[IronJack]

I was perhaps too hasty in rejecting Kirk's interpretation of "ideologue." Certainly, there are those in the conservative camp who yearn for a resolute prescription, an ironclad code of not just principles but behaviors that they can live by. And just as certainly, Conservatism does not provide that code. It merely establishes a lens through which social behavior may be viewed. And it provides a context for weighing the relative merits of certain social decisions.

In that sense, it IS a system of principles rather than ideas, and its adherents measure developments not against Conservatism's principles, but USING Conservatism's principles. The developments themselves are judged in their historical context, that judgment itself being a Conservative process.

I guess I feared Kirk was equating "ideological" with "doctrinaire." Neither is pejorative in its own right, but each is ripe for abuse.

[KC Burke]

When progressive liberalism's, or the ideoliogical lefttist's, only tool is the Flame-Thrower, everything is Fuel!

As the only answer to social and governmental questions was seen by them as a metaphysical, rationalistic, ideological magic answer, poof, all those terms began to take on benign, rather than revolutionary, meanings.

Certainly, adherence to Kirk's exact terminology would be a Stalinist party line which he would be the first to abhore. He has taken the broad look at all such views, accepting Jacksonians like James Fenimore Cooper as long as he could find the common First Principles.

Likewise, you and I are on common ground.