AAL

loud, self-confident/cocky, competitive/the best, diversity, individuality and individual free-dom, creativity, laid back/relaxed, friendly, open, “the future will be better than the past”, op-timistic, not traditional, conflict is alright (adversarial system), violence is a necessary evil sometimes.

When two equally strong/powerful forces fight it out, the truth, or the “correct answer” will emerge. (Query: what happens when the two sides are not equally matched?)

323 million people, 50 states plus Puerto Rico, Guam, D.C. That’s 38 times more people than CH, 4 times more people than Germany.

Really 11 different cultural/geographical regions:
12 percent African-American/Black
16 percent Latino
1 percent Native American
5 percent Asian
percent biracial
13 percent foreign born (might or might not be citizens)

By 2050, US will be “majority minority”, meaning “people of color” will be in the majority. People of color are people whose ancestors are not of European descent.
US is very religious, compared with Europe:
69 percent Americans believe in God
45 percent Protestant, 20 percent Catholic
7 percent Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or other

1607 Jamestown settlement
1620 First slaves
1776 Declaration of Independence
1787 Constitution
1791 Bill of Rights
1808 Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
1839 Trail of tears
1849 Gold Rush, Chinese Migration
1861-64 Civil War
o 620,000 men died, in comparison to 644,000 in all other U.S. wars combined
1863 Emancipation Proclamation
1865 Reconstruction
1868 14th Amendment
1899 Annexation of Guam, Philippines
1914 World War I
1920 19th Amendment
1929 Stock Market Crash, Great Depression
1941 Pearl Harbor, US enters WWII
1945 Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
1950 Korean War, Cold War
1954 Brown v. Board of Education
1955-1973 Vietnam War
1960 Civil Rights Act (1950-1960 Civil Rights Movement)
1972 Watergate
1991 Gulf war
2001 September 11th
2009-2017 Obama
2017 Trump

We are all refugees and immigrants.
2. We fled religious persecution and extreme poverty in Europe.
3. Religious freedom is really important to us. We are in many ways a religious people.
4. We revere the Constitution. We treat it almost as if it were sacred.
Summary Notes Lectures MT
17. November 2018 Page | 7
5. The Constitution is what unites us. We are not a nation based on blood lines or tribes. We are people from all over the world, united by the constitution.
6. Role of violence in U.S. history – sometimes violence is a necessary evil.
7. Legacy of racism – remember that more of U.S. history has involved slavery (250 years) than has not (155 years). Slavery existed at the time of the Declaration of In-dependence (“all men are created equal”) and at the time of the Constitution. Slavery is considered the “original sin”.
8. History of independence, local control and isolationism.
9. We are the “new world”/the future, in contrast to “the Old World.”
10. “Best nation on Earth.” “God bless America.” “Promised Land”
11. “Pull yourself up by your bookstraps” – any individual can rise from poverty to wealth in the “land of opportunity.”
12. Deep skepticism/fear of “socialism”; economic “freedom” and individual freedom from government “interference” is revered. Communitarian values (everyone has a place in society) as in Europe relatively not valued.
13. New is good! Innovation is good!

The Constitution sets forth the structure of the government, among other things.
Per the Constitution, there are three co-equal branches: the Legislative Branch (Article I of the Constitution), the Executive Branch (Article II), and the Judicial Branch (Article III).

The legislative branch consists of the Congress. The Congress has two chambers.