[Torus34]

Present day political palaver is peppered with labels. In many instances the label has come to mean something entirely different from the original dictionary definition. [Ed.: Some, initially neutral, have been transmogrified into pejoratives.]

An example is the current use of 'conservative'. Conserve what? Conserve our institutions of higher learning, the abode of the best and brightest of our intellectuals? Conserve our newspapers, those beacons of free speech and the public's 'right to know?' Conserve our scientific exploration of the Earth's climate and the effect of our energy usage on it? You get the idea.

'Conservative' is a label which should be understood as someone who is anti-intellectual and, in many instances, evangelical if not fundamentalist in religious belief. Someone who, while embracing the fruits of technology, is suspicious of science and scientists. Someone who wishes to impose the straitjacket of his beliefs on a free society.

And that's just one label.

[Cartertonian]

Unfortunately most (perhaps all?) ideologues want to, "impose the straitjacket of their beliefs on a free society." It doesn't matter whether they are 'conservatives', 'socialists', 'libertarians', 'communists', or whatever. All the hardcore ideologues believe they - and only they - have the answer to humankind's problems and that anyone who opposes their view is therefore a threat to humanity.

In my view, this is because if you have a plan, whatever the plan is, it can only work if everyone buys into it.

As we saw in the 20th Century, the people with plans then had to resort to killing or otherwise neutralising all those who didn't buy into their plan...and even after that,their plans did not come to fruition.

[Torus34]

Cartertonian: Sir, what you said regarding ideologues holds true whether they come from the realms of politics, religion, economics or others.

The subset of ideologues who fixate on a single, unyielding position on a single issue are, arguably, the greatest enemies of a functioning democracy.

Regards, and thanks for the response.