Crimes worthy of death should not be trivialized
If you must insult someone, do not minimize the heinousness of a crime worthy of death.
Whatever happened to simply calling someone a jerk, or calling someone a name that is much more colorful or even obscene? This is a legitimate question. I never thought I would long for the days when people were just screaming the F word at each other, but the last decade and the corrupting influence of the QAnon cult on our politics has actually made me nostalgic for people calling each other obscene names.
If you are not familiar with QAnon, it is a conspiracy theory that originated on notorious troll site 4Chan. In what was very likely feces-posting, the "Q clearance patriot" (or "Q" for short) and his followers claim that there is a cabal of satanic pedophiles that run our government and most of the world. This was then picked up in more mainstream circles outside of 4Chan. There is a very strong element of anti-Semitism in this conspiracy theory, as many claims are recycled from "blood libel" that cast Jews as evil child killers.
Here is a hint: If you are taking anything on the Internet's most notorious troll site seriously, you need to take a step back and re-evaluate whether you are a very gullible person.
The corrosive influence of QAnon is why one of the most common insults I see in political arguments is "pedophile." If you disagree with someone politically, that person is a "pedo." Both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of this, though it is more common on the Right. This is a terrible thing to say. First, because you are literally saying that someone who disagrees with you politically needs to be executed. No, I am not using hyperbole, and I am not lacking a sense of proportion. Most people would agree that child molesters should be executed. If someone disagrees with you on the benefits of a flat tax vs. a consumption tax, you call him a name that indicates he should be hanged from a tree until dead.
Second, it is terrible because it is making that word meaningless. Back in the 1990's, a common refrain was that "a racist is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal." Because of overuse, the word "pedophile" is starting to become as meaningless as the word "racist." In modern political debates, a "pedophile" is not someone who has abused a child, but someone you disagree with politically. Overusing that word minimizes the heinousness of a crime that is literally worthy of the death penalty. It betrays and abandons the suffering of actual victims of predators by turning the horrible crime committed against them into a political insult. This is depraved and perverted and it needs to stop right now.
Child sexual abuse is a horrific crime. It is literally worthy of the death penalty. It causes horrendous pain to victims and lifelong suffering. It warps the victims' perception of the world and leads them to a self-destructive path or even becoming abusers themselves. That is why people need to stop using "pedophile" as a political insult. The suffering of innocent victims should never be used as a political insult, and minimizing the heinousness of this crime is an evil act. It would be far better to scream obscenities than to continue using the word "pedophile" as a political cudgel. (That is not good either, but is not as bad.) Knock it off.