Americans can never call out human rights abuses because of slavery. The British can never because of colonialism. Period. Forever.
If you find this line of argumentation compelling there’s no discussing anything with you.
Sinking half a dozen ships in international waters is a crime.
Sanity would ask for intercepting those boats in your waters, and that's it, controlling what's in them, who are these people and send them in front of a court if they breached your law, on your soil (or waters).
Yet we are at the point nobody raises the voice where sinking civilian ships on the basis it's drug smugglers (without providing a proof, let alone the fact that even if it was true it's still insane) has any leftover of decency or justice.
Or calling for the annexation of Greenland and Panama by any means.
Or bombing Iran on the basis that it's developing nuclear weapons on behalf of the Israeli government (which is an act of war if Iran could wage it, the US does not get to decide who can have a nuclear weapon and who does not).
The list of breaches in decency or law is basically infinite.
Instead of letting more countries develop these weapons, we should work on denuclearizing all countries, starting with the US and Russia and their insane arsenals! And maybe build a unified international legal framework for civilian nuclear developments and applications from energy to medical outside of the "security council's" ferule!
A nuclear war cannot be won, thus never fought!
Not unilaterally by Israel calling the world's superpower for help.
Your logic is as sound as "since my neighbor makes something illegal at home, I'm gonna shoot him and then call my buddy sheriff for help". It is obviously illegal.
I was replying to "the US does not get to decide who can have a nuclear weapon and who does not". As much as I agree with that... my previous comment.
We're not talking about a nuclear program.
Citation needed.
https://freespeechunion.org/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for...
Neither are quite the same thing as railroading a government critic for "sedition"
What's the solution? The alternative, where we can't criticize our governments on account of their hypocrisies and imperfections, robs citizens of their check against an institution with a monopoly on violence.
> Americans can never call out human rights abuses because of slavery. The British can never because of colonialism. Period. Forever.
There's certainly a difference between holding countries responsible for events that have long since ceased and holding a government responsible for double standards practiced presently. The UK lacks credibility on Hong Kong when its own citizens are being jailed on the basis of overbroad hate speech regulations and when its government agencies attempt to claim extraterritorial jurisdiction over the operation of foreign social media companies. Westminister can't be so empty-headed as to believe that its actions will go unnoticed by other governments.
If the point in bringing up the hypocrisy is to end or distract the discussion, it is whataboutism. However, if the point is to compare two instances of a thing to make a point it’s fair game imo.
There is nothing logically wrong with hypocrisy. I tell my toddlers not to do stuff I do all the time.
The problem with hypocrisy comes when one party is assumed to have more rights than the other. In this case, why would Britain (or the US's) government be allowed to be more corrupt than China's?
I assume Britain is brought up due to the British government's historic role in Hong Kong and China.