[vehementi]

I do it all the time (not to claim I am very smart though). I had to catch myself trying to defend Stallman in this case all day today.

Little picture: Stallman is basically reasonable in his email thread, all the headlines are outright lies which wholly discredit their newspapers/sites

Big picture: he is still a huge creep and should have been gone from leadership positions decades ago

To me it's when I see something wrong being said/done, I want to correct or resist it, even if overall it doesn't matter. Like people who lie about things Trump has said -- which is ridiculous, why not just take one of the many dumb things Trump did say -- I'll have the urge to spring to the his defense and point out how some criticism is irrational or misconstrued. Even though it's Trump. I also found myself correcting misinformation about Louis C K during his shit the other year, though I didn't die on any hills or anything.

[tunesmith]

Thanks for replying - why do you think you want to do that?

Although, I can see a good reason for it in a case like Trump, if it's from the point of view of someone that is trying to muster resistance against him - from that perspective, true arguments against him are clearly better than false arguments, as the latter can be counterproductive. So I totally get that.

[vehementi]

Somehow it's related to "the ends don't justify the means". These lies and misrepresentations are immoral acts even if they're being done to a bad person.