Is this the dumbest whataboutery deflection ever?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I saw it on the comments to John Oliver's anti-Putin piece. At one point he showed a clip from Russian state TV with a guy preaching horrible anti-gay hate speech.

Comment: *blah blah lots of stuff about how the US isn't any better than Russia*...there's lots of people preaching anti-gay stuff on US TV too! They're called televangelists, and often even dressed like that guy.

That's the sort of thing that makes you wish you could reach through the computer and strangle the moron saying it.

[Goldwater]

Yeah, I generally find those "The US is just as bad!" argument very annoying, especially when the subject is something like gay rights and the comparison is someplace like the the Middle East.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Look harder.

[Figueira]

Yeah, I generally find those "The US is just as bad!" argument very annoying, especially when the subject is something like gay rights and the comparison is someplace like the the Middle East.

Or when people say "Saudi Arabia is worse!" when arguing about Russia. Which is true, but the point is they're both awful.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, I generally find those "The US is just as bad!" argument very annoying, especially when the subject is something like gay rights and the comparison is someplace like the the Middle East.

Or when people say "Saudi Arabia is worse!" when arguing about Russia. Which is true, but the point is they're both awful.

^^^

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Yeah, I generally find those "The US is just as bad!" argument very annoying, especially when the subject is something like gay rights and the comparison is someplace like the the Middle East.

Or when people say "Saudi Arabia is worse!" when arguing about Russia. Which is true, but the point is they're both awful.

-No.

[Devout Centrist]

But guys the west is morally superior, stop whining, Saudi Arabia exists you know!

[White Trash]

Yeah, I generally find those "The US is just as bad!" argument very annoying, especially when the subject is something like gay rights and the comparison is someplace like the the Middle East.

Reminds me of the "but they lynch negroes in America" argument that was so common among Soviet sympathizers.

[Figueira]

Yeah, I generally find those "The US is just as bad!" argument very annoying, especially when the subject is something like gay rights and the comparison is someplace like the the Middle East.

Or when people say "Saudi Arabia is worse!" when arguing about Russia. Which is true, but the point is they're both awful.

-No.

On LGBT rights, yes.

[Kingpoleon]

I don't know, but Russia.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Hilariously I actually do remember some people trying to argue after Russia passed that "gay propaganda" law that the US was just as bad on gay rights, for reasons like that at the time gay marriage wasn't legal in every state, or because some anti-gay hate crimes still took place in the US, or something about American evangelicals in countries like Uganda, because of course the actions of a few churches and pastors in foreign countries is definitely comparable to actual government policy. And of course Uganda was a very gay-friendly place before American evangelical leaders started developing interests in it, obviously.