Examples of motte-and-bailey arguments by the far left

The "motte-and-bailey" fallacy is an argumentative tactic where a larger questionable ideology, when challenged, is defended by retreating to a small portion of the ideology that's generally more accepted. The analogy is that in normal circumstances ("peace time") the ideology preaches all of its tenets, most of which are morally or otherwise questionable (in other words, it operates in the wider "bailey" area), but when questioned and challenged ("war time"), the apologist retreats to the more defensible much smaller area of the ideology (in other words, the fortified "motte" at the center).

Here are some concrete examples of this very tactic used by the modern far left, which clarify how this tactic is actually being used in practice out there:

Feminism

Especially 10+ years ago (perhaps a bit less nowadays because the concept of "feminism" has got a bad reputation among the left, mainly because of J. K. Rowling), when the far-leftist "social justice" "third-wave feminism" movement was in full force, violently invading and shutting down university campuses and other institutions, and engaging in riots, physical violence, "cancelling", and harassment and discrimination of dissenters, whenever someone pointed this all out and criticized all these actions, all this violence, all this intolerance, harassment and discrimination, the standard "motte" response was: "Feminism is just about women's rights, nothing else."

In other words, with an agreeable audience feminism was this enormous ideology with an enormous amount of policies and tactics (most of which had nothing to do with women's rights), but when challenged, suddenly it was just about "women's rights" and nothing else. And, of course, if you opposed feminism, then you automatically opposed women's rights and were a monster (back then they hadn't yet come up with the insult "fascist".)

Abortion

This motte-and-bailey is so utterly common that it's pretty much preprogrammed into every single person who isn't critical of abortion: Whenever you oppose abortion, especially if you present rational arguments against it based on fundamental human rights, the standard "motte" reply always ensues: "What about rape victims?"

This is so ubiquitous as to be pretty much automatic.

With an agreeable audience abortion is a "human right" that any woman has the absolute right to, at any moment, for any reason, no reason need to be given. But immediately when challenged, they retreat to the archetypal motte of "what about rape victims?" This is so predictable that it's outright tiresome. (And yes, this exact situation has happened to me several times in real life.)

Millions of genders

The modern far-left is absolutely obsessed with sex, and "trans", and that there's a "spectrum", and that there are millions of "genders". While perhaps not so utterly ubiquitous as with the abortion thing, it's nevertheless extremely common: When challenged, they retreat to "what about intersex people?"

The logic behind it is just asinine: Because a very small percentage of people have a birth defect where they don't have the normal XX or XY chromosomes, according to their logic there are now millions of genders (never mind that the amount of combinations of abnormal sex chromosomes is about 5 or so, most of which are actually fatal) and anybody can choose their own gender by simply saying so. They are literally defending "you can choose your own gender by just saying so" with "some people are born with abnormal sex chromosomes".

This is not just a motte-and-bailey fallacy, it's an extremely asinine one. It's one where even the "motte" doesn't make any sense. It's the weakest possible "motte" that they ever use. 

The "paradox of tolerance"

While wordplay is one of their favorite hobbies, the far left also loves their sophistry, and the "paradox of tolerance" is the perfect example. They argue that this "paradox" is that tolerance requires people to be intolerant against intolerant opinions and people. This "intolerance" justifies, according to them, shunning, harassment, doxxing, "cancelling" and outright physical violence and even murder.

This concept can be defeated with one question: Who decides what is "intolerant" and what isn't?

And the answer to that question is, of course: The far-leftist mob decides. Whatever happens to be their ideology this particular week, if you oppose it or dissent from it, you are "intolerant" and thus a free target for abuse. "Free speech" does not apply to you anymore.

The funny thing is that even the far-leftists who present this argument don't have a better answer than that. Whenever they answer the question, it's pretty much this. They decide.

The motte-and-bailey argument pops up whenever this challenged and criticized. The "motte" is, of course, from a small set of standard responses, like: "Advocating for killing homosexuals", or "advocating for killing Jews", etc. Or, in general, whenever challenged, suddenly the "intolerant opinions" are merely what's already illegal in most countries, ie. direct incitement to violence.

The "bailey", ie. when the audience is agreeable, is of course "whatever dissents from our positions".