Problem
The American novelist James Baldwin wrote, "Words like freedom, justice, democracy are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply."
• What do these words mean to you? Which one of them do you believe is the most important part of America's political culture and why?
• How free, just and democratic do you think the United States is compared to other countries? What scholarly evidence can you provide to support your assertion?