Discussion Question for Chapter 2. The Constitution

President Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court. Look at some newspaper editorials about her and do a little research about her on the Web and make up you mind as to whether she should or should not be confirmed by the Senate. Pay particular attention to what philopophy you think she will use in interpreting the Constitution (see the last three pages in the chapter). Is she a good nominee? Should she or should she not be confirmed and why or why not?

Discussion Question for Chapter 1. Introduction

The introduction has a section talking about how many Americans use an ideological mental framework to help them sort out what they think government should and should not do. Most people think in terms of just one dimension (left or liberal and right or conservative). But the text gives a more complex framework that separates government involvement along two dimensions, whether government should be involved in matters of personal morality and whether it should be involved in matters of economics. This results in four different kinds of ideology (liberal, libertarian, conservative, and populist). A more complex framework can involve a whole range of different kinds of issues and come up with a larger number of groupings. A good example of this is in the Web exercise listed at the end of the introduction. Go to that site (http://typology.people-press.org/typology/)
and take the quiz and see where you get placed. Do you think this is an accurate placement for how you feel? Where would you place yourself in the four different groups that cover personal morality and economic involvement in the introductory chapter?