Commonality means a shared issue or interest. The supreme court decided that regardless of the evidence that was presented by Betty Dukes, her team and the 1.5 million women, they did not have enough commonality in the case. Therefore, they could not continue with the case, and were misclassified from women class statues. The Supreme Court took the decision, based on that not all of the women were not denied the same promotions ,or wages as their male counterpart. This argument was enough to deny the women’s claims. Regardless, this sparked multiple questions about Walmart policies, and the treatment for women in their facilities. Many different stories about male preference were raised. However, there was retaliation for a lot of women who worked at Walmart, with many being fired.

1. A war against terrorism is completely based on fear, and because of that fear any person can be the enemy. War against terrorism is a war against the civilian enemy. This type of war can be used as an excuse from the government to use the social panic and to violate the rights of civilians who may be “suspicious”. Again, any person can be the enemy since war against terrorism meaning that we do not know who can be part or ally of the enemy organization. I would say that Patricia Williams explains that a war against terrorism means the continuous surveillance of the people, with the excuse of protection against terrorism.
2. As it was mentioned in the fourth amendment, the government is not allowed to search into a person’s property without their authorization without a warrant. However, law enforcement argues that they need to be able to listen to the suspect’s conversations to look up evidence. In order to surpass people with technological knowledge, and advantages, the government would be able to cover multiple devices to track information against suspects. This means a big violation of the people’s privacy without consent, therefore it violates directly the forth amendment. As per Patricia Williams said, the government would be able to violate the bill of rights with the excuse of the war against terrorism.
3. The Sneek and Peek warrant violates the fourth amendment. Without the presence of a person in their homes, law enforcement might be able to plant evidence in a person’s home and use it to charge them with crimes that the civilian might not have committed. At the same time, the government argues that the sneek and peek would be allowed in times of war only when the investigation is at risk of being jeopardized. Regardless, during times of war, the government might be able to use this as an excuse to search for any suspect’s home without them being at home.

1. The Establishment clause prohibits the country from declaring an official government religion. Based on the principle that the country has a large diversity of nationalities, which escaped from wars based on religion. At the same time, within the country, people developed their own churches based on their own doctrines, and interpretations of Christianity (since the majority of migrants were from Christian countries). Therefore, the government is impeded to favor or disfavor a specific religious group. This includes having religion being taught in schools in the country. However, there was a discussion of to what extent does the government have power over the people’s religion within government’s establishments, and the people’s right to exercise their religious costumes within them. Because of this conflict, the Supreme Court in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) declared the Lemon test. A test based on 3 steps to make sure that the government has a straightforward boundary with religion, and remains neutral on everything related to religious activities.
2. Burning the US flag is considered a way of free speech and it is considered a form of symbolic speech. Considering the case of Texas v. Johnson in 1989, the Supreme Court made the controversial decision of releasing Gregory Lee Johnson after he burnt the flag in 1984 as a way of protest in Dallas, Texas. After the controversial decision to release Johnson, Congress responded in 1990 with the Flag Protection Act trying to overrule the decision of the Supreme Court. This attempt was considered unconstitutional.
3. When a person says, “I’m taking the fifth”, they refer to the right of not providing any information that might be self-incriminating. They will not give evidence in court or to law enforcement that might be used to incriminate a suspect. This is also known as the right to remain silent.

