Hello! And welcome to our course, U. S. Constitutional Law for Citizens, Circa 2025. My name is Alan Horvath. It will be my pleasure to walk you through this material.
I would like to say a few words about the course to give you a sense of what you are going to be hearing, or not hearing. “for Citizens” is the touchstone. This course is NOT going to be for historians, or scholars, or attorneys. The bottom line purpose of this course is to get you to VOTE. With that in mind, I intend to concentrate on what the constitution does for you in every day life. In every day life, you really do not need to know the history of the Articles of Confederation, nor even the history of the debates leading up to the adoption of the Constitution. On the other hand, you DO need to know what freedom of speech does or does not mean. Same for religious freedom and equal protection, and due process. You do need to know what the framers of the document ASSUMED they could count on you for. My hope is to show you that the Constitution is really VERY, VERY important to you in every day life. My hope is to help you to use the Constitution for your own protection, to claim its powers, and to protect those powers.
Now what about Circa 2025. My purpose there is simply to acknowledge the fact that the Constitution is a living document. It does not mean exactly the same thing today as it did in 1900, or even in 1945. If you talk about what the Constitution means, you need to be very clear about the answer to the question, “as of when”. If you find this document worth keeping, and you dig it out of a box 10 years from now, you need to be very aware of the caveat Circa 2025.
The material is broken up into screens of related key points, explained in more detail by voice over. The audio is independent for each screen, and is dependent on you to start it. If you prefer, each screen also has a scrollable written narrative. You can use audio, or scrollable text, or both as works best for you. They are the same.
At this point, please press the Next button to take us to the table of contents, and then start the audio when you get there. This is the only prompt you will get