Yes, but it's possible that the points they raised were the reason they took that side of the debate. I don't think it's really useful to question people's motives, rather than just considering their arguments.
"I don't think it's really useful to question people's motives, rather than just considering their arguments."
In an ideal world the argument should stand alone, but I find people's motives to be worth considering. Not for the usual you'll find in the media like looking for the corrupt or using those motives to dismiss their arguments. I find how people come to their beliefs to be really interesting. I can learn from the path they took even if I find the result to be broken. The danger is admiring the path and supporting the broken argument.
As to the politics. Two people interacting means that you will have politics. Humans have conflicts from the battlefield to the soapbox to the pulpit to the lecture hall.
You can easily hide bias behind good arguments. Attention to motive is how you discover this bias. Humans are notoriously awful at dealing with bias, and you're suggesting that people remove one of the only tools they have against it?
It's often very difficult to determine another person's actual motives are. In this particular case, there's no way to know whether someone takes a side because of their bias, or has a bias because their honest opinion led them to invest a personal stake in it.
If the arguments are actually good, it doesn't matter what motivated a person to make them. Casting aspersions on motive is just a cheap way people avoid dealing with good arguments they don't like, perhaps because of subtle biases of their own.
In an ideal world the argument should stand alone, but I find people's motives to be worth considering. Not for the usual you'll find in the media like looking for the corrupt or using those motives to dismiss their arguments. I find how people come to their beliefs to be really interesting. I can learn from the path they took even if I find the result to be broken. The danger is admiring the path and supporting the broken argument.
As to the politics. Two people interacting means that you will have politics. Humans have conflicts from the battlefield to the soapbox to the pulpit to the lecture hall.