| > Except most of the people who "like murdering babies" don't actually like murdering babies and most of the people who "want to control women's bodies" don't actually want to control women's bodies. Most of the people who use the phrase "control women's body" of the "pro-life" side do, in fact, see that as the motivation of the pro-life side, and ditto with most of the people who use "murdering babies" to describe the "pro-choice" side. There's nothing dishonest about those particular examples. Yes, they aren't accurate to how the described side sees themselves, because they are using descriptions based on interpreting the described side in context of the values of the describing side. That's not dishonest rhetoric, its a clash of fundamental values. > Most people's feelings on the subject are actually a lot closer than the rhetoric makes it appear. Most people's feelings on the subject may be a lot closer than the descriptions by the loudest voices would make it appear, because they don't fully hold the values of either of the clashing sides. But that has nothing to do with why the debate is heated -- the people in the middle, and what they believe and feel, have nothing to do with that. > The rhetoric was created by people with agendas, who don't want people to recognize that both sides have valid points and are actual human beings who care. To the people who hold the extreme positions, the people on the other side don't have valid points. The validity of a moral argument -- which both sides arguments are -- isn't a matter of fact, its something that only exists within a particular value framework. |
That's the point.
>There's nothing dishonest about those particular examples. Yes, they aren't accurate to how the described side sees themselves,
So they are dishonest.
>That's not dishonest rhetoric, its a clash of fundamental values
No amount of making a random baseless assertion will turn it into a fact. Try spending some time working as a mediator with people with "extreme" views on this subject. You'll find their views are not actually extreme, they are just misrepresented.
>To the people who hold the extreme positions, the people on the other side don't have valid points.
Again, that's the point. Is this some kind of joke? Yes, the whole point is what A thinks about B is false, and what B thinks about A is false. A doesn't think B has a valid opinion because they don't know B's actual opinion, just a deliberate misrepresentation of it by the people who created the harmful rhetoric in the first place.