Well at least I'm not a baby-eating, god-hating commie!
This is a great case of straw-manning
What do you mean?
It's when we take a false image of an topic, and then attack that instead of the real topic
Sometimes we do it without realizing
Some people will do it knowing it's false
All of us want to be on the "good" side of things, and there are plenty of things we can disagree on
But when we try to defend our own views by believing the worst about those we disagree with, we make society a worse place for ourselves and others
But it's all true!
Even if you believe it's true, that doesn't mean it is
When we get our view of the "other side" from people who agree with us, it is very likely that we will walk away with an wrong view of their actual ideas
Well they accuse me of believing things I don't too!
We've all had our views described badly by others. Sometimes in good faith, sometimes not
Even if we truly believe that our views are correct, we have to invest the time and energy to honestly listen what other people actually believe
I've been around long enough to know what they believe!
When we lump people into large groups of our own definition, and see them as all the same, we're almost always missing some nuance
That's not to say that groups can't form around a common set of ideas, or have those ideas critiqued. It does mean that we need to find out what they believe from them, and not from those who agree with us