On righteous anger

iRi has a really good post about an attitude that leads to a lot of failures in communication.  Excerpt:

The base logic is something like this:

1. I care about issue X.
2. Because of the way in which I care about issue X and my other beliefs, I think Y is the solution.
3. The only reason someone could not think Y is the solution is because they do not care.
4. In fact, while they claim to believe in solution Z, since they don’t actually care the real explanation must be that they think Z will give them personal advantage, or they simply hate the group of people affected, or they must have some other ulterior motive.
5. Wow! People who don’t agree with solution Y are evil! And we should treat them as evil!
6. For bonus points, “Wow, I’m a really good person for hating people who ‘claim’ to ‘believe’ that Z is the ‘solution’! Everybody pat me on the back!” (Scare-quoting all the significant words of the opposing argument is a major indicator of this thought process.)

The whole post worth reading.