TEXT 23: PARTIES AND PARTY SYSTEMS
People rule in a democracy, but the voice and will of the individual citizen can easily be lost in a nation as large and diverse as the United States. One way that citizens ensure that government knows their views is for them to organize into groups that wield political power. One example of such a group is the political party.
A political party is a group of people with broad common interests who organize to win elections, control government, and thereby influence government policies. Although most nations have one or more political parties, the role that parties play differs with each nation's political system.
In nations that allow more than one political party, the most common political system today is the multiparty system. France, for example, has 5 major parties, and Italy has 10. In such countries voters have a wide range of choices on Election Day. The parties in a multiparty system often represent widely differing ideologies, or basic beliefs about government.
In a multiparty system, one party rarely gets enough support to control the government. Several parties often combine forces to obtain a majority and form a coalition government. As might be expected when groups with different ideologies attempt to share power, coalitions often break down when disputes arise, requiring new elections. Thus many nations with multiparty systems are politically unstable.
Only about a dozen nations have systems where only two parties compete for power. Although minor parties may exist in these democracies, two major parties dominate government. In the United States, they are the Republican party and the Democratic party. They had arisen by the end of President Washington's second term. They were called the Federalists and the Republicans at that time.
TEXT 24: RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF AMERICAN CITIZENS
Basic rights are important in American society. The belief in human rights or fundamental freedoms, lies at the heart of United States citizenship and enables people to worship as they wish, speak freely, and read and write what they choose.
The Constitution guarantees the rights of United States citizens. Along with the enjoyment of these rights, however, comes a responsibility to ensure their strength and endurance. The people wrote the Constitution, and in many ways United States citizens remain the keepers of their own rights. Rights and responsibilities cannot be separated. As citizens, people share a common fate in the power, they have to steer the course of government. As is often said, Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. If people do not carry out their responsibilities as citizens, the whole society suffers.
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The Constitution of the United States guarantees basic rights in the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments, and in several additional amendments. The Framers of the Constitution believed that people had rights simply because they were people. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights inscribe into law those rights that really belong to everybody. The Bill of Rights, in particular, stands as a written guarantee that government cannot abuse the rights of individual citizens.
Today the Bill of Rights offers individuals protection not only from congressional actions, but also from acts by state and local governments that may threaten people's basic rights.
The Constitution drafted in Philadelphia in 1787 did not include the Bill of Rights. Because most of the state constitutions of the time contained bills of rights, the Framers believed it unnecessary to include another such list of rights in the national Constitution.
TEXT 25: PROTECTING THE RIGHTS OF THE ACCUSED
Dealing with crime and criminals poses a serious challenge to democratic political systems. On the one hand, society must protect itself against criminals. At the same time, individual rights must be preserved. Justice in a democracy means protecting the innocent from government police power as well as punishing the guilty.
To deal with this challenge, the Founders of the US Constitution provided for a system of justice designed to guard the rights of the accused as well as the rights of society. Laws were to be strictly interpreted, trial procedures fair and impartial, and punishments reasonable. Later, the Fourteenth Amendment further protected the rights of the accused.
The police need evidence to accuse people of committing crimes, but getting evidence often requires searching people or their homes, cars, or offices. To protect the innocent, the Fourth Amendment guarantees the right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, and papers, against unreasonable searches and seizures. What constitutes unreasonable searches and seizures? No precise definition has been made, so the courts have dealt with Fourth Amendment issues on a case-by-case basis.
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Today the police must state under oath that they have probable cause to suspect someone of committing a crime. Then they must obtain a warrant from a court official before searching for evidence or making an arrest. The warrant must describe the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized.
Before 1980, 23 states had search laws that permitted police to enter a home without a warrant if they had probable cause to believe that the occupant had committed a felony, or major crime, but in 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that, except in a life-threatening emergency, the Fourth Amendment forbids searching a home without a warrant.
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