RE-read your quiz and my comments. Write (type) new responses (or additional paragraphs). Turn in the original quiz and your re-worked responses to me by Wednesday for a 10 pt quiz grade to average in with your other quizzes.
I. 20 pts. Choose one of the following pairs. Describe (define) each type of government and compare and contrast them. Be sure to explain what it would be like to live in those governments if you had power and if you did not have power. Which would you rather live in?
a. Anarchy and Democracy
b. Autocracy and Democracy
c. Oligarchy and Anarchy
II. 20 pts Discuss Aristotle’s ideas about government from our reading. Do you agree with his ideas? Why or why not? Be sure to use specific terms from the reading in your response and explain them clearly!
III. 9 pts Read each of the following descriptions and determine which type of government is at work. Write the name of that government next to the appropriate number on your paper.
1. Your family all sits down together to discuss possible vacation spots. After talking about why/why not different places would be fun, you take a vote. Your parents begin making plans for a vacation to the place that gets the most votes.
2. You have a group of friends who like to hang out together. One girl, Melanie, will only spend the day with all of you if she gets to decide what you do.
3. Your little cousin Zach is in the living room with a bunch of other 4 year olds. He is playing with a little truck and a teddy bear, who is riding on the truck. His buddy, Fred, suddenly decides he needs the truck, so he just goes and grabs it from Zach. So, Zach hits him with the teddy bear.
IV. 10 pts Choose one of the following phrases from Aristotle and explain what it means. Give examples and connect those examples to your explanation.
a. “Where the laws are not sovereign, there is no constitution.”
b. “The best way of life is one which consists in the mean.”
c. “The good in the sphere of politics is justice; and justice consists in what tends to promote the common interest.”
d. “Each of them by himself may not be of a good quality; but when they all come together it is possible that they may surpass … the quality of the few best.”
Friday, October 12, 2007
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
John Locke
Paraphrase the following primary source documentation from the text (that is, translate it into your own words so that you can understand it). Break it down into phrases and look up any words you don't know!
From English philosopher John Locke's (1632–1704) Two Treatises of Government:
“But though men, when they enter into society give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of Nature into the hands of society . . . the power of the society or legislative constituted by them can never be supposed to extend farther than the common good. . . . Whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated1 and known to the people, and not by extemporary2 decrees, by indifferent and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by those laws; and to employ the force of the community at home only in the execution of such laws, or abroad to prevent or redress foreign injuries and secure the community from inroads3 and invasion. And all this to be directed to no other end but the peace, safety, and public good of the people. . . .
The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property; and the end while they choose and authorize a legislative is that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the society, . . .
Whensoever, therefore, the legislative [power] shall transgress4 this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly, or corruption, endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people, by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves5 to the people; who have a right to resume their original liberty, and by the establishment of a new legislative (such as they shall think fit), provide for their own safety and security. . . .”
“But though men, when they enter into society give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of Nature into the hands of society . . . the power of the society or legislative constituted by them can never be supposed to extend farther than the common good. . . . Whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated1 and known to the people, and not by extemporary2 decrees, by indifferent and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by those laws; and to employ the force of the community at home only in the execution of such laws, or abroad to prevent or redress foreign injuries and secure the community from inroads3 and invasion. And all this to be directed to no other end but the peace, safety, and public good of the people. . . .
The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property; and the end while they choose and authorize a legislative is that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the society, . . .
Whensoever, therefore, the legislative [power] shall transgress4 this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly, or corruption, endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people, by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves5 to the people; who have a right to resume their original liberty, and by the establishment of a new legislative (such as they shall think fit), provide for their own safety and security. . . .”
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