1,722,225 research outputs found
A More Perfect Union
No full text"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union." Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787. The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations
U.S. President Barack Obama marks Equal Pay Day at the White House by signing an executive order seeking to strengthen enforcement of equal pay laws for women
No full textPresident Barack Obama marks Equal Pay Day at the White House by signing an executive order seeking to strengthen enforcement of equal pay laws for women. He tells the audience that America succeeds when women succeed and that "pay in secrecy fosters discrimination." Obama is introduced by pay equity advocate and author Lilly Ledbetter
Experiment on the Demand for Encompassment
Full text linkThe idea of political community is appealing on a gut-level. Hayek suggested that certain genes and instincts still dispose us toward the ethos and mentality of the hunter-gatherer band, and that modern forms of political collectivism have, in part, been atavistic reassertions of such tendencies. Picking up on Hayek, Klein (2005) has suggested a combination of yearnings: 1) a yearning for coordinated sentiment (like Smithian sympathy); and 2) a yearning that the sentiment encompass the whole group. This paper reports on an experiment designed to explore the demand for encompassment by having subjects sing together. In each trial, one person in the room was designated not to sing unless every one of the others in the room had made a payment sufficient so as to have that person sing. Subjects chose to sacrifice money to achieve encompassment 47.4 percent of the time, with 59.6 percent of the subjects doing so in at least one trial. An exit questionnaire showed that subjects’ chief reason for making such a sacrifice was a belief that the singing would be more enjoyable if it encompassed the whole group, and reported enjoyment is significantly higher with encompassment. We discuss the experiment as a parable for a penchant toward political collectivism.Encompassment; political psychology; Hayek; the people’s romance
U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama talks about the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act
No full textU.S. President Barack Obama announces an agreement has been reached to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling
No full textU.S. President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron hold a joint press conference in the Rose Garden
No full textU.S. President Barack Obama talks about the global economic crisis, calls for international cooperation to restore the economy, and answers questions from reporters at a news conference following the G-20 Summit in London
No full textU.S. President Barack Obama talks about new plans for the struggling automobile industry specifically GM and Chrysler
No full textU.S. President Barack Obama talks about U.S. military strategy in the 21st century and defense budget
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