Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
Ideology gets a lot of attention. But it does not cause insurgency. Nor does ideology cause men to abuse power to kill other men without just cause.
The first clause is possibly true, the second is at a minimum arguable. That third assertion certainly does not merit the finality with which you state it, is an opinion and what is or is not a just cause is subjective. Many people are dead to due ideologies trumping reason. You have cited a few that fall in that 'incitement to homicide' state that was likely not justifiable by much of anyone other than the perpetrators at the time -- not least militant protestantism.
All of that could have been avoided if the US would have simply honored its commitment to Ho Chi Minh following WWII. If the U.S. would have simply recognized their universal right to liberty and self-determination.
More than arguable. Whether France would have acceded to such US 'recognition' cannot be known.
To blame what followed on Communist ideology is a corruption of history and mis-understands the role of ideology in such movements.
I did not see anyone make such a claim. Cannot speak for others but I referred to the deaths caused by that ideology and my reference was to those within and by the Soviet Union and China that directly resulted from autocrats perverting communism per se into an aberrant ideology. An ideology that was directly responsible for emplacement of those persons who caused those tens of millions of deaths within those two nations. What that ideology caused elsewhere is arguable but it, worldwide, emphatically was not benign or moot.
I ask simply, is it the ideology of those promising liberty that "radicalizes" a populace, or is it the actions of a government that denies liberty that "radicalizes" a populace??
You do not ask, you assert constantly that is the case. It is an opinion to which you are entitled but one which several of us with broadly equal experience do not agree. That type of radicalization frequently occurs. What also occurs is that ill intentioned people hijack an ideology for their own purposes, convince gullible persons to support them in the name of an ideology and set off in search of money or power and their concern for the populace is later revealed to be so much blather and the poor fools who bought into that ideology find they were duped and -- as in Iran -- are worse off than they were before they were 'helped.'

It would really be nice if things were simple, pity they aren't.