• w00tabaga@lemm.ee
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    Whataboutism is your best defense, and a poor attempt at that?

    Equating the two is hilarious. Even so I’m not excusing all the bullshit the US has done.

    At least I can say the US has done some terrible shit without getting arrested or killed. Try saying anything bad about Russia or Putin in Russia.

      • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
        ·
        11 months ago

        Leaking confidential information, as damning as it may be, is illegal.

        Again, try saying anything bad about Putin or Russia in Russia. At least I can speak freely and scream from the rooftops about the shitty parts of the US. Go ahead.

        • ImOnADiet@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          11 months ago

          no, he didn't leak shit, he published leaked information what the hell.

          and you can only do that right now because the ruling class isn't concerned about possible socialist revolution, I advise you to read up on the 1st and 2nd Red Scares!

          (also, who fucking cares if you can complain about something if you can't actually change the situation???)

          • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
            ·
            11 months ago

            So when a cop kills an innocent person I’m just not supposed to be upset?

            Again, I can spread the word and my viewpoint and not be arrested/killed, at least legally. It’s not like Biden or Trump could have had me killed for saying it.

            • Black AOC@lemmygrad.ml
              ·
              edit-2
              11 months ago

              The Uhuru House publically opposed the war effort in Ukraine and got raided, then had a bunch of their members locked up for allegedly being in cahoots with Russians. By default, your bullshit's refuted.

            • Grimble [he/him,they/them]
              ·
              11 months ago

              Whoa slow down, where did this cop come from? I swear you people are so morally bankrupt, you have to try and mindtrick someone into agreeing w/ a completely unrelated question. It's so jarring and deceitful to read

          • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
            ·
            11 months ago

            So when a cop kills an innocent person I’m just not supposed to be upset?

            Again, I can spread the word and my viewpoint and not be arrested/killed, at least legally. It’s not like Biden or Trump could have had me killed for saying it.

            • ImOnADiet@lemmygrad.ml
              ·
              edit-2
              11 months ago

              at least legally.

              in awe at this one. Once again, if they think you're a threat to state power do you think they give a single flying fuck about what's legal/illegal? do you think what's being done to Assange is actually legal? he didn't leak anything, he just published information given to him. Once again, if the there was a serious socialist threat to this country I promise you would be arrested/killed no matter what if it became known you were a vocal dissident, legality be damned

        • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
          ·
          11 months ago

          Damn thats crazy, the shit that might hurt the state is illegal(and therefore presumably justifiable to punish) while you get to do all the intellectual jerkoffs you want with no effect on anything?

          Real lucky you get to live in freedomland.

          • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
            ·
            11 months ago

            So saying you disagree with something your government did is hurting the state? Lol

        • Flinch [he/him]
          ·
          11 months ago

          At least I can say the US has done some terrible shit without getting arrested or killed.

          Leaking confidential information, as damning as it may be, is illegal.

          Do you see how these two statements cannot be true at the same time?

          • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
            ·
            11 months ago

            Again, purposely digging up confidential information and then exposing it is illegal.

            Talking realistically and honestly about something is freedom of speech.

            If you are that dense that you think those are the same things, then I might as well talk to a brick wall.

            • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
              ·
              edit-2
              11 months ago

              Again, purposely digging up confidential information and then exposing it is illegal.

              Going up to Snowden and saying "Erm, sir, you might have told us that the American government is spying on us every moment of our lives, but, erm, actshually, doing that was illegal, so unfortunately, sir, you are not epic and you don't deserve freedom of speech protections"

              what an absolute fucking dweeb, holy shit

              I will go tell Putin to make it "confidential information" that he's a bad person, then maybe you'll shut the fuck up for a single moment of your life because a bootlicker like you will be forced to obey it if you ever go there

              • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
                ·
                11 months ago

                Again, I don’t disagree and I find it commendable what both did exposing things.

                However, it is against the law. It’s not the same thing as free speech.

                • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  11 months ago

                  However, it is against the law. It’s not the same thing as free speech.

                  blob-no-thoughts Free speech is that speech which is legal

                • ElHexo [comrade/them]
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  Not reporting to the government that people were hiding Jews was illegal in certain countries in the 1940s, so I'm glad you're not in that time period because it sounds like you'd be reporting the lot of them

                • Ram_The_Manparts [he/him]
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  However, it is against the law. It’s not the same thing as free speech.

