It's an interesting tactic. Calling people that you disagree with bad things.

Not sure how effective it is as a means of actually helping people to change their position though. Isn't that what you want to happen?

Seriously though, I see this everywhere, and I'm as guily of it as anyone. Never really thought of this before but I've really limited and drawn back the scope of what I do on the internet, and that's maybe caused a sense of someone looking in.

I see it outside of the internet too. Perhaps 90% of my work is addressing the emotions of my clients, from extreme nervousness to supreme overconfidence, to get them to fit in with a community of people who themselves range through the whole gamut of human emotions. There are rules of engagement, which are taught extensively, and it ends up with most people following most of the rules most of the time.

An analogy might be that I'm driving in the outside lane of a road. In lane one there is a broken down car, and before that is someone who has dealt with the situation poorly, and now needs to change lanes. That driver that put themseles in that position might have done so because they weren't sure, and braked when that was not the best thing to do, or they might have just flown down my inside and are now signalling and positioning urgently and assertively. Or because they just didn't read the warning signs, or those signs were partially obscured by fog. I'm not in anyway responsible for their actions but I can choose what to do about it.

Some of the time I will be the guy in lane one that got it wrong. I fear and dislike the people that decide to make a point of how shit my driving is rather than creating a space for me to move into.