US interference in other countries' elections is absolutely wrong. It is because it is wrong that I feel justified as a US citizen saying that other countries' interference in our elections is wrong, too.

If the citizens of Iran or Vietnam or Korea or Iraq have a right to be upset at a lack of political self-determination, so do I. Punishing the people of a country for the actions of the leaders they did not meaningfully choose is exactly why US interference is wrong.

And it is because I as an individual care about democracy that I oppose the actions of both my leaders and anyone else to override democracy.

"How much interaction is there, during, prior, or after election time, between the political or intelligence arms of the USA"

Great question. We don't know, because either we don't get caught or doesn't happen to begin with.

We can make up all sorts of conspiracies, but Russia got caught so the conversation starts there.

Here's a wiki page listing the US interference in foreign elections that we know about.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_interventi...

> How much interaction is there, during, prior, or after election time, between the political or intelligence arms of the USA, and the politicians of any country in which the USA chooses to meddle in?

Probably a level which should induce intense concerns in citizens of those countries if they already had a democracy to protect in the first place.

But thanks for the textbook display of Whataboutism.

No, what I've described is a textbook example of blatant hypocrisy.

Whataboutism is pointing at an unrelated problem, to divert attention from your problem. "But what about African Americans getting beaten!" to draw attention from bread lines and GULAGs - that sort of thing.

This is an incredibly related problem. The two cannot be discussed in isolation. This is quite literally, one of the top countries for 'interference in democratic elections' having an issue with its election being interfered with by a foreign power (In a relatively[1] minor way.)

Notice how none of the talking heads or politicians are taking a principled stance against interference with elections - they are just taking a stance against interference with their elections.

[1] Relatively, in terms of impact, effort expended, size of the United States.

> No, what I've described is a textbook example of blatant hypocrisy.

Yes, the accusation you've launched is one of blatant hypocrisy; the use of such accusations against those raising an issue as distraction technique to draw attention away from the issue raised is exactly the definition of Whataboutism.

Even when the accusations are indisputably true and relevant?

> Even when the accusations are indisputably true and relevant?

You can probably construct an argument where the hypocrisy of some speaker advancing the argument would itself actually be relevant to the argument being advanced [0], but that's almost never the case in any real discussion; instead Whataboutism (and then tu quoque fallacy more generally) has the same rhetorical purpose as guilt by association or as hominem; create a negative emotional charge attached to some group associated with an argument, and use that to get people to dismiss the argument without considering it's merits.

The accusations in the motivating instances for naming Whataboutism were often both indisputably true and the same type of wrong as the act they served to distract from.(which is as close to relevance as charges of hypocrisy get.) They were still fallacious, just as this one is, irrespective of its truth or.degree of analogy.

[0] e.g., if the argument specifically included as a key point that the speaker did not engage in hypocrisy.

So, in your opinion, moral authority isn't a thing?

You can cry "whataboutism" all you want when confronted with examples like these ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... ), but don't be surprised or dismayed when no one listens.

> So, in your opinion, moral authority isn't a thing?

Sure, it's a “thing”, specifically a name based on rationalization given to the cognitive filtering mechanism which a number of fallacies, notably as hominem and tu quoque, target.

But it's never relevant to the merits of the argument; targeting moral authority is always an effort to avoid consideration of the merits of the argument.

So, your point is valid, but it only applies to robots, not people. Is that pretty much the right way to view it?

If so, I sympathize. I get that a lot, myself.