No, not really. It is perfectly possible to discuss many different issues without having to think of an answer for numerous X, Y, or Z issues that someone else brings up in order to distract you from the point.
The issue is that whenever people do this, they almost always aren't interested in solving the issue. Instead they are looking to dismiss the problem that you brought up, by using whataboutism.
This is the most common way for someone to try and get you to stop caring about an issue. There will always be an excuse that someone can throw at you, so that they can dismiss the problem that you brought up.
> This is very harmful.
The harmful thing is instead the people who are trying to prevent the problems from being solved, by distracting people from the things that they bring up.
> How can the U.S. and its people in good conscience decry other countries' actions
If bad things are happening, I want those bad thing to stop. And I am never going to accept someone pointing to a different bad thing, in order to defend against some other bad thing from happening.
Less bad things should be the goal. And this strategy of whataboutism just distracts from that.
You cannot simply dismiss hypocrisy as whataboutism. Apparently you and everyone else throwing around this term would dismiss the common phrase of "look inward first" as whataboutism.
Thats fine. But if you are going to do that, what you should do is say "Yes, the issue you brought up is definitely bad, and I agree with you that it should be solved, and you are 100% right about it. Also, here is another problem that should also be solved".
If you are going to 100% agree with me, and say that I am right for bringing up a certain problem, and also point to a related problem, thats fine.
But if you don't say "Yes you are right. The thing you brought up is very bad, and it should stop", then it comes off as an attempt to dismiss or delegitimize the very important problem that someone previously brought up.
So great. Fine. Maybe the other thing you brought should also be solved. But that does not at all dismiss the original issue and the original issue should still be solved, and the original points that were made are correct.
I am still 100% completely justified, in every way, to bring up the original problem, and if someone is saying that the original problem that was brought up should not be solved, then that person is still completely wrong, regardless of the fact that you brought up a different problem that maybe should be solved.
That reason is that to understand how to solve problems elsewhere, you first need to understand how to solve the same type of problems in your neck of the woods. The U.S. spent the latter half of the 20th century and has continued since then exporting its way of doing things through military action. For example, I recently learned of Salvador Allende. He was a president of Chile that won a democratic election based upon his socialist campaign. He said what he was going to do and was elected by the people. The U.S. tried for years to thwart his election, and when he won, the U.S. directly supported, if not organized and enacted, a coup that ended in success, for the coup, and Allende taking his own life upon being surrounded. This is sickening. How can the U.S. and its people in good conscience decry other countries' actions when we do the same thing to other countries beyond our own borders? The U.S. still holds prisons that imprisons foreigners without charge and without cause. How can the U.S. decry China for imprisoning its own citizens? I am not supporting anything here. I am merely trying to explain that things matter and are connected, and you cannot view things with tunnel vision.
The other reason is one of perception. If the U.S. wants change in China and elsewhere, one needs to understand the political and social repercussions of one's own actions. This is called if you want to talk the talk, you must walk the walk. The U.S. primarily talks the talk while the rest of the world sees how the U.S. does not walk the walk. The U.S. does the very things it decries in another countries. This is very harmful.