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Comment by antocv | Hacker News Reader

Did you say the same thing when US downed a diplomatic flight by Bolivian president in 2013? Honestly, did you say this is not allowed to stand? To down a presidents plane in Vienna just because US thought Snowden was on that flight? Answer truthfully.

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Yes, many people did. Why are you baselessly accusing the parent of hypocrisy?

Did parent say the same about the bolivian presidents plane?

That was a direct order from the self proclaimed president. The plane was 10 min away from Vilnius airport but the fighter jet was closer. Do you understand the difference? And btw there is a high chance the journalist will be executed.

“To down” a plane makes it sound like it was shot down.

I thought this should not stand yes. Not sure if I said so publicly at the time. I was less active on fora.

PS: I am a Snowden supporter though :) I think he did us a great service. I'm not American but he exposed the extent to which our details are shared with US intelligence agencies.

I certainly denounced it, but also keep in mind that the president's plane was not "downed" in nearly the same fashion. Nobody forced the plane to land in any particular spot, and (if you believe Morales) no one searched the plane.

You cannot justify actions using other wrong actions.

Everyone in politics do that all the time.

Forget politics, let's turn to normal people. Illicit actions of criminals justify the use of policing force on them in all countries of the world.

The actions are the same: coercion through force, basically. In one case they are wrong (criminal), in other case they are good and justified by wrong actions (policing).

Whataboutism is a lazy rhetoric device, the term was literally coined by Kasparov about Soviet dictator apologists.

This is the definitive analysis of "whataboutism":

https://theoutline.com/post/8610/united-states-russia-whatab...

What about other analysis?

This also seems definitive: https://cjlockett.com/2021/01/10/the-rhetorical-laziness-of-...

Too much on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand to be definitive. He concludes that every example of a centrist democrat doing whataboutism is fine and every example of anyone else doing it as not fine. I'm sure that will convince lots of centrist democrats. The very idea of having a Donald-vs-Bill sexual-assault contest without even mentioning Tara Reade says all we need to know about this person's judgment. To be fair, the first sentence does that too.

Cool. Well you just wasted at least ten minutes of your life thinking about something that I posted disingenuously in order to demonstrate that whataboutism is about distraction rather than have me trying to stay on topic and directly address your points. In a meta way I suppose I did.

Clearly you didn't "waste" any time reading the link I provided. b^) We agree completely on the topic of "whataboutism".

I skimmed it and disagreed with it. Generally, if you can't win an argument based on logic, and then emotional appeals, then you can fall back on jurisdiction. You can attack the other person's credibility (you have no jurisdiction), proclaim that no resolution is possible, the world is too complex (we don't have jurisdiction), or as I now realize whataboutism means this is the right jurisdiction, but nothing you said matters because we're arguing the wrong topic. So yeah, whataboutism is the argument of last resort. Ergo, the one used by people who don't have a good argument.

This is literally not a whatabout since we are discussing the same actions here, forcing an airplane down and breaking international laws, norms and traditions.

Let us try to decide if some of the posters here are hypocrites or not.

That’s exactly what whataboutism is for. Accusing someone of being a hypocrite without addressing the actual point at all.

Edit: and with zero evidence that they might even be a hypocrite in the first place...

The point is about precedent.

Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Disproving an argument is not a prerequisite for exposing hypocrisy, these acts can be done separately. And if the other party doesn't address the accusation of hypocrisy there might not be a need for disproving the argument to them, as their position might be politically motivated and not aimed at resolving the issue in principle.

If Charles Manson had said murder was wrong, we might have doubted his sincerity but hardly the point of the actual statement.

in this case, it is more akin to Charles Manson condemning Shoko Asahara for cult activity, and dismissing his "then why are you doing it?" as "whataboutism".

It is important to know whether the condemning party applies the same standards to their own activities, because there's no possibility of resolving the issue at hand without both parties applying the same principles and standards on everyone, including themselves. And dismissing the significance of this knowledge as "whataboutism" is short-sighted, because it's the tool of establishing standards of morality, and it gives a hint to third parties about the nature of their neighbours involved in the dispute.

"There is a precedent and the precedent was followed" is the other sides argument.

That is what the term means in popular culture, but what are the implications?

In practice it means that the side who accuses first (currently mostly SJWs) gets to speak and attack others while using "whataboutism" as a shield to shut up their opponents.

So let's be clear. The US didn't "down" anyone -- the US does not have jurisdiction over any of the airspace in question:

> The day after his TV interview, Morales's Dassault Falcon 900, carrying him back to Bolivia from Russia, took off from Vnukovo Airport, but was rerouted to Austria when France, Spain, Portugal and Italy[2] reportedly denied access to their airspace, allegedly due to suspicions that Snowden was on board.

I'm sure the US applied diplomatic pressure, but those countries are all developed, rich economies who were perfectly capable of saying no and preserving their sovereignty. It was done with full consent of the countries in question.

Evo Morales' plane wasn't grounded by anybody; they chose to land, with a suspiciously convenient reason. Given Evo Morales whole anti-imperialist persona, and how he hyped his support for Snowden (appearing to consider offering Snowden asylum on a public TV interview just a day before, to hammer it home), and the fact that it's not even really clear which countries actually denied access to their airspace (the Bolivian account is disputed), and that nobody forced the plane to land or even requested it to, you kind of have to conclude that this was a political stunt by Evo Morales.

To put it this was: the US and it's allies were played for fools, highlighting their unreasonableness. But in no way shape or form is this similar to the current situations in anything but the most superficial sense.

Ryanair plane wasnt grounded by anbody, they just chose to land in Belarus.

That however, is not true; the air traffic control in Belarus directed them to land in Belarus; and scrambled fighter jets to intimidate them into compliance.

A kidnapping is not the same thing as denying entry; nor are the victims equally reasonable even if the crime were - a civilian plane vs. that of a diplomat that wanted to pick exactly this fight.

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