Whenever the United States criticizes or sanctions other nations for their human-rights abuses (such as China’s detention of Uighur Muslims in camps or crackdown in Hong Kong,) there are always a considerable number of Americans who argue, “We have no business criticizing others for their abuses; we ourselves detain migrants in cages, cracked down on protests in Portland, disenfranchise black voters, etc.”
While this is certainly true, such an approach does nothing to help the people actually being abused abroad. A Uighur being tortured in a Chinese concentration camp would certainly derive no comfort from being informed that the U.S. (or some other Western nation) has decided not to do anything to help on his behalf because they would be a hypocrite to do so.
It would be akin to someone who refuses to intervene when finding out that their neighbor is being physically violent to his wife, because he himself hasn’t treated his wife well, either.
Now, the argument that the United States should clean up its own act is perfectly valid - but many of these “we are hypocrites” Americans seem to be going a step further: They don’t want the U.S. to intervene in human-rights abuses situations abroad until it has fully cleaned up its act at home. That could take years, decades, or forever, given the myriad grievances or issues going on in the U.S. at any given moment. Is America supposed to do nothing about human-rights situations abroad in the interim meantime?
I would strongly suggest bring up some examples. And in the absence of those I would suggest that most people who say “we are human rights abusers too”, don’t intend to imply “we shouldn’t criticize”, and that even the ones that do imply that come in at least two flavors that you are conflating.
One group are the ones who think US human rights abuses are if not good, then at least necessary and that criticism of foreign abuses diminishes their ability to argue against policies trying to reduce those outcomes domestically.
Another group are those who think those abuses are bad anywhere, and are calling out specific speakers for criticizing foreign abuses, while, at best, ignoring, policy efforts to reduce abuses domestically. So it’s not so much “we shouldn’t criticize” as it is “you/your part/group shouldn’t criticize”.
You mean like back in the '80’s when Ronald Reagan condemned the Soviet Union for trying to crush out the Polish trade union “Solidarity” when he himself had crushed out the air traffic controllers union?
I think that’s exactly the sort of thing the OP is getting at. Equating Air traffic Controllers in a dispute with their employer (the federal gov’t) and a Communist dictatorship suppressing an entire society.
I think a counter-argument is that we have a greater ability to fix problems here in America than we have in other countries. So while the Uighurs in China might be worse off than the detainees in America, our protests are much more likely to help the detainees than they are to help the Uighurs. It’s a question not only of determining where the worst problem is but also of determining where you can do the most good.
while i generally agree with you, again i would not equate the Uighers with “detainees” in the US (AKA people charged with various crimes, provided with a lawyer, an open court system, etc)
So yes i think its perfectly reasonable to want the the US to be the best US it can be, but don’t conflate the PRC with what we have going on here.
A society that isn’t perfect on the subject of human rights (i.e. those of the U.S. and European countries) is thus fatally flawed and in no position to call attention to human rights abuses anywhere, no matter how horrific.