The "Divert attention" effect.

I am going to name it the "Divert attention" effect. And every time you see this in another post, you point the people responsible to this thread.

The "Divert Attention" effect; is an effect where a person disagrees with you on something he/she is involved in, and instead of explaining why it's done that way, or agreeing/disagreeing that it is a problem, the first thing they do is point out a person/organization/country who is an even worse example of it, using that as justification for the actions of that which they are involved in.

Example :

Accuser : "Your country has performed (attrocious action)."
Diverter : "Yeah, well (insert notoriously bad country) did (attrocious action) alot more than my country"



This is an aweful method of thought. Essentially what they are trying to do is find a way to divert attention away from the actions of their country instead of addressing the actions directly.
In effect what they are actually portraying is the idea that it is ok that their country has done these (attrocious actions), because someone elses country has done it more.



Personally, I think of this form of thought along the lines of : justifying raping people, because someone out there is raping people, AND killing them afterwards... and you aren't that bad.