                  Yeah, because free speech isn't a real thing. That's the point. I very much doubt that there's even one semi-functional country on the planet that does not restrict speech to at least some degree.

        • silent_water [she/her]
          ·
          11 months ago

          At least I can say the US has done some terrible shit without getting arrested or killed

          Leaking confidential information, as damning as it may be, is illegal.

          so I gather from these two statements that the first is incorrect

        • GorbinOutOverHere [comrade/them]
          ·
          11 months ago

          At least I can speak freely and scream from the rooftops about the shitty parts of the US

          Someone's never heard of the Free Speech fights.

          You can and will be jailed just for saying shit, if people start to listen to you and you're saying the wrong shit. Your "freedom of speech" is as worthless as used toilet paper the moment a judge decides to issue an injunction against you i.e. the strikes in Harlan County in the 70s had judges jailing people for using the word "scab."

          Also fun fact I learned today, remember the Kent State Massacre? People were ordered to apologize for being shot just to get compensation, which only covered legal defenses. Land of the fucking free, lmao

          Leaking confidential information, as damning as it may be, is illegal.

          When your life is made illegal, what're you gonna do, liberal? Roll over for the bourgeois state like a good boy?

          • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
            ·
            11 months ago

            No, not at all.

            Freedom of speech protects you from being prosecuted for saying something.

            It doesn’t protect you from any other consequences of what you say.

            I did not say that you can say anything with no consequences whatsoever

        • WafflesTasteGood [he/him]
          ·
          11 months ago

          Rooftops are generally a good place to speek freely, even in an oppressive country.

          Try speaking about US atrocities at work. If you lose your job, you're not free.

          • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
            ·
            11 months ago

            I used to work for the US government and we all talked shit about it at work. So your making shit up

            • GorbinOutOverHere [comrade/them]
              ·
              11 months ago

              Working at the dmv and talking about how incompetent bureaucracy are isn't the kind of talking we're talking about

              Go work for a railroad and try to organize a general strike and tell me how safe you feel

              • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
                ·
                11 months ago

                I don’t feel like I’d be arrested or put to death if that’s what your asking?

              • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
                ·
                11 months ago

                I don’t feel like I’d be arrested or put to death if that’s what your asking?

                • nohaybanda [he/him]
                  ·
                  11 months ago

                  No, they’ll just let some freikorps freak run you over with impunity.

                  Just kidding, you’re too much of a bootlicker to ever go out and actually protest for the rights and life of others. Just having the hypothetical “right” is freedom enough.

              • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
                ·
                11 months ago

                I don’t feel like I’d be arrested or put to death if that’s what your asking?

                • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  11 months ago

                  people get arrested during strikes and protests all the time in America. of course, you would justify it as "actually they were breaking Clause 8 of Section 9A so it was against the law and they shouldn't have done it!" without questioning if that law might possibly have been drawn up specifically to punish those people because the government couldn't do it legally before. no, all laws in America come straight out of the Founding Father's dick as a glorious bukkake for us all to share freely, while in tyrannical states like Russia and China, all laws are to be questioned and/or drawn up by the supreme ruler himself because he was really extra totalitarian that day

                  never try idealism kids, it turns you into this

                  • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
                    ·
                    11 months ago

                    No, people get arrested for breaking other laws while they strike, big difference

                    • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]
                      ·
                      11 months ago

                      This comment was made after you were given a list of examples of such laws that included saying the word "scab" so there's really no excuse for your obstinance on this point specifically

        • UlyssesT [he/him]
          ·
          11 months ago

          Leaking confidential information, as damning as it may be, is illegal.

          The definition of right and wrong is always what is legal, that's why when the ruling class buys political power through lobbying and other corruption, the ruling class becomes more legally right in whatever they want to do! morshupls

        • ElHexo [comrade/them]
          ·
          11 months ago

          Leaking confidential information, as damning as it may be, is illegal.

