Reference no: EM133660021
Answer the following questions:
1. Americans often refer to each other as either liberal or conservative. Why is this distinction inadequate to address the ideological perspectives in America? How can the original and modern dilemmas of government expand our understanding of ideological categorizations?
2. "The United States is really an elitist system, and democracy just a sham." Present the major arguments for and against this proposition, then draw your own conclusions.
3. Compare the Virginia and New Jersey plans presented at the Constitutional Convention. How do these plans reflect the political divisions of that period? How would our nation have been different if either plan had been adopted unchanged?
4. How did the Constitutional Convention handle the issue of slavery? What were the reasons for the compromises reached on this question? Was this outcome consistent with the underlying values of the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence?
5. Examine the federally mandated drinking age of 21 as a case study in federalism. Discuss the methods the federal government can use to obtain compliance with this type of law and evaluate the implications of these methods for federalism.
6. Assess polling as a method for measuring public opinion and how it can produce skewed, bimodal, and normal distributions of opinion.