Not to go all wHaTaBoUtIsM but I don't think it's very effective when someone is criticizing an AES country to just respond with "Well America does it too/also did something bad" if the conversation isn't about directly comparing the two. It can be effective if done right but it often isn't.
Yeah I think this arises from a fundamental gulf in understanding between the leftist and non-leftist. From the leftist end, it seems obvious that the other party’s opinions are formed by US capitalist propaganda (corpo media and mainstream HS history), so pointing out America’s flagrant hypocrisy when it comes to human rights seems obviously relevant to try and make them question the credibility of the info they’re leaning on. But from the other side, they think their opinions have been formed by Objective and Trustworthy neutral sources, so playing the comparison game seems like a diversion or like it comes out of left field.
I do that sometimes, typically when the capitalist gets preachy and tries to moralize at me / scold me for supporting communism. It is deeply frustrating for me to have capitalists try to condescend to me morally, so I try to bring up capitalist wrongdoings to knock them off their high horse. Which never works, because they just pay lip service to capitalist countries wrongdoing and double down on still somehow being better (typically some dog-shit about "but their own people! We do it to foreigners, who don't count!").
Not to go all wHaTaBoUtIsM but I don't think it's very effective when someone is criticizing an AES country to just respond with "Well America does it too/also did something bad" if the conversation isn't about directly comparing the two. It can be effective if done right but it often isn't.
Yeah I think this arises from a fundamental gulf in understanding between the leftist and non-leftist. From the leftist end, it seems obvious that the other party’s opinions are formed by US capitalist propaganda (corpo media and mainstream HS history), so pointing out America’s flagrant hypocrisy when it comes to human rights seems obviously relevant to try and make them question the credibility of the info they’re leaning on. But from the other side, they think their opinions have been formed by Objective and Trustworthy neutral sources, so playing the comparison game seems like a diversion or like it comes out of left field.
I do that sometimes, typically when the capitalist gets preachy and tries to moralize at me / scold me for supporting communism. It is deeply frustrating for me to have capitalists try to condescend to me morally, so I try to bring up capitalist wrongdoings to knock them off their high horse. Which never works, because they just pay lip service to capitalist countries wrongdoing and double down on still somehow being better (typically some dog-shit about "but their own people! We do it to foreigners, who don't count!").