so yeah, there are drawbacks in criticizing a ridiculous thing by using hypotheticals

if you say “the stuff they’re doing with A and B is ridiculous, imagine if they did that same stuff with X and Y” …it will almost always turn out that some people ARE doing that same ridiculous stuff with X and Y, and considering it reasonable

there are lots of people in the world doing lots of messed-up things. no straw man is fully inanimate

however, one must also remember

the people who think the ridiculous treatment of A and B is reasonable are not always the same people as the ones who think the ridiculous treatment of X and Y is reasonable

so, if your goal is to convince the first group that they’re wrong about that, comparing it to the beliefs of the second group might still sometimes be effective

(maybe)

(if it’s still possible to convince anyone of stuff they don’t already believe. That may have changed since the last time i checked.)