Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
Yes, Ideology is moot.
It cannot be moot if it is "the driver of the bus, the grease that keeps things moving and the glue that binds things together." If those are true allegories, I suggest that killing the driver can lead to a runaway bus, a little sand in the grease can destroy the gears and a bit of citric acid or a solvent will often turn a glue problem intro an unholy mess.

In any case, ideologies will cause changes and those frequently will not be benign. They will or may also call for some type of action on the part of involved or interested parties -- thus they are far from being moot.
As ken points out people in such periods of popular revolt and turmoil are just as ruthless under Methodist ideology as they are under Communist ideology as they are under Islamist ideology.
That's not exactly what I said or meant but thank you for making the point that people may be and usually are the problem -- however it is the ideology that skews their actions in a particular direction that may be inimical to good order...
The energy behind such movements is always the nature of the relationship between those who govern and those who are governed.
We can disagree on that, vehemently if necessary. You accord government / governance entirely too much sway and ideology -- or evil and a quest for money or power -- not enough...

On this:
Ciff: I feel where you are coming from, but you are operating off of some bad data (and our "no blame on the US" version of history and our flawed COIN doctrine and analysis of GWOT don't help).
Let me suggest once again that you're being borderline insulting. Stating flatly that another is operating off "bad data" and other deficient in your view factors is arrogant (which is okay by me, I indulge), an assumption on your part (which I try to and we all should avoid) and / or a sly way to lessen the impact of points or argument made by another (which most here try to avoid). In such a forum as this, it can be construed as unduly dismissive of the views of another by a process of implying evil intent or stupidity at worst, ignorance or inanity at best. Hopefully and probably, that's not your intent but the implication that what the other person said was ludicrous so thus can and should be dismissed isn't conducive to discussion.