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I think this comment is a bit too downvoted for how well-referenced it is. Can people who disagree comment instead of downvoting? I'd be interested to know if s

I think this comment is a bit too downvoted for how well-referenced it is. Can people who disagree comment instead of downvoting? I'd be interested to know if some/all of the claims are untrue, but driveby downvoting doesn't help discussion.

jcranmer 6y ago
A few of them are untrue (I pointed out one claim in my sibling comment), or at the very least, written in such a way as to give an impression that is not true. The downvoting here is, I assume, largely because it's sanctimonious whataboutism. And in general, you're combining two logical fallacies (both the sanctimonious part and the whataboutism), and many such lists can tend to delve into "I'm cherry-picking only the evidence that I want to see and ignoring anything that disagrees with my viewpoint." It is amusing to me what is not on this list. I'm surprised there's no mention of Smedley Butler's War is a Racket, or Noah Chomsky's well-known views on the Vietnam War and the US media's involvement with it. I'm especially bemused by the lack of any mention to the drone assassination program, most tied to Obama--perhaps because every media mention of it inevitably criticizes it, so it doesn't work well as a "your government is doing evil stuff that you don't know about" example?
- yogthos 6y ago
  Saying whataboutism is simply trolling and not a form of argument. Claiming a country does X implies that what it's doing is somehow an outlier, and that "good" countries don't use such tactics. Nobody is refuting the points about China, however those have to be seen in context of what other countries, such as US are doing. When it's not in any way abnormal behaviour then singling out China is just pure hypocrisy, and it's a disingenuous argument. The context of discussion here is the parent comment asking whether there are recent examples of US actions that even compare in scale or scope. So, it's a little weird to screech about whataboutism when those examples are provided. Meanwhile, it would take multiple books to list all of the known US atrocities, so I just picked a small sample there.

jcranmer 6y ago

A few of them are untrue (I pointed out one claim in my sibling comment), or at the very least, written in such a way as to give an impression that is not true. The downvoting here is, I assume, largely because it's sanctimonious whataboutism. And in general, you're combining two logical fallacies (both the sanctimonious part and the whataboutism), and many such lists can tend to delve into "I'm cherry-picking only the evidence that I want to see and ignoring anything that disagrees with my viewpoint." It is amusing to me what is not on this list. I'm surprised there's no mention of Smedley Butler's War is a Racket, or Noah Chomsky's well-known views on the Vietnam War and the US media's involvement with it. I'm especially bemused by the lack of any mention to the drone assassination program, most tied to Obama--perhaps because every media mention of it inevitably criticizes it, so it doesn't work well as a "your government is doing evil stuff that you don't know about" example?

yogthos 6y ago
Saying whataboutism is simply trolling and not a form of argument. Claiming a country does X implies that what it's doing is somehow an outlier, and that "good" countries don't use such tactics. Nobody is refuting the points about China, however those have to be seen in context of what other countries, such as US are doing. When it's not in any way abnormal behaviour then singling out China is just pure hypocrisy, and it's a disingenuous argument. The context of discussion here is the parent comment asking whether there are recent examples of US actions that even compare in scale or scope. So, it's a little weird to screech about whataboutism when those examples are provided. Meanwhile, it would take multiple books to list all of the known US atrocities, so I just picked a small sample there.