This essay will discuss some of the main topics covered during this week’s readings. This essay will discuss the steps that must be taken to make amendments to the United States Constitution, the reasons the ten amendments that make up the Bill of Rights were successfully added to the United States Constitution and why the Equal Rights Amendment was not added. This essay will also discuss what ideology is and the differences between liberalism and conservatism and will lastly outline the differences between Dual Federalism and Cooperative Federalism. Let’s first discuss what steps must be taken to amend the United States Constitution. In order to amend the United States Constitution the amendments may be proposed by the United States Congress or by a national convention assembled at the request of the legislatures of at least two-thirds of the several states (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt, 2012, pg. 53). Another method that can be used to make amendments to the United States Constitution is ratification, although this method in the past has rarely been used, but it can occur by two methods either by obtaining a positive vote of at least three-fourths of the legislatures of several states or by having special conventions called in the states and obtaining a positive vote in three-fourths of them (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt, 2012, pg. 53). Congress has considered more than eleven thousand amendments to the Constitution, but only thirty-three amendments were submitted to the states after having been approved by the required two-thirds vote, the Equal Rights Amendment was not added due to the time limit ratifications that were put into place, three-fourth of the states had not ratified within the allotted seven years (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt, 2012, pgs. 54 - 55), whereas when the Bill of Rights Amendment was established there were no time limits placed on ratifications. Now we will discuss ideology and discuss the differences between liberalism and conservatism. Ideology is a comprehensive set of beliefs about the nature of people and about the role of an institution or government (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt, 2012, pg. G-4). There are a total of four ideologies: Socialism, Liberalism, Conservatism, and Libertarianism. Socialism is a political ideology that supports economic and social equality, those that are socialist tend to envision a society in which major business were taken over by the government or by employee cooperatives (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt, 2012, pg. 21). Libertarianism is the political ideology that is based on skepticism or opposition toward most government activities (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt, 2012, pg. 22). The differences between Conservatism and Liberalism is that those who favor conservatism tend to conserve traditional practices and institutions whereas those in favor of Liberalism tend to believe in “free from prejudice in favor of traditional opinions and established institutions” (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt, 2012, pgs. 19 - 20). Liberalism has positive government action in the economy whereas Conservatism has positive government action to support capitalism and when it comes to Liberalism the government promotes economic security, equal opportunity, social liberty and in a conservatism ideology the government promotes economic liberty, morality, social order (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt, 2012, pg. 21). Lastly, let’s discuss the differences between Dual Federalism and Cooperative Federalism.

Dual Federalism is a doctrine that emphasizes a distinction between national and state spheres of government authority (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt, 2012, pg. 94). Cooperative federalism is when the states and the national government cooperate in solving problems (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt, 2012, pg. 95). Federalism and the federal system define the basic structure of American government. There were many disagreements that occurred at the Constitutional Convention. Many delegates feared a national government that was too strong and many delegates feared that states’ rights would merely continue the weak form of government under the Articles. The Constitution created a federal system of government (federalism) as a compromise. Under federalism, power is shared and divided between national and state governments. Both levels have their own agencies and officials and directly affect the people (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt, 2012, pgs. 84 - 85). The Founding Fathers really had no other choice except federalism. The weak union created under the Articles would not work yet people did not want to give all the power to a national government. Federalism was the middle ground that compromised a way to distribute authority between the states and the national government (Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt, 2012, p. 87).

Reference
Bardes, B., Schmidt, S., Shelley, M. (2012). American Government and Politics Today: The
Essentials. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.