Broken Window Fallacy

When trying to improve something, one often comes up against the protest, "but A is no worse than B, therefore B's existence justifies A." Think how silly it would be not to fix a broken window in a your building because it has other broken windows as well. You probably can't repair them all simultaneously, so YouHaveToStartSomewhere?.

A prime example of this fallacy shows up if you criticize something about US democracy. Some people will argue "Well, there are much more totalitarian regimes out there, like Iraq and North Korea. If you don't like it here, why don't you leave?"

The BrokenWindowFallacy name is taken by another meme, for instance see http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Broken%20window%20fallacy . It is a parable that demonstrates a particular consequence of the idea of OpportunityCost. I suggest coming up with a different name for your point and taking appropriate action.