All they want is
Some said motte and bailey, I said bait and switch, others said it’s just plain lying.
Anyway. What Chris Bryant said. Caller asks: “What does it actually mean to transition?”
Chris Bryant replies:
I think I’ve answered your question and [shaking head in sorrow] I’ll tell you – something that really frightens me at the moment – is politicians who want to use this issue to stir division – because for me – there – your right to live your life the way you want, and that you feel comfortable, is absolutely intrinsic to a decent society.
Well, yes and no. Yes up to a point. To put it more brutally, nobody can live her life exactly the way she wants in every single particular. We can’t, because we’re not independent. We can’t feed ourselves or avoid freezing to death or dying of heat stroke, or be cured of diseases or have our injuries repaired, without other people, and once you add other people, you’re no longer free to do whatever you want no matter what.
It’s a stupid slogan and it was a mistake for the trans movement to treat it as sacred. Sometimes things you want to do interfere with what other people want to do, and it’s not written in the stars that you’re the one who always gets to win.
Sure, if men want to think of themselves as women in their own heads, they should be free to do that. When they want women to agree that they’re women, it’s not so simple. See pp 1-47 billion for details.
Lies of omission are generally covered by selective attention and straw man.
For the stupid “right to live your life” thing, accident fallacyseems good.
I think what Emma is referring to is the red herring fallacy.
Whether that is one or not is unclear.
I think motte and bailey and bait and switch are both applicable. The position one is actually trying to defend (the bailey) is the controversial one, but if challenged one retreats to the uncontroversial one (the mott). Or you could see the uncontroversial position as the bait which is then switched for the controversial one once people have been taken in.
There is also what I have called the Superman Fallacy because it’s almost the perfect flipside of a strawman: Rather than attack a weaker version of your opponent’s view, you are defending a stronger version of your own views. If can be compared to sending Superman to fight in your place.
I’m not sure we have to go with a neologism when we have lying and dissembling.