POWER

WHAT IS IT?

WHO HAS IT?

WHO LACKS IT?

WHO ABUSES IT?

WHO SHARES IT?

WHO NEEDS IT?

“Personal Power Assessment”

1. Make a list of all the individuals, institutions, and circumstances that have power over you. For each item, write a brief description of how it has power over you.

2. Now make a list of all of the individuals, institutions, and circumstances in which you have power. For each one, briefly describe how you have power.

3. Create a simple illustration that represents you and how you feel about power in your life.

4. Below your illustration, summarize in two or three sentences how you feel about power in your life.

“Why has Government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of Reason and Justice, without constraint.”

~ Alexander Hamilton, 1787

“Without Government there would be continual fear and danger of violent death and life would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

~ The LeviathanThomas Hobbes, 1660

“Why has Government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of Reason and Justice, without constraint.”

- A. Hamilton, 1787

THE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENTMagruder’s American Government; pp 8 – 10

What does government do?

A meaningful answer to that question can be found in the Constitution of the United States.

The American system of government was created to serve the purposes set out there.

“We the People of the United States, • in Order to form a more perfect Union,• establish Justice,• insure domestic Tranquility,• provide for the common defense,• promote the general Welfare,• and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our

Posterity,do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.”

~ Preamble to the U.S. Constitution