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The judicial system in U.S. The Federal Court System The third branch of the federal government, the judiciary, consists of a system of courts spread throughout the country, headed by the Supreme Court of the United States. Article III of the Constitution states the basis for the federal court system: “The judicial power of the U.S. shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” With this guide, the first Congress divided the nation into districts and created federal courts for each district. From that beginning has evolved the present structure: the Supreme Court, 11 courts of appeal, 91 district courts, and 3 courts of special jurisdiction. Congress today retains the power to create and obtain federal courts, as well as to determine the number of judges in the federal judiciary system. It cannot, however, abolish the Supreme Court. The judicial power extend to cases arising under the Constitution; laws and treaties of the U.S.; admiralty and marine cases; cases affecting ambassadors, ministers and consuls of foreign countries in the U.S.; controversies in with the U.S. government is a party; and controversies between states and foreign nations (or their citizens or subject) The power of the federal courts extends both to civil actions for damages and other redress, and to criminal cases arising under federal law. Ordinarily, federal courts do not hear cases arising under the laws of individual states. However, some cases over witch federal courts have jurisdiction may also be heard and decided by state courts. Both court systems thus have exclusive jurisdiction in some areas and concurrent jurisdiction in others. The Constitution safeguards judicial independence by providing that federal judges shall hold office “during good behavior” – in practice, until they day, retire or resign, although a judge who commits an office while in office may be impearled in the same way as the president or other officials of the federal government. U.S. judges are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Congress also determines the pay scale for judges. The Supreme Court The Supreme Court is the highest court of U.S., and the only one specifically created by the Constitution. A decision of the Supreme Court cannot be appealed to any other court. Congress has the power to fix the number of judges sitting on the Court and, within limits, decide what kind of cases it may hear, but it cannot change the powers given to the Supreme Court by the Constitution itself. The Constitution in silent on the qualifications for judges. There is on requirement that judges be lawyers, although, in fact, all federal judges and Supreme Court justices have been members of the bar. Since the creation of the Supreme Court almost 200 years ago, there have been slightly more that 100 justices. The original Court consisted of a chief justice and 5 associate justices. For the next 80 years, the number of justices varied until, in 1869, the complement was fixed at one chief justice and justice and eight associates. The chief justice is the executive affair of the Court but, in deciding cases, has only one vote, as do the associate justices. The Party System The existence in Britain of organized political parties which lay their own policies before the electorate has led to well-developed divisions in Parliament. These are considered to be vital to democratic government. The party system has existed in one form or another since the eighteen century and began to assume its modern shape towards the end of the nineteen century. The parties today are not registered or formally recognized in law, but in practice most candidates in elections – and almost all wining candidates – belong to one of the main parties. For the last 150 a predominantly two-party system has existed. Since 1845 either the conservative Party, or the Labour Party has held power. A new party – the Liberal Democrats – was formed in 1988 when the Liberal Party merged with the Social Democratic Party. Other parties include 2 nationalist parties: Plaid Cymru (Wales) and the Scottish Nationalist Party. In Northern Ireland there are also a number of parties; they include the Ulster Unionist Party, the Democratic Unionist Party and the Social Democratic and Labor Party. Between 1945 and 1992 eight general elections have been won by the Conservator Party and six by the Labour Party, the great majority of members of the House of Commons have belong to one of the parties. The party which wins most sits at a general election, or which has the support of a majority of members in the House of Commons, usually forms the government. The largest minority becomes the official opposition, with its own leader and “shadow cabinet”. The government is primarily responsible for arranging the business of the two Houses of Parliament. As the initiator of policy, it indicates which action it wishes Parliament to take, and explains and defends its position in public debate. Governments of the past were frequently obliged by members of their own party to withdraw measures. Today most governments can usually cont on the voting strength of their supporters in the House of Commons and can thus ensure that their legislation is passed in substantially the form that they originally proposed. This development, which is the result of the growth of party discipline, has strengthened the hand of the government, but it has also increased the importance of the opposition. The greater part of the work of exerting pressure through criticism now falls on the opposition, which is expected and given the opportunity to develop its own position and state its own views. Its aims include contributing to the formulation of policy and legislation by constructive criticism, apposing specific government proposals that it considers objectionable, and increasing its public support and therefore its chances of wining the next general elections. The party system is, beyond any doubt, an essential element in the working of the Constitution. The British constitution