          Julian Assange wasn't even fucking American or in America

          • CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml
            ·
            11 months ago

            silly communist, don't you know that AMERICAN law applies everywhere in the world? Heh, you really lack a geopolitical education and it shows 😎

            (I am being facetious pls don't block me)

        • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
          ·
          11 months ago

          At least I can speak freely and scream from the rooftops about the shitty parts of the US

          If you do this in the US you are getting a visit from the police

          • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            11 months ago

            that's impossible, the entire Russian army has been destroyed a hundred times now by Ukraine, over 15 million Russian troops have been killed last time I checked, there are no snipers left

            the Zaporozhye front is just the Ukrainians doing a giant war re-enactment of what would have happened if there were any Russians left alive, but due to the 1:984219 casualty ratio, there aren't any Russians left

            • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
              ·
              11 months ago

              you mean there are not snipers in every square meter of siberia watching out for siberian separatists?

          • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
            ·
            11 months ago

            He probably would if he could.

            Damn the butthurt Russians are out in force today.

            • btbt [he/him]
              ·
              edit-2
              11 months ago

              Imagine being so chauvinistic that you’re outright unable to conceive of the idea that someone might hold an opinion for any reason other than blind patriotism. You’ve become brainwashed to a point where you can’t imagine that the governments of the United States and its allies, which have been caught spreading or taking advantage of lie after lie after lie after lie after lie in order to achieve geopolitical victories over nations they considered to be a political or economic threat, might be lying in their characterization of the government of Russia, which has repeatedly stood in the way of American and Western European attempts to both expand into Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe politically, as well as exploit Ukraine economically.

              I need you to understand that I am not being hyperbolic when I say that you and people who share your views are what is wrong with humanity in the present day. As long as people like you continue to be either willing or gullible enough to keep believing the lies of a geopolitical block as untrustworthy as the United States and its allies solely because you are incapable of looking past your country’s propaganda and seeing your own leaders as anything other than the righteous beacons of humanity that they try to make themselves appear to be, humanity will almost certainly be doomed to enter pointless conflicts and cause mass destruction until we drive our own species off of a cliff.

            • Grimble [he/him,they/them]
              ·
              11 months ago

              You cant even meaningfully add to a joke bc youre so childishly resentful. You take this arguing so much more seriously than us while we just casually have the information youre missing, and it looks hilarious.

        • QueerCommie@lemmygrad.ml
          ·
          11 months ago

          Assange didn’t do anything illegal but even if he did you might as well be saying “criticizing Putin may the right thing do, but it’s illegal so you shouldn’t do it.”

        • Flaps [he/him]
          ·
          11 months ago

          You when the US commits war crimes: :)

          You when their war crimes are reported on: >:(

        • ThereRisesARedStar [she/her, they/them]
          ·
          11 months ago

          Leaking confidential information, as damning as it may be, is illegal.

          He didn't leak any info, he published already leaked info. There is an important legal distinction.

        • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]
          ·
          11 months ago

          There's lots of above ground opposition to Putin in Russia. Stop being a clown. There's plenty of real things to criticize. We don't need to make things up.

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]
          ·
          11 months ago

          Leaking confidential information, as damning as it may be, is illegal.

          Aside from that not being what he did, what does it matter morally that it's illegal? It was illegal to smuggle Jews out of Germany, too.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.ml
      hexagon
      ·
      11 months ago

      Whataboutism is just a rhetorical device trolls try to use to create a double standard for themselves and everyone else when faced with the fact that their side does all the same things they accuse others of. Meanwhile, imagine being such an utter ignoramus to be unaware of all the political violence that US does.

      • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
        ·
        11 months ago

        No, it’s because two wrongs don’t make a right. You can point out shit the US has done all day and I’ll probably agree with you. But it doesn’t make what Russia did okay.

        Yeah whataboutism is fucking removed. It’s no excuse or justification. It’s shit.

      • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
        ·
        11 months ago

        No, it’s because two wrongs don’t make a right. You can point out shit the US has done all day and I’ll probably agree with you. But it doesn’t make what Russia did okay.

        Yeah whataboutism is fucking removed. It’s no excuse or justification. It’s shit.

        • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          the problem isn't necessarily pointing out the problems with any particular country, that can be done as a legitimate discussion, what gets really fucking annoying is when people only talk about the problems with a certain country and then when questioned, are like "Oh, no! We also hate it when America does this thing! We're just talking about X country right now!" when that's clearly false. like, you say "Fuck China for having mass surveillance" on reddit and you get 100k upvotes, 20 platinum awards and some dude's firstborn son, whereas if you say "Fuck America for having mass surveillance" you'll get "Hm, well, you see, this is a complicated topic, because on the one hand..." or even just "Yeah, but it's nothing compared to China though!"

          the problem is also when what you're talking about is necessarily a comparison because no action exists in a vacuum free of context. if I say "The US is an awful, imperialist country that has invaded all these nations, and NATO has also invaded and destroyed nations, and we should not support them even if Russia is doing a bad thing because Russia's death toll is so much lower than the West's" then all I would get on most lib platforms is "That history doesn't matter! What matters is the here and now, when Russia is doing a bad thing and NATO currently, at this precise moment in time, is not! Bad things are bad things! You can't wave them away through context!"

          but the question isn't "Is Russia doing a bad thing", I don't think anybody would deny except the most fervent Russian nationalist that Russia has done at least some bad things in Ukraine, the question is "Who should we support in this war" and so the fact that NATO and the US has killed tens of millions of people within the lifetime of the current president and doomed hundreds of millions more to backbreaking labor in mines and plantations and sweatshops, and Russia, well, hasn't, is a perfectly pertinent point to make when asking who to support. This is also why liberals are so utterly gobsmacked when third-world countries don't come out against Russia, because they have been on the receiving end of this campaign of carnage that the US has wrought around the world and so, logically, think Russia is the lesser of two evils. can't they see that Russia is evil! can't they see that Putler is the devil doing a genocide!? they must be brainwashed by Russian disinformation propaganda! we must up our efforts to spread Correct Information!

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.ml
          hexagon
          ·
          11 months ago

          When your own country does the same and worse you have no moral high ground to criticize others, nor does it accomplish anything. As the saying goes, people living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Americans should focus on fixing their own country instead of playing world police.

    • GorbinOutOverHere [comrade/them]
      ·
      11 months ago

      Fun fact, the origin of "whataboutism" was its use as the phrase "whataboutery" during the Troubles in Ireland as the Irish accused the British of atrocities only to be dismissed as "whataboutery"

      Weird how it's always used as a thought terminating cliche to prevent criticism of the dominant empire, huh!

      Good thing it only works on idiots like you

      • w00tabaga@lemm.ee
        ·
        11 months ago

        Again, since you’re reading comprehension sucks…

        I’m not the one dismissing what any country has done. I’m saying they should both be held accountable.

        The fact that the comment I was originally replying to was using that justification goes along with what you just said… which is pointing out what someone else did is no justification for any action. They both should be taken for what they are and judged accordingly.

        • ZapataCadabra [he/him]
          ·
          11 months ago

          I'm gonna try to follow your logic in good faith. If both Russia and the US should be held accountable for their crimes, then who should actually hold them accountable?

          NATO is the international arm of the US military and it has committed war crimes over its entire decades of existence, some of the most recent ones in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. If the US is to be held equally accountable for their actions as the RF should be, then all NATO operations should be held under the same scrutiny.

          So by this logic how can you support a NATO in it's actions in Ukraine. Before Russia invaded, NATO was supported the bombing of the Donbass and the destruction of that region. If the US and NATO has a history of destabilizing regions through warfare for the benefit of the US, how can any of their actions be justified?

          • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
            ·
            11 months ago

            by the International Court of Good Guys, which will order Russia to totally rebuild Ukraine and give back Crimea and all the rest, and order the United States and NATO to give a heartfelt apology to the people of the countries they've invaded and whose governments they've overthrown (they won't do this)

    • lil_tank@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      If you say that to point the hypocrisy in someone's statement is a fallacy then everyone can just blame each other for basically anything and nothing constructive comes out.

      Oh you drink water? Hitler did too. What do you mean everyone drinks water? That's whataboutism

    • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]
      ·
      11 months ago

      I engage with some Russian language media, and people actually do express criticisms and critiques of Putin and the war without being arrested or killed.