Barry Goldwater: insurgent conservatism as constitutive rhetoric

Conservatives are generally held to be biased towards the present state of affairs, but some conservatives see the present state of affairs as so great a threat, they advocate its overthrow. They are insurgent conservatives. Scholars portray a Republican Party in the 1950s and 1960s dominated by a north-east liberal establishment confronting an emerging opposition based on anti-communism, economic liberalism and limited government. Barry Goldwater, deploying ideas developed as a long-standing opponent of the New Deal, from his experiences as a businessman, and his philosophic commitment to individualism, engaged extensively with conservatives from the mid- to late 1950s, becoming the spokesman for the developing conservative movement. Goldwater articulated an alternative, radical interpretation of conservatism. Using constitutive rhetoric, an under-used tool in the study of conservatism, this paper explores the content and message of Goldwater’s insurgent conservatism. Rather than focussing on persuasion, constitutive rhetoric focuses on the relationship between the speaker and the audience in the forging of an identity. Goldwater’s audience was already persuaded; what was needed was a common conservative identity to inspire a political movement. Goldwater did not ‘call conservatism into being,’ but his rhetoric fuelled an insurgency and constituted conservatism in a new configuration.     

Musculoskeletal stress marker (MSM) differences in the modern American upper limb and pectoral girdle in relation to activity level and body mass index (BMI)

Obesity is a widespread condition affecting modern Americans. The prevalence of obesity has led to questions of how it can affect the skeleton, and if so can it be identified in unknown skeletal material. This study attempts to decipher the effects of activity level and body mass in modern Americans by employing musculoskeletal stress markers (MSM) to estimate osseous responses to workload and body weight. A total sample of 108 skeletons of known activity level and body mass index (BMI) was observed for MSM in the upper extremity (excluding hands). The entheses selected included arm muscles used during the sit-to-stand transition, which is common in most persons, regardless of activity level and BMI. Using the three categories: normal, active, and obese, logistic regression was calculated on MSM to ascertain which markers were the best indicators of these three categories. Numerous muscles of the upper limb were significant predictors of activity level and body mass, although they did not perform much better than chance. MSM may be used as predictors of activity level and/or BMI in forensic contexts; however, they should be used in conjunction with other indications of workload and/or BMI.