is, to a large extend, a product, a product of historical events related to the development of the British System of Government, and has thus evolved over many centuries. Unlike the constitutions of most other countries, it is not set out in any single document. Instead it is made up of statute law, common law and convention. Besides the Government (which together with the government departments, the local authorities and the public corporations forms the executive) and the Parliament (which is the legislature and the supreme authority), the Constitution exercises its powers through the judiciary, which determines common law and interprets statues, and is independent of both the legislature and the executive. The govern sits on one side with the opposition facing tem. The leading ministers sit in the front benches of their side, the leading spokesman of the opposition – in the front benches on the other side. The backbenchers, their supporters, sit behind them. The Constitution can be altered by Act of Parliament, or by general agreement to alter a convention. It is thus adaptable to changing political conditions. The Monarchy The Monarchy is the oldest institution of government, going back to at least the 9th century. Today the Queen is not only Britain’s head of state, but also an important symbol of national unity. The royal title in Britain is: “Elyzabeth the Second, by the brace of bad of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and North Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith”. In the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man which are Grown department, the Queen is represented by Lieutenant-Governors. Although the seat of the Monarchy is in Great Britain, the Queen is also head of State of a number of Commonwealth states. These include Australia, Barbados, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. In each such state the Queen is represented by a Governor-General, appointed by her on the completely independent of the British govern. Other member states are republics or have their own monarchies. The Queen personifies the State. In law, she is the head of the executive, an integral part of the legislative, head of the judiciary, the commander-in-chief of all the armed forces of the Crown and the “supreme governor” for the established Church of England. As result of a long process of evolution during which the monarchy’s absolute power has been progressing reduced, the Queen acts on the advice of her ministers. Britain is governed by Her Majesty’s Govern in the name of the Queen. Within this framework, and in spite of a trend during the past hundred years towards giving powers directly to ministers, the Queen still takes part in some important acts of government. These include summoning, proroguing and dissolving Parliament; and giving Royal Assent to Bills passed by Parliament. The Monarch Moose the prime-minister and other ministers, but in practice the Queen must Moose the lieder of the party which has the majority in the House of Commons. The prime-ministers Moose the ministers and presents them to the Queen as Her ministers. Yet, sometimes, the monarch really makes his own choice. For example: in 1940 George VI chose W. Churchill to succeed Nevill Chamberlain, when his personal preference was Lord Halifax, because he felt in was time the prime-minister must sit in the Commons. In modern times the monarch has been expected to be completely neutral as for as parties and personalities are concerned. The Queen Speech when opening Parliament has the political coloration of the majority party. If the Queen makes a public statement she doesn’t express her own views, but the statement is prepared by her ministers. The monarch also has the right to advise the ministers and it’s here that monarchy retains the lost of its political powers. The monarch accumulates a great constitutional experience during the lifetime due to the fact that each palace and due to the audiences he or she holds for the prime-minister and other ministers to be informed about government. The Party System in Parliament Govern business arrangements are settled, under the direction of the Prime Minister and the Leaders of the 2 Houses, by the Govern Chief Whip in consultation with the opposition Chief Whip. The Chief Whips together constitute the “usual demands” often referred to when the question of finding time for the two Houses are responsible for enabling the Houses to debate matters about which they are concerned. Outside Parliament, party control is exercised by the national and local organizations. Inside, it is exercised by the Chief Whips and their assistants, who are chosen within the party. Their duties include keeping members informed of forthcoming parliamentary business, maintaining the party’s voting strength by ensuring members attend important debates, and passing on to the party leadership the opinions of backbench members. The Whips indicate the importance their party attaches to a vote on a particular issue by underlining items of business (once, twice or 3 times) on the notice sent to Parliament. In the Commons, failure to comply with a “three-line whip” (the most important) is usually seen as rebellion against the party. Party discipline tends to be less strong in the Lords, since Lords have less hope of high office and no need of party support in elections. Traveling to the “New World” Ethnic groups in America In the two centuries after the founding of the American Republic, a population already multiethnic became fantastically more so. Territorial expansion through conquest, purchase and annexation added to the original diversity, but the primary source flowed from a massive infusion of immigrants from almost everywhere. Over 5 million immigrants have since arrived in the U.S. The total number of inhabitants at the beginning of the war of Independence was scarcely one-twentieth the size, and a century would have to pass before it reached the 50 million work. The volume of immigration to the U.S. thus for has surpassed that of all other major