You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time ... but in general, while people may be fooled by The Onion a few times, they tend to learn and do better in the future. - Abraham Lincoln - Michael Scott

This I think, is the source of much of the disagreement:

1) whether content should be judged on it's intended vs perceived meaning

2) whether we should make an effort to reduce everything to be understandable to the lowest common denominator.