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ORIGINAL: Elisabella

Does someone's ideology affect their credibility to you? How closely related do the ideas have to be to be affected?

I'm not talking random stuff like "you're a Christian so you don't know anything about cooking" but if someone follows an ideology that's on the political or social fringe, should that be brought up to question their viewpoint when discussing politics or sociology?

IMO the two can be intertwined, for example someone who believes in conspiracy theories would to me have less credibility when discussing government actions because their view is always going to start from the base assumption that government is elitist and corrupt. That ideology would permeate anything they had to say about the matter. Or someone who is a birther, anything they think about the Obama administration is going to be colored by the fact that they think his entire Presidency is invalid and that he orchestrated a massive coverup in order to be elected.

Do you think it's okay to call people on their ideology even if it isn't the exact topic at hand? I do, I think people should own their own beliefs and realize that it might make other people think less of their opinions rather than trying to play off some hippy "all opinions are completely equal, don't judge mine" tripe.

y/n?

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ORIGINAL: NeedToUseYou

The Government is Corrupt and Elitist, not exactly the best choice to exemplify conspiracy. The way you state it that would be the same as being a birther. The first viewpoint can be supported by 1000's of examples, dodd, cheney, rangel, geitner, paulson, whereas the birthers, well, whatever.