http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2927t.html

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”

What I think Douglass meant by this statement is that behind the celebration of a national holiday lays a dark past fill with injustice, cruelty, beating, and disappointment. He states that those holidays promoted liberty and equality when in realty it was the opposite. It was a mockery and a deception to all those people that suffered injustice and cruelty. Those holidays were just a cover up to hide the real meaning of the United States. He states that there isn’t a nation that is more disgrace and have more blood on their hands that the United States. It’s crazy to think that a nation that suppose to be the most successful, most free, and the nation with the most opportunities; have such dark and disgraceful past. This passage relates to our theme of lecture because it falls under civil disobedience. “The idea of civil disobedience is peculiar to democratic societies. It means breaking the law and thus challenging the authorities, but usually in a non-violent fashion.” They refuse to celebrate a nations holiday because they believe it was fraud and a mockery to them. They did not agree with the nation and it’s celebrations. 

I picked Douglass and this particular passage because I have read a couple of passages from Douglass in my other Political Science class and I find him to be very interesting. I like his work because it takes me back to slavery days and I get a good view of how cruelty it was. I also picked this passage because I have always taught that the fourth of July was a great holiday to show our love and respect for our nation. I never imagine that other people would see it as a negative holiday. I put myself in Douglass shoes, and I see why he would feel that way. I would had felt the same way. I don’t bash our nation because I feel like we have a 50/50 nation. Meaning I believe this is a great and one of the best nation there is but there is so much to this nation that we do not know of.

The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States

By: Jack L. Walker

“Given the results of this correlational analysis, we might conclude that New York, California and Michigan adopt new programs more rapidly than Mississippi, Wyoming and South Dakota primarily because they are bigger, richer, more urban, more industrial, have more fluidity and turnover in their political systems, and have legislatures which more adequately represents their cities.” 

This passage is explaining how these cities like New York, California and Michigan adapt to more of a variable programs and laws because of the size and population of the people in those cities. There is more money invested in these cities and that attracts more people from all over the world to go there. Since these cities have so many different types of people with different beliefs living there, they are more open to change than in other places like Wyoming and South Dakota. In the Political systems we see different types of senators running for offices and that gives these larger cities an opportunity to always have someone and something different in the office. Smaller cities usually pick the same format of people to run for office. That is a disadvantage for them because they would not consider change, even if it’s for the better.

I picked this passage because I find it very interesting that New York since it is a bigger, richer, more urban and more industrial city, it don’t always consider change like California. California has legalized Gay marriage and marijuana like most other sates but New York has only legalized Gay marriage by state legislature. Another interesting factor is that Michigan in 2012 has legalized Marijuana but not Gay marriage. It seems like these big cities that are subject to change only change to a certain degree. 

By: Akhil Reed Amar

"But those American citizens who happen to have been born abroad to non-American parents — and who later choose to become “naturalized” American citizens — are not the full legal equals of those of us born in the U.S. True, naturalized Americans have always been allowed to serve as cabinet secretaries, Supreme Court justices, senators and governors. And at the founding, anyone already a citizen could be president, regardless of birthplace. (Alexander Hamilton, for example, though born in the West Indies, was fully eligible to serve as president under the Constitution he himself helped draft.) But modern-day naturalized citizens are barred from the presidency simply because they were born in the wrong place to the wrong parents."

What Akhil Reed Amar was trying to say was that US citizens that were not born in the United States were not the same or equal as US citizens born here. They have more value when it comes to certain situation because of the fact that they were actually born inside the country. It speaks about the fact that US citizens born outside the US can not become President of the United States. He blames being born in the wrong place to the wrong parents the reason why you can't become president, because those parents did not have the opportunity to live in the United States before giving birth. 

I chose this passage because I am a US citizen that was not born inside of the United States. I was born in the Dominican Republic and came to this country at the age of four. I became a US citizen a couple of years ago and I had to defend my citizenship against a "friend" that was born here. He didn't consider me a full citizen because I paid for my citizenship. The way I see it he wasn't a "real" citizen to begin with because he didn't know this country history. Yes I paid to become a citizen but I had to study this country history and I've been living in this country for 24 years. This country is ALL I know and I am proud to say I am an American Citizen. I do not agree with the law that you can't become a president if you was not born here because that shouldn't been the main focus. There is more to being a citizen than just the country you was born in.