Basic Concepts of
Democracy
Chapter 1 Section 3
Pages 18-23
Worth of the Individual
Balance between
individual freedom
and needs of all the
people in society
 Declaration of
Independence
 Universal
Declaration of
Human Rights

Equality of All Persons
Equality of
opportunity and
equality under the law
 What is “equality
of opportunity?”
 Why does the text
dismiss the idea of
“material equality”
so quickly?
 Do ”worldly goods”
sometimes help
“opportunity?”

Majority Rule, Minority Rights
Majority rule
restrained by minority
rights
 EX: public
breastfeeding/civil
unions are “minority
rights.”
 Why do democracies
protect the rights of
the minority?

How are minority rights protected
in a “majority rules” system?
 CIVIL
RIGHTS AND THE VOTING RIGHTS
ACT OF 1965 AS A CASE STUDY
How are minority rights
protected in “majority rule”
system?
1) Public Pressure/Civil
Disobedience
Branches of government:
Legislative Branch (Congress)
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Executive (President)
Lyndon Johnson with MLK, after
Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of
1965
Why was the Voting Rights Act of
1965 necessary?
Southern post- Reconstruction (> 1877)
governments devised loopholes to keep
African-Americans from voting:

•
•
Literacy tests /constitutional tests
Poll taxes
It all began with Freedom Summer
1964

Northern white liberals joined southern
blacks to register black voters.
It was difficult and dangerous and
people lost their lives to register black
voters
Schwerner
 Chaney
 Goodman

Edgar Ray Killen: convicted years
later
An example of the failure to protect
minority rights
1943: Internment camp Heart
Mountain, WY
Necessity of Compromise
Our representatives
must compromise to
get legislation passed
EX: Civil Rights Act of
1964 /Voting Rights
Act of 1965


Describe a recent
failure at compromise
in Congress
President Johnson “working
the phones”
Individual Freedom
 Not
absolute but
balanced with
rights of the
majority
Tinker v Des
Moines (1969)
 EX:
Economic Freedom:
The Free Enterprise System
Private ownership
of land and
business
 Success or failure
determined by
competition in the
marketplace
 In reality, heavily
regulated by the
government and
much of the market is
controlled by big
business
