Kakki wrote: "I think in many cases people vote Republican not because they identify with a particular philosophy or ideology, (as I perceive is more a motivation for Democrats) but just out of practical concerns involving national defense, taxation, crime, etc."
I guess "ideology" is in the eye of the beholder. I could turn this around and say that, in many cases, it seems that Democrats are less inclined to identify with a particular philosophy or ideology, which I perceive is more a motivation for Republicans, but rather, out of practical concerns involving the environment, reproductive rights, worker safety and civil liberties, and civil rights. The parallelism simply struck me as a little odd. What makes one set of "practical concerns" an ideology, and the other, not? That's really a rhetorical question. Mary P. --she's baaaacck (but not for long).