1. From my understanding, I would say that the court system is better suited to protect the individual. In a court, there is the possibility to review cases on which the supreme court used their discretion to take a previous decision in a similar case. This can change the suspected person’s outcome since there is the need to overview everything related to the case, and charges a person might be facing. I would say that the judge and the court have to apply the law in an impartial way, which is different from other branches of the government. Courts require a specific focus on each case. As an example, the Miranda case, from where the Miranda Rights got its name. Miranda was charged with kidnaping and rape. The lawyers, and the court, took the decision not to use Ernesto Miranda’s confession because the police did not let him know about his rights; this violated his fifth amendment rights and resulted in discarding his confession. Later he was charged and sentenced with those crimes, but they could not use his confession.
2. I think that this becomes something interesting and very controversial. I think that if people are going to choose judges, people need to feel represented and need to know who is best suited for the position. This becomes difficult, since in the political context we are living today shows that people are very guided by hate, and misinformation. However, when I think about “Federalist #10” Madisson refers to the inherited talent of accumulating wealth and mentions who should be participate in democracy based on that idea. I agree that not being able to choose the judges is anti-democratic. Until today, people who are leading the country are people in higher socioeconomic status and are very difficult to relate to for the people. At the same time, those who are leading the country nominate the judges based on their own interests and use the court system as a method to favor them from the criminal justice system.

1. The primary differences in the 3 systems between federal, confederation, and unitary systems are the way on which each one of them are ruled.

The unitary system has the authority in a centralized government, which dictates how each part of a country is ruled.

A confederation is a type of government on which each state is ruled independently from the rest of the country, this is a decentralized kind of government.

The federal government is a kind of government on which the people decide how the country is going to be ruled. They decide how the government in each state will be ruled, and at the same time how the country will be ruled. States and the country have their own authority.

2. I understand the division of power as a way of maintaining a territory without a centralized hold of power. Different branches of power were developed in order to make sure that not a single individual holds the power. In the United States, there exists a division of power such as, executive, legislative and judicial branches. Each one of these hold specific powers within the government, and can be oversee each other.

3. During the pandemic, the federal government and NYS collaborated to coordinate and fund various emergency areas. Some of the aid that the federal government used to help NY financially were CARES Act and ARP. At the same time federal organizations guided and coordinated with the State and local governments to support and help with recovery of multiple patients of COVID. There was influence of the federal government in the decisions NYS and NYC regarding the pandemic. However, there were requisites that were needed in order to be eligible such as FEMA, on which, NY had to be in the point of declaration of Major Disaster Declaration.

I would say that the 90% of Americans not having little to no assets. It is known that a large part of the population in the country is aware of the issues we have such as wealth inequalities. What is surprising is that half of the country voted for the current president not once but twice, which has worsened the situation for many Americans. Many of them defend him and act almost as a cult whenever he is mentioned. It makes me wonder if struggling financially might affect their capacity of getting some kind of education.

In my opinion I would say that individuals who own big parts of large corporations can easily make everything more expensive and affect our lives in any way they want. As of now, the rate on which the minimum wage has increased does not match the way on which inflation has increased. This makes the life of the average person in America almost entirely unaffordable. We can see these dynamics in our everyday life. Until a few weeks ago eggs were more smuggled to the US than any other object or substance. The reason behind that is because the eggs that we find in the supermarket are now very expensive and unaffordable.

There is a lot to unravel when we talk about how Capitalists remain wealthy. However, from my perspective, and basing my opinion on what reading 5.1 explains. The capitalists started by reselling commodities and then became producers. The diagram of how they remain wealthy M-C-M’ explains as: Money acquires Commodities, which is re-sold by an increment on its original value. However, in this modern society, the capitalists became the producers, and used the original money that was acquired from the formula M-C-M’ to industrialize the product and buy the worker’s labor. However, by industrializing, the capitalist owns now the worker’s labor, and by using a contract now owns the surplus value of what the worker produces. The way I understand it might be all under the capitalists’ actions: The capitalists, by industrializing, acquires machinery and equipment (M) to make a product, then uses the workers labor and gives them a wage (C) which represents a fraction of the total value of the product, and by contract the capitalists own all the Surplus Value for themselves (M’).

