> the common reply I see to "this country does bad stuff" reduces to "well this country does bad stuff too!" It's not pedantic if you care about being rational

> the common reply I see to "this country does bad stuff" reduces to "well this country does bad stuff too!" It's not pedantic if you care about being rational. This act is a common logical fallacy called the "tu quoque fallacy": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque Why is this a fallacy? Suppose country A is accused of doing something bad. It's logically irrelevant to that question whether some other country B also has done something bad. To see it more clearly, take the same fallacy on an individual level. Person A is accused of murdering someone. Is it a valid defense to say "Well, my neighbor Person B also murdered someone, therefore it's OK that I did"? No, of course not. It's totally irrelevant whether someone else -- even the accuser -- has also murdered someone. Yet making this fallacious counter-accusation is often effective in terms of emotional (i.e. irrational) manipulation of the audience, particularly when they are predisposed against B in some way.