Summary: Who should lead the world's only superpower? When is it acceptable to topple another country's leader? Are personal freedom and national security mutually incompatible? The answers to urgent political questions such as these are informed by 23 centuries of discourse that started with The Republic. This program focuses successively on the pivotal ideas of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: The Supreme Court's landmark decision that it is unconstitutional to execute people who are mentally retarded reverses decades of jurisprudence. In this program, ABC News correspondent John Donvan visits the ongoing legal battle that prompted the initial 1980 ruling, the case of Texas convict John Paul Penry. Argument rages not over Penry's guilt but what determines mental retardation....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: When it comes to situations involving life and death, the United States is strongly polarized. Liberals commonly support the legality of abortion as a private matter of personal choice but condemn the death penalty as inhumane, while conservatives often support execution as a form of justice but denounce abortion as legalized murder. How did these points of view become a part of the ideologies...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In May 1987, Edward Johnson, a young African-American found guilty of murder and attempted rape, was executed at Parchman Penitentiary in Mississippi. This program, set in the days immediately preceding and following Johnson's death in the gas chamber, focuses on the legal mechanism for execution and the intense ethical debate surrounding it. Johnson is interviewed at length. Questions arising...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Do Americans still hold certain truths to be self-evident? Do all human beings possess inalienable rights endowed by their creator? Are all lives of equal value? And if so, how do those core beliefs translate into public policy on issues such as healthcare, poverty, abortion, capital punishment, and euthanasia? This program explores what the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin called a "consistent...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: When Americans become outraged with behavior considered immoral or unethical, a typical response is to call on state legislatures or Congress to pass legislation outlawing it. Can government impose morality on its people by banning negative behavior or mandating positive behavior? History suggests that such efforts, though well-intentioned in many cases, are often ineffective. This program...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Did the Soviet Union collapse under external pressure or its own weight? What enabled free market forces to assert themselves in China? Is socialism dead, or has it simply evolved? This program addresses these and other questions, focusing on the political, cultural, and economic factors behind the fall of the iron curtain regimes. Outlining the Cultural Revolution and its consequences, the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: All sides of the affirmative action issue have targeted the same goal: ending racism of all types. But do opportunities for some have to come at the expense of others? In this Fred Friendly Seminar moderated by Harvard Law School's Charles Ogletree, a what-if scenario revolves around a university's efforts to enroll a diverse student body of qualified candidates. Panelists include Ward...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: At the end of the 19th century, socialism was an idyllic dream among intellectuals. Sixty years later it had become a reality for much of the world. This program describes the expansion of socialist and Communist rule into Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and western Europe-showing the weaknesses that developed in the practice of socialism even as it reached the apex of its popularity....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: As a movement, socialism thrived in Europe-but America was its cradle. This program explores the origins of socialist principles and how they evolved into military revolution in Russia and political strife in the United States. Recounting Robert Owen's New Harmony experiment, the program details the intellectualization of socialism by Marx, Engels, and Bernstein, followed by the rise of Lenin...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007