Are there opinions you feel you can’t support not because they are wrong, but because of the people you would have to join forces with?
For me personally, it’s about transgender sports. I believe that people who mature while influenced by testosterone and XY chromosomes have a genuine physical advantage over people who don’t. However, other people who have this opinion are such hideous bigots that I can’t, even for a moment, publicly suggest that they may have a point. There’s no nuanced view or focused discussion that isn’t tainted by their awfulness, so I am compelled to support any transgender athlete who wants to compete in whatever they want whenever they want even though in a different timeline, I might raise my hand to ask if it’s fair.
Another issue like this that came up recently is the LIV Golf thing in the Game Room. Top golfers are suggesting that their new league is to break the PGA monopoly, which would be a reasonable take, except they’re teaming up with the Saudis for a big personal payday. Guys, could you find a less awful partner for your campaign?
Well, I understand what you are saying. I am conflicted over the transgender athletes. I just don’t know. As for the golfers, they are in it for the money. If you were a top professional athlete in a team sport and a Saudi prince bought your team, would you feel obligated to quit (and likely end your career). According to an article in Today’s Times, Phil Mikkelson has been offerred $200M, while Tiger Woods earned only $125M in his entire career.
Hijack: I love that expression. One of my colleagues went into administration (he told me his research had dried up so he might as well do something useful beyond teaching 6 hours a week). He was frightened by the fact that he was spending so much time with administrators he was beginning to think like them. So I said to him, “Lie down with dogs; get up with fleas.” He had never heard the expression before was almost literally ROFL.
Taken generally, that is a false assumption. You are entitled to your own opinions without joining forces with anyone. If Hitler likes sugar in his coffee and so do you, that doesn’t mean you have to start paying attention to the Nazi Party.
But, yes, it should go without saying that if you are a professional golfer and you accept money to join the Saudi golf league then, yes, you are an amoral scumbag.
Long ago I had a most unpleasant experience being bitten by fleas which had initially targeted my dog, so my perspective may be of value.
I don’t think that one should avoid expressing a public viewpoint or even supporting legislation merely because some or even most of those sharing that opinion are otherwise sleazy. You don’t have to shake hands with them or march at their rallies.
Even though a lot of quackery promoters and antivaxers with ulterior motives rant about how terribly greedy Big Pharma is, I can still get behind legislation to allow Medicare to directly negotiate with drug companies and significantly lower prices.
Isn’t the counterpart to the dog-fleas saying … and maybe very relevant to the OP … this one ?
Political interests can bring together people who otherwise have little in common. This saying is adapted from a line in the play The Tempest, by William Shakespeare: “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” It is spoken by a man who has been shipwrecked and finds himself seeking shelter beside a sleeping monster.
I can’t recall a situation of this sort for myself. I often have the opposite situation. I don’t like the particular person or people that support something, but I agree with their general position. Often they are stating it in a way I don’t like, or doing things in support of it I don’t like. Even using it as a Trojan horse. But i agree with the concept.
Unprincipled people will use a well principled idea for their purposes. Tainting it. But if it is a good idea, it will hopefully shine through.
Of course they may also just be right purely on principle in that instance.
