DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA (YEAR ONE)
1. Citizenship: Making Government Work
This program introduces basic concepts of government, politics, and citizenship. It explores the tension between maintaining order and preserving freedoms, the essential role of politics in addressing the will of the people, and the need for citizens to participate in order to make democracy work.
2. The Constitution: Fixed or Flexible?
This program examines the search for balance between the original Constitution and the need to interpret and adjust it to meet the needs of changing times. It explains the original Jeffersonian-Madisonian debate, the concept of checks and balances, and the stringent procedures for amending the Constitution.
3. Federalism: U.S. v. the States
This program explores federalism as a Constitutional compromise, especially in terms of present-day conflicts between people who believe that power should reside primarily in the national government and those who want government authority retained within the states.
4. Civil Liberties: Safeguarding the Individual
This program examines the First, Fourth, and Sixth Constitutional Amendments to show how the Bill of Rights protects individual citizens from excessive or arbitrary government interference, yet, contrary to the belief of many Americans, does not grant unlimited rights.