immigrant-receiving countries taken together. Although heavier at some times than others, the stream of newcomers has been continues and, far from putting down roots only in the East, as is sometimes supported, they dispersed throughout most of the country. Nor was immigration merely a big-city phenomenon. Immigrants and their children at the end of 19th century constituted a majority in the still heavily rural and small-town states of Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. The story was much the same in the next century. Seven decades after J. Hector de Crevecoeur called attention to the varied roots of his contemporaries [1782], the novelist Herman Melvill exclaimed: “You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.” Many immigrants later, according to government statisticians prior to the World War I, some 60 different ethnic groups lived all over the U.S. There are at present over a hundred of them. Europe is no longer the U.S.’ chief supplier of immigrants. The bad passed to Asia and Latin America in the 1960s, and by the next decade their arrivals were outnumbering those from the Old World by 4 to 1. Nation wide they still comprise a small minority in a population approaching a quarter billion, yet they also have changed the ethic mix of half-dozen and more major metropolitan centers. Although an extreme case, Los Angeles exemplifies the forces at work. Its Hispanic presence has increased threefold and it’s Asian tenfold over the last 50 years. In 1990, the city and its environs contained over 2 million Mexicans, 600000Iranians, Armenians, Arabs, and Israelis; close to a half-million Chinese, Japanese and Koreans; 250000 Salvadorans and Guatemalans; 150000 Filipinos, 60000Samoons, 40000Vietnamese, plus smaller but visible numbers of Thais, Indians, and literally scores of various other stocks. Among the Hanes of 1/5 of Los Angeles’s school children, English is second to a hundred and four different ancestral languages. A further statistical and demographical review would be tedious. It is enough to say that that wore immigrants, and wore different kinds of immigrants, have entered the U.S. than any other country in modern history. The conditions that led them to leave their native homelands varied: overpopulation, contracting economic opportunities, famine, drought, war, religions, persecution, political oppression. But, whatever the push that set them in motion, the pull that lured them to America was the same: the promise of a fresh start. A good part of the civilized world now subscribes to the proposition, first enounced by the U.S., that expatriation is a basic human right. In taking the lead the U.S. served its needs as the world’s leading receiver of immigrants, yet it also released a liberating idea for mankind – the idea that nationalities are changeable rather than irrevocable. As witch so much else in the American character, the welcome to newcomers symbolized the chance to begin a new life. At the same time, the terms for becoming a nationalized citizen did not require immigrants to give up their religions, languages, memories, customs, music, food or whatever else they cared to preserved in the folk culture. The process of acculturation, therefore, left room for different antecedents and ethnic affiliations while upholding the values of a common civic culture. Like every human contrivance, this one had its ups and downs. Yet even the downs were a reminder that the national identity, as articulated by the founders of the Republic, rested on the faith that unity and diversity were supposed to be not only mutually compatible but supportive of liberty. The Giant Enterprise in U.S.A. In the dozen years from 1895 to 1907 in the U.S. accused what is called a “corporate revolution”. During that time a major organizational upheaval took place in the national economy. Mergers increased to such levels that on average of 266 firms disappeared each year into the corporate shells of other companies. Soon single firms controlled, or at least dominated, significant shares of the market for major products. As late as 1955, of the 100 largest corporations in the nation, 20 had emerged during that era. Clearly, the giant enterprise became the central economic institution in American capitalism. Initially, the “corporate revolution” created firms with almost monopolistic powers in many markets. These were formed through mergers that aimed at horizontal integration by controlling all or most of the firms in a particular market and thereby establishing prices and production levels. The merger era sprang form the successes of some of the earlier trusts, with Standard Oil often as model. The passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890 called the trusts into legal question, leading to the seeking of a more acceptable corporate structure. The response by the Progressives, as seen in Roosevelt’s “trust busting”, led to Supreme Court rulings against Standard Oil, American Tobacco, and others, and to the Clayton Anti-Trust Act and the establishing of the Federal Trade Commission. As the court dissolved the monopolies or near monopolies, the result was the creation of oligopolies in many industries. The oligopolies consisted of a few firms of enormous size controlling a large part of particular market. By 1960 mergers created oligopolies in petroleum, automobiles, steel, cement, glass, and many basic industries. In the foods industry, for example hundreds of small producers were swallowed up by Borden, General Foods, General Mills, National Diary, and the large bachery chains. The most significant changes among the major firms of the nation after 1860ame with the rise of the conglomerates. These merger-oriented giants acquired firms that had no direct relation to any other division of the parent. The conglomerates faced little or no opposition from the FTC or the Anti-Trust Division of the Attorney General’s Office, at least initially, as they seemed to have little effect on competition. Many of the conglomerates had large military procurement divisions, with “seasonal” operations that needed to be balanced in “peace time”. Also, the executives in the burgeoning conglomerates believed that moribund corporations could be “turned around” by strong, efficient leadership and made for more profitable. Some firms, such as American Home Products, were essentially conglomerates in the 1940s, but most would emerge two decades later. Their leaders shared the view of Tex Thornton, head of Litton Industries, who when asked what business he was in responded: “We are in the business of opportunity”. The conglomerates often Built an old firms, such as Textron, a major textile producer, but they would then grow far beyond that base. While some conglomerates acquired other firms to solve specific problems, such as fluctuation in demand, others sought diversification to reduce dependence on declining markets. For example, as Textron grow, it liquidated its textile holdings, retaining only its name as a reminder of its origins. Other old businesses became conglomerates and then abandoned their original markets.(Studebaker let automobiles and merged with Worthington Corporation, W.R. Grace entered the chemical business and sold its airline operations; Glenn Alden moved from anthracite coal to producing clothing, toys, and leather-goods). Stock transfers produced giants such as Tumeco, Transamerica Corporation, and Ling-Temco-Vanght out of a wide range of smaller, dissimilar corporations. The conglomerate movement peaked in the late 1960s only to come back again in the early 1980s as the national economy went through a series of a massive changes. The mergers of the late 1970s and early 1980s differed, of course, from those of the conglomerate-oriented1960s. the peak year of mergers, 1969, saw 6,107 corporate “weddings” as some companies seemed willing to buy anything. The more recent era has been a slower rate and greater concern for acquiring firms with similar products or services. While some firms such International Telephone and Telegraph could sell consumers Wonder Brand, rent a room in Sheraton Hotels, or insure families with Hartford Insurance Group, other conglomerates attempted to put together more compatible businesses. Food acquired Burger Chief, and toy maker Mattel purchased the Ringling Brothers, Barnum&Bailey Circus. By the end of the 1980s many of the conglomerates found themselves over extended: they had acquired indiscriminately and without purpose. As a result corporate debt in America rose to over 1,4 trillion by 1985.no wonder individual investors retreated from the security markets to the safety of federal bonds or insured accounts as banks. American business and World War I The crisis of 1917 brought the U.S. its first experience at total economic mobilization. The rapid deployment of material and troops to France required that a major share of the nation’s industrial productions was diverted to the war effect. The Wilson administration turned to business leaders to organize procurement of supplies for the war machine. The Council for National Defense, created in 1916, determined that private companies should supply munitions rather than expand federal munitions facilities, thus turning to the private sector from the outset. Leading the way in the mobilization effort, the council tapped hundreds of industrial leaders to serve on the advisory committees. Experts from industry served as “dollar-a-year” men, providing the government with advice without requiring the individuals to make undue financial sacrifices. Nevertheless, the army’s general staff resented the involvement, or “interference” by civilians in their procurement procedures. The result was economic havoc as the army spent over 14 billion in 3 years through its inefficient supply system. Despite the efforts of the NDC, the implementation of an orderly mobilization plan failed. The war industries Board (WJB), created in July 1917, was an attempt to centralize all economic planning in one body. But not until spring 1918 did President Wilson obtain sufficient authority from Congress to conduct the war effort some degree of order. The Great War was forcing a vast expansion of state involvement in economy, and a civilian administrative army filled Washington as never before. New federal agencies, including the Committee on Public Information, the Food and Fuel Administration, and the WIB, conducted the war effort. The WIB, contain some of the leading figures of several industries became in the spring of 1918 the most powerful of these agencies. The leaders of the WIB and its subordinate bodies labored to organize each industry to maximize production; they coordinated Businesses and forced former competitors to cooperate. Ironically, the Wilson administration, which entered office with a strong anti-trust program, simply ignored that aspect of progressivism by ending competition in an effort to defeat the Kaiser. The result was far greater federal involvement in national economic planning than had ever secured before, and enhancement of the trend towards larger organizations in the total society. The links between the military and big business welded by the experiences of 1916-1918 continued after the Armistice. The Great Depression The Great Depression was one of the largest and most severe economic events in American history. The stock market rash of 1929 sparked the beginning of the Depression, which proceeded to last until the U.S. entered the World War II. The monstrous impact of the Great Depression was apparent and observable everywhere. Not only was the U.S. impacted, the effects of this economic slump spread to all of the industrialized world. The changes people faced persisted inside the family household, in the workforce, an even in fashion. Lifestyles were altered, not only for adults, but also for the children who grew up during the havoc of this economic depression. There are many debates over what caused the Great Depression. While there is not a clear-cut answer to this question, several theories exist. It is thought that the cause was a decline in the money stock from 1929-1939, which