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LINK PLEASE!!!!!!

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Ideologues are the most dangerous people in the world, responsible for most of human suffering throughout history.

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Mostly, what I am opposed to are ideologies, which I define as "systems of belief which close themself off from any outside criticisms." In other words, the ideology is always right because the ideology says that it is always right. Circular reasoning is the mainstay of ideologies. Many religions certainly fall into this category:

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For the most part, these stories have remained unchanged since their inception and have been around for a long time.

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice

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Mostly, what I am opposed to are ideologies, which I define as "systems of belief which close themself off from any outside criticisms." In other words, the ideology is always right because the ideology says that it is always right. Circular reasoning is the mainstay of ideologies. Many religions certainly fall into this category:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

-- Thomas Jefferson, "Declaration of Independence"

Is that ideology? After all, it's circular, and the three that statements could be a real challenge to prove empirically.

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[T]he USA is an ideological state which is why it always needs an ideological enemy. As soon as the USSR fell apart, the US found another ideological enemy in Islam, rather than defining conflicts within the Islamic world the US declared all Islam an enemy. In fact throughout the USA's history, it has always had an ideological enemy. Ideology is the big difference between the American empire and other western Empires and why the US feels the need to be a world policeman.

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
Surely all ideology considers itself as a universal truth which is why its adherents will fight and die for it.

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ORIGINAL: seeksfemslave

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
Surely all ideology considers itself as a universal truth which is why its adherents will fight and die for it.

What about the ideology of pacivism to the point of martyrdom ?

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

I don't think there necessarily has to be an active enemy nation state all the time but antipathy between France and the US peaked in the thirties. While Britain, Spain and Germany have all been at war with the US at one time or other, it is rather paradoxical that France hasn't yet antipathy between the US and France is ever ongoing. I put this down to both the US and France believing (wrongly) they invented democracy in their respective revolutions and have had an on going ideological rivalry. When the US is in a conflict, no matter what that conflict is about it defines itself as fighting for freedom and the right of the individual when many a time it plainly isn't. The US threatened to invade Canada once for harbouring a terrorist (Sitting Bull), defining Canada in so doing as an enemy to freedom. The biggest clue of all to the US's ideological stance is 'manifest destiny'. The spreading of 'freedom and democracy' while actively involved in an imperial expansion. Russia and later the USSR used parallel terminology in their expansion east but where the USA had the wild west, Russia had the wild east.

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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

I can't agree.

The US Government chooses its allies out of economic convenience. The US and the UK have been major proponents of Turkey (Islamic) being accepted into the EU for reasons amounting to strategic and economic convenience. Also, the US Government has supported certain Islamic countries in the 1990s and this renders the claim of an Ideological conflict with Islam completely without substance. The US Government is not engaged in a war of attrition with Islamic countries or even remotely bothered about a perceived religious divide. They are camped in a place which provides them with an oil supply and construction possibilities.

Every country is accepted into the EU for strategic and economic reasons, it is after all first and foremost an economic block. However, just because Turks are muslim doesn't make them ideologically muslim, Turkey is a secular state.
 
The US is in an ideological war, not with Islamic states but ideological Islam, a form of Islam the US's Islamic alies are scared of.

The ideological and religious issue is used as a tool to herd the masses into line. A former White House insider has just had a book published which lays bear the relationship between the US Government and the fundamental Christian elements in the US. In public, they shake hands and it's all cosy. In private, members of the Government laugh at them as they do not give a flying one about the so-called Christian/Islam divide - they care about oil and put simply religion and ideology are merely being used as a tool to herd the masses.

Read the American constitution. It is a declaration of an ideological position.

For the US and USSR to have clashed on ideological grounds it follows they both must have been consistent advocates of a particular ideology. Were they? No. The USSR Government was not a communist regime - they were simply another totalitarian dictatorship where the establishment lorded it over the masses. Was the US a consistent adherent to capitalist idelogy? No. They flirted with welfare provision and at times they have been protectionist over trade and industry.

If the USA - USSR conflict was not an ideological conflict there has never been an ideological conflict in the history of this world. It was the individualism versus collectivism.

It is quite possible that certain sections of the US may think they are involved in some sort of middle ages religious and ideological struggle but the people who dictate policy in the US and the UK for that matter certainly have an entirely different agenda.

The US elite talk in the language of ideology and respond to the world in ideological terms. Of course they have to live in a world where most countries aren't ideological and don't share thei ideology but that doesn't make them not ideological.
 
The UK has never been an ideological state and as always been willing to change, ditch principles and renew itself to retain influence.

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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

Quite and whereas economics driven, war mongering foreign policy can be undone with a change of Government it is not so easy to erase an idea based on a perceived just and necessary cause.