1. The means of production are the equipment or the machinery we are given as workers to produce a product. Labor is the worker; workers are the ones who use the equipment or machinery (means of production) to produce for the capitalists. renting our labor to the capitalists. An example of the means of production can be the materials and the machinery to build a house, which we (the workers) rent our labor to the capitalists to produce a product, which is owned by the capitalist to sell and generate profit.
2. Value can be measured by how much labor is required to generate a product under normal circumstances. This means that the value can differ depending on the cost of labor, and how much time is required to produce a product.
3. Depending on how much labor, training, education and the kind of labor, the value of it changes. The more specialized and relevant the labor it, the more valuable it becomes.
4. Labor is the ability of the worker to work and produce a product. Labor power is the result of that work that comes back to you, which can be presented as your wage or compensation. However, the labor power is referred to be satisfied when all your needs are met as a worker. After that when have the Surplus Value.
5. The Surplus Value is the amount of labor that is provided to the capitalist after we have met the needed amount of compensation for us (the workers). From that point, the vast majority of what we produce is destined to favor the capitalist to make profits. It is important for the class purposes to understand the surplus value, in order to understand that regardless of the value of the labor we have, and the social class we might consider we are in, the capitalists are the ones benefiting from our labor. For example, considering we graduated, studied and got a good paying job we can satisfy what we need to survive in a few days of working. After those days of working what we produce will almost completely be for the capitalists to sell and profit. Differently, regardless of whether we earned a considerable amount of compensation, this will be a fraction of what the capitalists earn.

Those who wrote the constitution were what was called the “gentlemen”, people who were white, owned land or property and was not an immigrant. They were the ones who acknowledged their power and wealth and needed with urgency control the “Majority class”, or “Majority faction”. From what I could understand, the majority factions were the people who were able to vote, but did not hold as much power and wealth as those who wrote the constitution. However, we had the disenfranchised as well, women, slaves, native americans, immigrants, and whites who did not own property or servants. These people had no say about who was elected or who could take important decisions in the country.

I would suggest that the structure of society of the times of independence is slightly similar, and at the same time vastly different. The people who are lawmakers, and the people who hold the power are in our times, wealthy and powerful, and the proposals that both parties suggest in the country are on many occasions very similar. This does not only not give us a real option of what we can choose about what will happen in the country and how it will affect us. Only the rich and powerful make the real decisions about what will happen in the future of the country.

Similar to the previous statement I made, I believe that those who wrote the constitution knew that the people would see the disparities of wealth and the lack of opportunities they had back then. At the same time, when people are disfranchised or do not have the option of voting, the people who are more advantaged than them will take the decision and control how their lives will go. They will be able to select how much everything will be, and different ways to make sure the people who are disadvantaged keep being disadvantaged. When people do not have the possibility to choose what can be better for them, their possibility to have a better life becomes almost null.

The concept of faction directly reminds me of class, it is implied in many instances that Madisson understands that there is a conflict between classes, which he prefers to call factions.

I would say that the reason why some people possess wealth is because of the government protection and preference for wealthy people. The faculties can be a reference to the wealth that was already acquired by specific people, which allowed them to own more property. Many of the people who wrote the constitution were wealthy white and educated people. Most of them were landowners and/ or slave owners, so this part in specific was very convenient to be mentioned and accepted by those who had the privilege of voting.

Personally, I do not agree with this explanation of wealth and poverty. There is a lot to unravel in this paper, and unfortunately there has been a big preference and disgust towards the “Majority faction”

Thanks to many different articles and classes I started to develop a feeling that the system was progressively getting corrupted. However, I see thanks to this paper and the other ones, that this was the intention from the beginning, to keep the poor people poor. I cannot say it surprises me, but upsets me, in many cases the way that America is presented is as a place of opportunity, now I wonder, opportunity for who? This passage totally shows a very different core mission from the government and the country.

Madisson by the time was a person with a lot of power and advantages over the average individual. He understood that the needs of the people did not match his objectives or interests. The best way for him to remain rich and powerful was to give away the right to vote from those who did not have the same interests as him, or his colleagues. He was part of the “gentlemen”, who knew that they were outnumbered by the “majority faction”.