Consider the term "whataboutery"? It's rhetorical weaponry.
If you say to me: “you did X”. I respond "well, what about Y?”. You say "that's just whataboutery". Zing.
The Latin term is tu quoque.
Ever since I read about the tu quoque fallacy I've been leery of it. I don't like it. It's a too easy way out of a jam.
But I gotta admit it's very useful to call out hypocrisy.
As here. The Left goes crazy on Brunei for its murderous anti-gay sharia law. Rightly so. It will kill gays. By stoning them to death. Lovely. The mercy of Islam.
But the bigger question is — and hence the whataboutery — what about anti-gay treatment in the Middle East? (Israel aside).
The horrid reality is that the only gay-friendly place in the Middle East, Israel, is slandered for its gay friendly policies. They say it's using "pinkmail" to deflect from its "crimes" against Palestinians. That is, that it's only gay-friendly to deflect attention. The reality is that Israel is gay friendly for the same reasons it's democratic. Values. And Palestinians are anti-gay - as is Brunei - for the same reason. Values. Islamic values.
And that's certainly something worth saying "what about?".
