Goal for the day: To consider the connection between the First Amendment and foreign policy
We began today talking about the referendum on Scottish independence and how the questions at play are the same ones that we’ve discussed with regard to our own constitution. It looks like the referendum did not pass and so Scotland will not become its own country. But 80-90% of eligible voters participating in the election? That’s amazing and real victory for democracy.
We then broke down into two groups and had a very good second seminar on the Patriot Act and First Amendment protections, which again raised questions about what should be constitutionally protected free speech and what should be restricted in the interests of national security.
A short mini-lecture on how the Supreme Court has decided these issues followed the break. The current standard for speech that crosses the line is words that are likely to cause “imminent lawless action.” You can also promote terrorist organizations as long as you are acting independently and not doing it under their direction.
Everyone journalled about their views on the balance between national security and civil liberties. These journal entries will form the basis for your analysis paper as part of the first amendment project.
The answers to so many of these questions depend on what counts as a “terrorist organization.” What do you think?
We then moved consider a scenario describing how countries and their allies should respond to organizations that use violence to achieve political ends. We discussed the similarities between the current response to ISIS and the response of the South African government to the African National Congress in the 1970s and 1980s when the ANC was considered a terrorist group by the apartheid South African government, which assassinated its leaders and bombed their bases in foreign countries.
I passed out this diagram of the situation with ISIS in Iraq—how we got to where we are today and what could happen in the future. I asked everyone to submit a question about the situation. Based on this each person was assigned an article to read about the ISIS situation. Everyone has to provide a short summary of the article in the Humanities 12 – ISIS Seminar Prep document for their article.
Assignment for Friday, September 18th
Read your assigned ISIS article and add a point to the Google Doc for seminar prep. We will go over this tomorrow before seminar.
We began today talking about the referendum on Scottish independence and how the questions at play are the same ones that we’ve discussed with regard to our own constitution. It looks like the referendum did not pass and so Scotland will not become its own country. But 80-90% of eligible voters participating in the election? That’s amazing and real victory for democracy.
We then broke down into two groups and had a very good second seminar on the Patriot Act and First Amendment protections, which again raised questions about what should be constitutionally protected free speech and what should be restricted in the interests of national security.
A short mini-lecture on how the Supreme Court has decided these issues followed the break. The current standard for speech that crosses the line is words that are likely to cause “imminent lawless action.” You can also promote terrorist organizations as long as you are acting independently and not doing it under their direction.
Everyone journalled about their views on the balance between national security and civil liberties. These journal entries will form the basis for your analysis paper as part of the first amendment project.
The answers to so many of these questions depend on what counts as a “terrorist organization.” What do you think?
We then moved consider a scenario describing how countries and their allies should respond to organizations that use violence to achieve political ends. We discussed the similarities between the current response to ISIS and the response of the South African government to the African National Congress in the 1970s and 1980s when the ANC was considered a terrorist group by the apartheid South African government, which assassinated its leaders and bombed their bases in foreign countries.
I passed out this diagram of the situation with ISIS in Iraq—how we got to where we are today and what could happen in the future. I asked everyone to submit a question about the situation. Based on this each person was assigned an article to read about the ISIS situation. Everyone has to provide a short summary of the article in the Humanities 12 – ISIS Seminar Prep document for their article.
Assignment for Friday, September 18th
Read your assigned ISIS article and add a point to the Google Doc for seminar prep. We will go over this tomorrow before seminar.