Anyone can decide a statement is "ideological" just by disagreeing with it. The statement "the government can and should provide services to its people if those services are important to its future and the free market is incapable of providing them" should not, and did not used to be, ideological. The fact that such a statement is far outside of the current Overton Window is the result of a decades-long propaganda campaign to destroy everyone's faith in government so it can be looted, and everyone who parrots "government bad" is (knowingly or not) playing a part in this propaganda campaign. I assume the issue you have with my comment is that I knew 95% of readers would immediately regurgitate "but government bad!", but of course I was right that that happened.

When the Overton Window shifts to the point where saying "people should be decent to one another" becomes a radical ideological statement, make sure you flag every comment that says that too. We can't have radical ideologues on HN, after all.

The question of what goods and services should/shouldn't be provided by government is about as ideological as any question there is, given that the size/role of government has been one of the most central matters of most major ideologies for at least the past couple of centuries.

It's fine to discuss ideology on HN, but it needs to be done so in a spirit of curiosity and exploration, not battle and belligerence.

We've had to ask you to respect the site and observe the guidelines a few times before in the past couple of years. The HN guidelines and HN's intended purpose are the issue here, and sermonizing about ideology seems a deflection.

We just need you to observe the guidelines, no matter what point you're trying to make (and we really don't much care what point you're trying to make). Indeed this is in your interests to do this, because your point will carry more weight if you make it whilst keeping your discussion style within the site's guidelines and norms.