Howard Fineman--The Thirteen American Arguments

(This was recorded right before the two major party conventions at the end of the duel between Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama to see who would face the presumptive nominee of the Republicans John McCain. Fineman makes an important case for the power/purpose of political argument in a healthy democracy. American citizens need to beinformed about the important local, national and global issues of their time. They need to be willing to formulate their perspectives and to put them into play with other perspectives. As it is now we have an increasingly passive citizenry that is too willing to abdicate their role in our democracy as informed citizens who care about the world. As Benjamin Barber once asked which will you be: a global citizen or a global consumer?)


Howard Fineman: The Thirteen American Arguments
We the People Stories (National Constitution Center)



Howard Fineman, the highly respected political journalist, joins the National Constitution Center to discuss his absorbing new work of American history, journalism, and analysis "The Thirteen American Arguments." Fineman writes that every debate we have had in the political arena, from our founding to today, has evolved from one of these arguments. Though the conventional wisdom is that Americans argue too much, Fineman believes that just the opposite is true. Fineman finds many of these basic arguments are tied to the U.S. Constitution, from the Preamble being written in the name of “We the People,” to who determines what the law is.

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