TopLinks: Government and Politics

Cato Institute
http://www.cato.org/
This Libertarian research institute publishes the Cato Journal and Cato Policy Report--both available online--as well as Web sites on such issues as individual rights, social security, and free trade.

Council for Secular Humanism
http://www.secularhumanism.org
The Council for Secular Humanism “works to separate Church and State and defend the rights of people who do not accept religious beliefs.” A selection of articles from the council's bimonthly publication, Free Inquiry, is available at this site, as are links to other secular humanist resources.

Dissent
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/
Dissent is a quarterly magazine of the left, focused on politics, culture, and economics.

Libertarian Party
http://www.lp.org/issues/
The Libertarian Party states that they "challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the right of the individual." Eschewing the role of government encroaching on citizens' individual rights, the Libertarian Party offers their party stance on a variety of issues.

National Archives: Charters of Freedom
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/
The National Archives preserves the nation’s most valuable historical and legal documents. Click here to learn more about the origins and the impact of the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

National Center for Policy Alternatives
http://www.ncpa.org
This Dallas-based think tank, which believes the federal government should have a limited role in our lives in order to maintain as much individual freedom as possible, provides conservative opinions about contemporary issues ranging from elimination of the estate tax to criminal justice.

New America Foundation: The American Paradox
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2003/the_american_paradox
Nothing illustrates America's profound contradictions more starkly than a comparison with other advanced democracies: among these the United States is either the very best or the very worst performer on a wide range of social and economic criteria.

New Humanist: Towards Enlightenment
http://newhumanist.org.uk/438
Read about Frank Furedi’s call for a new Enlightenment in politics with a free-thinking spirit analogous to Kant’s Enlightenment thought in the eighteenth century.

The American Prospect
http://prospect.org/
The online version of this liberal journal describes its mission as contributing to “a renewal of America's democratic traditions by presenting a practical and convincing vision of liberal philosophy, politics, and public life.” This site offers archives, book reviews, interviews, and biographies of American Prospect authors.

The Heritage Foundation
http://www.heritage.org/
The conservative Heritage Foundation site offers Policy Review online, as well as a bookstore, library, and links to other resources.

The Social Contract
http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm
This site, maintained by the Constitution Society, “a private non-profit organization dedicated to research and public education on the principles of constitutional republican government,” provides the full text of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract.

The White House
http://www.whitehouse.gov/
On the White House’s web site, you can find a multitude of information from the Obama administration, including news updates, press releases, featured legislation, and videos of presidential speeches. And now, even the White House has a blog.

Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/
The Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive at the University of Virginia provides 1,700 texts by or to Jefferson, quotations, scholarly articles, bibliographies of work by or about Jefferson, and links to related organizations.

Thomas Jefferson Papers
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/mtjhtml/mtjhome.html
Maintained by the Library of Congress, the Thomas Jefferson Papers site features a collection of 27,000 documents by Jefferson, timelines, publication history, the full text of the Jefferson biography American Sphinx by Joseph J. Ellis, images, and an online exhibition.

Democratic National Party
http://www.democrats.org/
The homepage for the national democratic party gives a rundown of party values, election information, and news. They have sections devoted to civil rights, the economy, education, the environment, and healthcare.

Republican Party
https://www.gop.com
The republican party’s homepage allows visitors to sign petitions, customize the homepage, connect to social networks, and read the blog. They also summarize the party’s history, beliefs, and leadership.

The U.S. Constitution
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html
This site contains the transcript of the full Constitution of the United States and allows users to download high-resolution images of the original document. There are also articles about the Constitution and its history, links to the Bill of Rights, and facts about the Constitution.