It's not quite a lie, just a very narrow scope. The implied context of "think of the children" is usually something like, "Think of how horrible it would be if the children were exposed to temptations like sex and drugs." Other aspects of children's welfare don't figure as highly in the calculus of those who espouse this slogan.
Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking with "surface level truth". I think if you asked the majority of the US population if they cared about children they'd say yes and I don't think they would be lying. But there's an ignorance of the bigger picture.
I think that's still not the right way to look at it. Calling it "ignorance" is unnecessarily pejorative. It's a difference in quality metric. Some people attach a lot of value to avoiding (what they believe to be) moral transgressions because they believe it imperils their soul in the afterlife or something like that. You may vehemently disagree with this goal, but if you accept that as a goal then this narrowly focused "think of the children" actually makes logical sense because the afterlife lasts a lot longer than this one does.
> but if you accept that as a goal then this narrowly focused "think of the children" actually makes logical sense because the afterlife lasts a lot longer than this one does.
The afterlife may last for a few minutes for all we know.
While I do agree with you that not everything neccesarily needs to be looked at and judged quantitatively, the deep dive into esoteric ideas such as the afterlife is misplaced.
You have missed the point. This is not about whether or not there is an afterlife. This is about getting to the root of the disagreement, which is not the sincerity or disingenuousness of the slogan "think of the children". It's about the weight people place on avoiding certain kinds of moral transgressions, and the fact that whose who do believe in an afterlife almost universally believe it is eternal.
