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by hypertele-Xii
1456 days ago
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I glanced at the latest amendments to the UK bill and it includes such ridiculousnesses as the possibility of 1 year imprisonment for stealing a traffic sign, and the right for police to search your person for carrying a lock. Your original comment is still textbook whataboutism, however, and deserves its downvotes for that reason alone. |
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There is no problem with 'whataboutism'. Entire Angloamerican common law is based on whataboutism. Based on precedents and prior tradition.
Especially in such cases of moral, ethical or civil comparison, 'what about' is a fundamental question to ask in order to establish a logical and neutral framework. Otherwise all comparisons become meaningless and all the accusations that are levied on that framework become plain old which hunt and smears.
As in this case - Occupy protesters were beaten on the ground and hooked up with tens of thousands of dollars of fines in 2011, through an FBI-coordinated crackdown campaign that encompassed 30+ cities in the US, but hey - the US is still 'somehow' democratic. And still lectures and even smears everyone else about democracy.
Leave aside persecuting a foreign journalist for exposing its war crimes - along with its satellite UK, supposedly a beacon of freedom and democracy. Which went so far as to just violate its own laws to extradite Assange, based on the 'opinion' of the judge who 'just' found it 'okay'.
Moral, ethical comparisons require an objective framework. If one doesnt provide that, people challenge it by asking 'what about'.