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Rags:
At present, the Right accepts altruism, duty, self-sacrifice, etc, as ideals -- as does the Left.
To stay on point...I think this core statement of yours is fundamentally in error. The only ideal the Right accepts is that of limited government and the freedom of the individual to make choices. I've never once thought that altruism,duty, self sacrifice etc. were ideals of the Right. They may be personal ideals...but i would say that the word GREED (and I mean that in a good way!!) has more to do with the philosophy of the right than anything you mentioned.
On the other hand, the left talks a lot about altruism, and the sacrifices we all have to make as they reach into our pockets to make sure that our slice of the pie is the same size as everyone else's...even if it is rather small.
I agree that religion is largely irrelevant to this topic except insofar as answering the original question about "what is the difference" between republicans and democrats....and I think it is quite evident that the MORE religious, church going Christians tend to gravitate to the Republican Party and take an active part in the shaping of the social agenda of the party.
The dems seem to get more of the Easter Sunday Christians, and Jewish vote along with the entire Church of Secular Progressivism.
I do wish that the Reps were not so dominated by the more fundamentalist Christian right on social issues as I think a lot of people that would support the economic and defense stances of the party are driven away because they cannot agree with the social stuff.
Now here is something I would like to understand better. Why does something on the order of 90-95% of black population vote democratic?
I get that there are income disparities and that poorer people are generally gonna vote for dems. But we have a nicely growing, well educated black middle class...we have a Republican admin who has appointed more blacks and other minorities to important roles than any other president...we have a strong religious communitiy within the Black community. We have a total failure of inner city schools and vouchers being backed by Republicans as a solution that would allow black parents to get their kids out of those bad schools. And...we have a Democratic Party which talks a good game but whose policies have been a dismal failure when you look at what has happened to the billions spent on "the war on poverty". So why is the Republican Party not getting a larger share of the black vote?
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