Tragedies.
Lately, my feed has been full of the same recycled comparison post. One tragedy is held up, another is dragged next to it, and I’m told—implicitly or explicitly—that if I’m angry about this one, I must be excusing that one. It’s framed as a gotcha. A moral test. A scoreboard. “Where was the outrage then?” posts stacked on top of each other like receipts in a bad argument. And every time I see it, it feels less like concern for victims and more like a demand for ideological loyalty.
This kind of rhetoric has a name. Actually, it has several: false dichotomy, whataboutism, zero-sum outrage, comparative moral accounting. They all describe the same toxic move—forcing people to choose between tragedies as if empathy is a finite resource. As if caring about one injustice automatically negates concern for another. It’s bad rhetoric because it doesn’t clarify truth, reduce harm, or pursue justice. It exists to shut down nuance and replace it with team alignment.
Here’s the baseline reality that keeps getting ignored: multiple things can be bad at the same time. An undocumented immigrant committing a violent murder is a crime. Full stop. That deserves outrage, accountability, and justice for the victim. No hedging, no excuses, no political footnotes. But acknowledging that fact does not create a moral debt that must be “paid” by excusing other violence.
An ICE agent shooting a woman who posed no immediate threat is also a crime. Law enforcement—especially federal enforcement—comes with explicit responsibility. You take the job knowing the risks, knowing the standards, knowing that restraint is not optional. “Self-defense” is not a vibe or a talking point; it has a legal definition. And when video evidence shows the shooter positioned to the side of the vehicle, not in imminent danger, that definition matters. Authority does not suspend accountability.
What makes this rhetoric especially dangerous is how it reframes power. One crime is a tragedy that occurred despite the law. The other is a tragedy that occurred because someone empowered by the state chose violence without justification. Those are not morally interchangeable situations. Treating them as such erases the difference between private criminal acts and abuses of institutional authority—and that erasure is convenient for people who don’t want systems examined.
The outrage is not immigrant versus agent. It is not left versus right. It is not “who deserves sympathy more.” The outrage is about accountability and context. One act was a crime that should never have happened. The other was a crime that should not have been possible given the rules, training, and authority involved. If we can’t hold both truths at once, we’re not engaging in moral reasoning—we’re doing propaganda.
This comparison culture doesn’t honor victims. It weaponizes them. It turns real deaths into rhetorical tools and replaces justice with scoreboard politics. And honestly? That’s the part I’m most tired of. Not the disagreement—but the insistence that empathy must be rationed, ranked, and approved by whichever side shouts the loudest.
