Sunday, April 28, 2013

Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative

In this text from Barry Goldwater, he criticizes the Supreme Court and their interpretation of the Constitution when ruling on cases.  He brings up the school segregation issue and says that the Constitution is what the framers intended it to be and not what the Supreme Court says it is.  He then says that even though he believes in the Court's ultimate goals of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, he does not find it fair for this to be imposed on the southern states, like South Carolina or Mississippi.  I find it hard to agree with Goldwater's claims because just like the Supreme Court, he criticizes the two other branches of the federal government for overreaching their power of what the framers intended, of limited government.  He argues for state's rights and a more localized system which matches up with what the anti-federalists fought for.  The real framers of our Constitution, the federalists, wanted a strong central government to keep the union intact.  Also, with a changing society and growth of our nation, it is impossible to tell for sure how exactly the framers would want us to handle problems.  If we did not have large federal government outreach in times of crisis' it is hard to picture what our country would look like.  For example, back to the segregation issue with southern states; the "united" states would not seem so "united" if some states were not all on the same page with the same practices and values.  It would undermine the values of our country if some states acted completely on their own whim.

1 comment:

  1. Hannah,

    Great job. Nice use of the Federalists, and I like your emphasis on "united" in "United States."

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