Moral equivalence is used by some to say that two events are morally as bad as each other, they’re no worse than each other, they are morally equal. For example, 9/11 is as bad as US foreign policy (see here for more analysis); if 12 Mohammed cartoons are morally acceptable so is Holocaust denial (see here for an analysis); and Israeli or Iraqi occupation is as bad as the situation in Dafur, Sudan.

When westerners in the form of the US gov’t or Tony Blair, or “pro-Israeli writers” (as they’re often judged) defend the position that the two events in question are not on the same moral level, these people are sometimes then accused of “avoiding the issue” and using the moral equivalence argument simply to deflect attention away from the fallout from their policies.

Nick Cohen wrote an excellent article here in the Observer, two points from which are:

(1) self-criticism of democratic states is prudent and healthy and should continue

Quite rightly, the crimes of American, British, European and Israeli democracy are dissected and denounced.

(2) using self-criticism as an escape from criticism-of-the-other when the other is China, Sudan, Iran, North Korea, and Syria is a mere exercise in self-blame and to justify it because democracies must be held to higher standards, then

you inevitably betray the victims of dictatorships by blocking your mind from thinking clearly and shouting loudly about their suffering.

Robert Sharp says in reply to me here that he completely agrees with Nick Cohen:

I reiterate that I agreed with every word of Nick Cohen’s article.

but then in the last paragraph of his article here he defends the position that democracies should be held to higher standards than regimist states:

…the nature of moral arguments really only applies (by its very nature, I think) to governments such as that of Israel, the USA and the UK, rather than China, North Korea, and Sudan (to use some of Cohen’s examples). This is important, because I really want to write about why the former set of countries should be held to a higher standard - because we are responsible for them.

which is not what Nick Cohen is saying.

Robert Sharp then follows this up here with another blog entry asking “Who are we responsible for?” attempting to show that we hold the US, UK and Israel to higher standards because we ‘love’ them more and identify with them culturally.

And if you feel close to someone, or something, it matters to you that they are the best, the very best that they can be. We hold them to a higher standard. We do not wish to see any faults.

Apart from the factual errors to which I responded here and a reiteration of Cohen’s point by Escobar here that Sharp is unwittingly advocating caring less about third-world problems, Sharp just can’t accept that the one-sided über-criticism stems from jealousy, hatred, prejudice, mis-information, or an academic version of twister (where everyone’s tied up in guilt-ridden knots); instead, according to Sharp, it stems from our subjective emotive hearts filled with love. Okay, so someone should certainly tell Hallmark about this guy, that’s for sure, but more importantly isn’t this just a pathological form of liberal cognitive egocentrism (LCE)?

In Robert Sharp’s mind we exist on a higher moral plain which we must maintain no matter the cost to those on that lower moral plain somewhere in that vast desert wasteland that is the killing fields of Sudan. Besides, according to Sharp:

Why waste more breath on the USA, or Israel? Because we have a shared language, a shared culture, we believe their policy-makers will listen. We believe they will take into account the things we say.

So all the USA, UK, and Israel have to do is stop listening to us (as if they always do anyway!) and they can get away with bloody murder just like Sudan, China, North Korea, and Iran. What a solution!

If this doesnt ream on enough, Robert Sharp ends with what is probably the most problematic. He ends with:

That means scrutinising and challenging [the UK/US/Isr] at every step. Only then we can support them with a clear conscience when they take on a radioactive Iran, or any of the tin-pot dictators … that stain the earth.

In other words, our governments must have not a blemish on their records, not a word or a bomb or a hair out of place, we must be morally perfect before we can support ourselves with a clear conscience and take on the mass-murderous despots that dictate over the lives of more than half the world’s population, instead of just pointing out that at the very least two wrong don’t make a right.

This is a qualification of Masochistic Omnipotence Syndrome (MOS) for sure!

It is precisely because of organisations (and the MSM) that suffer from MOS that allows for despot leaders abroad to get away with mass-murder. Mugabe silences MOS sufferers with a swipe at white-man history. The Syrian foreign minister confounds MOS sufferers when he responds to their Sudanese genocide claims with “what about Israel and the occupation?” And Iran throws MOS sufferers into atom-splitting diffusion when it claims that Israel should be wiped off the map for what it’s allegedly done to the poor suffering Palestinians.

MOS sufferers can’t defend themselves, they can only concede that they caused the problem in the first place and only by becoming morally perfect in every way will we be able to return to such despot nations with our heads held high. MOS sufferers are just where demopaths in these regimist states want the West to be: introspective while turning a blind eye to greater crimes on other continents.

For those of us capable of healthy self-criticism. This is what we do:

We recognise that in our civil society we and our condition are not perfect but we accept that two things are most likely to be true:

1. we strive to make our society the best it can be for the majority of our citizens with the powers that we have, including legalising minority rights over majority rule to protect our minorities, or having a welfare safety net to help the poorest in our societies; and
2. because of this, our society is more advanced than prime divider societies, their evils can be greater than ours because there is no internal recourse. However, we leave it either to them to attain our level of civility or to them to ask for our help. We dont need them to criticise us when we already criticise ourselves, especially when they almost never criticise themselves. If they want to join the league of critics, they have to first go through the revelation of self-criticism that starts at home.

With that in mind, we go back to Sudan and threaten them with sanctions and military action if they don’t enforce the human rights conventions. We isolate the Palestinians until they stop their hate-speech and human-bomb indoctrinations - then Israel won’t need a wall/fence (smokescreen or not) and they can both get back to peace talks. We isolate Iran until it can make at least one statement that’s even 1% believable, and bomb them if they continue to breach the IAEA treaty that it (and not Israel or Pakistan or India) signed.

They’ll cry hypocrisy, we’ll shout human rights. They’ll cry racism, we’ll expose their genocides. They’ll cry we’re all homosexuals (a Hamas accusation), we’ll expose their slavery of women. They’ll cry Zionist conspiracy, we’ll diagnose them with demopathy in moderates’ clothing.

We’ll win because our society attracts millions of their refugees. We’ll win because our proof of their intentional crimes will trump their prejudiced backward accusations and they’ll be left huffing and puffing for words. Wanna see it in action? Watch it happen right here.

——Sudan——–
Can’t rely on your MSM to keep you up to date with the latest massacre in Sudan? Try DarfurGenocide.org