was broadened with the occurrence of bank failures beginning in 1930. This, in turn, decreased the money supply. Herbert Hoover’s reasoning for the Great Depression pins World War I as the underlying cause. Many believe that the effects of insufficient income distribution, which led to under-consumption and over-saving, brought about the Depression. One nation under God Americans in general believe that there is a moral crisis in society. They fear that the family is in danger of losing its spiritual foundation when children grow up without faith in God, and without belief in the immortality of the soul. Today, one million Americans are in jail. America has higher rates of violence, drug addiction, and crime than other western industrialized nations. Yet 80 million Americans attend worship services on any given week-end. The vast majority of Americans consider themselves to be religions and are not afraid to admit it. For most, religion means a personal affirmation of faith in God and an identification with a religions denomination, but it does not necessarily mean joining or being an active member of that particular group. It is more of a private commitment to a shared experience. For example, many more Americans claim to be Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist or Presbyterian than the current membership figures of any of those churches reveal. An overwhelming number of Americans (86,2%) consider themselves to be Christians. Roman Catholics are the largest Christian group, with 26,2% followed by the Baptists, with 19,4%. Jews represent 2% of the population. Muslims represent 0,5%, only slightly more than Buddhists and Hindus. Those who say they have no religion number about 7,5% nationally, with the western sates registering the largest percentages in the category. A mere 2,3%, a remarkably low percentage, refused to answer, demonstrating that Americans are not at all reluctant to express their religions preference. Over a decade ago, the Gallup Organization compared the religions beliefs of Americans to those of people living in other western nations, many of which had cither state-established churches or church-sponsored or religiously based political parties. The U.S., with its separation of church and state, has in religions surveys conducted over many years consistently scored higher as to belief than any other democratic nations. Furthermore, the Gallup results indicated that religions beliefs are lower in advanced industrial democratic nations, except in the U.S., which went against the overall trend. It must be said however that, while America may be among the most religiously diverse nations, one can observe a process of Americanization at work and all its religions. Catholics, Jews and other groups in America face the possibility of assimilation into a Protestantized American consensus. The American democratic society breeds the nation that if creeds can coexist, them they must be fundamentally similar. Daniel J. Boorstin finds that “religions are unimportant in American life; but religion is of enormous importance. To conform in the U.S. it is important to be a member of a church … which particular church is far less important …”. The U.S. has always been a haven for members of religions minorities persecuted elsewhere in the world. The anomaly is that once these people arrive and acculturate to this society’s majority values, their descendants frequently abandon their particular commitments and effectively become part of the majority Protestant culture. Thus, an important to the growth of minority religions in the U.S. is slow assimilation within America’s popular institutional framework. Interestingly, while other religions have become to some degree Protestantized, many if not most of the Protestant denominations have been Americanized: re-created in an American world. The result is a growing evangelical Protestant population now estimated to be one fourth of the U.S. population, within a secular society that stressed a miffing civil religion. This leads to another issue, which is the power of the American civil religion, with its own holidays, such as Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, and Independence Day, in which the secular and the sacred became intertwined. In fact, a corollary problem of contemporary American society is that despite his or her more frequent church attendance, the thoughts and values of the average church goes are less often derived from religions sources than from secular ones. Despite this, a bewildering supermarket of religions options competes for people’s time, money, and loyalties. More than a generation ago, the writer Will Herberg described how the numerous immigrants to those shares eventually became part of a tripartite Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish melting pot that defined their Americanism and shaped their future. Today, immigrants are more diverse and so are their religions, with all of them, old and new, still operating within the framework of a secular society that preaches a civil religion. The more established religions have changed in the process of flourishing in an open and free marketplace of faiths and cultures. This has led to a widespread identification with religion on the part of individuals and a recognition of religion’s unifying impact on American society. This phenomenon has roots in the First Amendment to the Constitution, which promotes the separation of church and state while demanding the free exercise of religion. Religion counts in American society. It is linked to the voluntarism and individualism that was recognized by Alexis de Tocqueville over 150 years ago. This has led to an American exceptionalism. Religion in American society plays a number of roles, from organizing social authority to providing a sense of community and group solidarity. One cannot truly understand America without appreciating the various and diverse roles in which religion influences and shapes Americans’ shared lives. [“One nation under God” Barry A. Kosmin & Seyniour P. Lachman] 쥁`