limit the spread of the virus. They stopped access to public places and issued quarantine to limit the spread of covid to the most vulnerable people and introduced vaccine mandates to make sure people are protected.
The factions reminds me about our discussion on social class and how those groups have different interests.
According to James Madison, the source of wealth is what he describes as “diversity of faculties”. Essentially what he means is that everyone is born with a specific set of skills and talents that determine how much wealth they end up with. Some people are born with the ability to gain as much property as possible while others aren’t and that’s what leads to such differences
I greatly disagree with this explanation of wealth and poverty because it doesn’t take into account multiple different factors like, upbring, education, and social factors like race and gender and the discriminations that come from it. A majority of wealthy individuals inherent there wealth thus removing anything to do with ability or talent.
According to the reading the core mission of the government is to protect property. It is unsurprising to me that this was their thought on government as they originally created the constitution with their own interest in mind so that they can keep their wealth and influence and its greatly different for what we consider government for now.
Based on the discussions it doesn’t really surprise me at all that they aren’t in favor of democracy. And the reason why they dislike this form of government is because democracy would take away their influence and wealth and would change the balance of power they created for themselves.
Based on the readings it seems to me that the class that wrote the Constitution was the Capitalist class and only they were allowed to participate in that process. While the working and poor class were not there during the creation of the Constitution and were prevented from contributing and benefiting from it. As Beard put it they were the disenfranchised. The Capitalist class were made up of White wealthy land owners, slave owners and merchants. While the disenfranchised were everyone else, from slaves, indentured servants, men who could not participate in government because they didn’t own land and women.
While there are some differences there are clearly some similarities to today. We still have we social class just more of them, including the poor and middle class. Today there are no more disenfranchised groups like slaves and more people can patriciate in government such as women and people without land. But the things that have stated the same is that its still Capitalist that have more power in government
The people who wrote the constitution were so afraid of democracy because they didn’t to lose their wealth and influence to the people they saw as unfit to run society. They were elitist and wanted to maintain their control over people and a way of doing that is limiting democracy and the rights of the disenfranchised.
The means of productions are the items and materials needed in order to make a product. For example if your creating an artwork the means of production would be the paint for the art and the brushes needed to paint the picture. Labor is the amount of work we put into a product and increases the value of the items. For example using the paint and the brushes and painting a picture would be labor since you worked to create a new product.
Value is how much labor it takes to make something under normal circumstances. What makes something valuable is its labor and how much of it went into the product.
Labor and Value are related because the more labor it takes to make a product the more valuable it is given its done under normal conditions. This is called the Labor Theory of Value.
The difference between labor and labor power is the the work you put into making a product while labor power is the ability to do labor. Its the ability to do work and increases the value of the product Labor power comes from people
Surplus value is the extra value that comes from my labor power and its the extra value that i don’t get paid for. The payment goes to my employer. This is important to know about social class because who gets that surplus value determines which social class they end up apart of.
The most surprising statistic about wealth inequality in America from the reading was that 90 percent of American families have little to no assets. This was actually surprising to me because it seems like assets is what allows us to have more money. To think that a majority of people in America have little or any at all revels to me why its so difficulty to move up in social class and to gain more wealth.
The Implications of living in a society with such wealth inequality is that the money has to go somewhere. As shown in the last reading the capitalist uses their money to buy commodities and then make a profit from that gaining more money then what they spent. The money that they spent is coming from those that are not apart of the 1 percent. As the rich gets richer the poor get poorer. I see this dynamic played out now with the economy currently. The richer is getting richer while wages aren’t increasing leading to things becoming harder to afford. The money that the rich is making is coming out of of the other 99 precents pockets.
A capitalist maintains their wealth by using the wealth they already had( M) and invest that money into commodities (C), which includes labor and materials needed to make a new product. Then after they have a product they sell it at a higher value then that they spent to make it creating a profit. This is (M’). Couple that with the exploitation of workers due to paying them less, Capitalist end up with more money then what they spent to have the money. and with that the cycle repeat and the amount of wealth increases exponentially. This can be described in the equation (M-C-M’).
Where I live, I live near the 3 and 2 train on New Lots Ave. This train station is the last stop on the train. I would say the social class that lives near that train stop is middle class to working class individuals. I’m not exactly surprised by this because the neighborhood is pretty urban with stores and brownstones nearby, its a predominately black neighborhood and the residents tend to be young to middle aged people. I would say middle class and working class is an accurate representation of the people since often times i see the people at that station on their way to work and the neighborhood is looks middle class due to the amount of brownstone houses nearby.
