Huffington Post Comment Rebuttal

I recently received this reply to one of my comments over at the Huffington Post. 

Me:

How is ACA supposed to help balance the budget?

With it the government will be paying for more peoples' healthcare, and many more bureaucrats will be hired, whose salaries need to be paid.

egdot

So you should just leave these people without healthcare? Which bureaucrats? It's still a private insurance system by and large - not a government takeover. And even if it were - at least you'll be creating jobs which will increase demand which will stimulate the economy.  Healthcare costs money. You will never get away from that. Not insuring people is immoral as well as costly too.  Conservatives don't get it - even in the face of all the evidence from countries where they do cover all their people and have strong economies - Germany, Australia, France...Sweden, Norway, Denmark.. 

I would like to rebut it, but first let's look at what Dilbert Blog commenter Hankfu left as a description of how the left likes to debate:

Hankfu

See how the Obama supporters will try everything to deflect the argument using the classic approach:

1) Admit nothing
2) Deny everything
3) Make counter-accusations

the arguments typically follow the pattern of ignoring the basic argument you made, arguing the facts to say you got it wrong to suit their beliefs, and attack your motivations for making such an argument in your voting preference.

Let's see how well egdot compares to Hanfu's description of how those on the left debate:

1) "Admit nothing"

egdot did not mention how ACA is supposed to help balance the budget (as was said in an earlier comment).

2) "Deny everything"

egdot: "It's still a private insurance system by and large - not a government takeover."

That's 2/2.

3) "Make counter-accusations"

egdot: "So you should just leave these people without healthcare?"

Looks like 3/3.

4) "ignoring the basic argument you made" ("How is ACA supposed to help balance the budget?")

Did you see any mention of the costs the government will have to pay with ACA in egdot's comment? I did not.

That's  4/4.

5) "arguing the facts to say you got it wrong to suit their beliefs"

egdot: "even in the face of all the evidence from countries where they do cover all their people and have strong economies"

Does that not make 5/5?

6)  "attack your motivations for making such an argument"

 egdot: "Not insuring people is immoral as well as costly too."

6/6

My compliments Hankfu.  You have excellently described how egdot responded to my comment.

Not all liberal comments would meet these 6 points, many are too short, etc.  But egdot's comment just happened to be the first one I looked at after reading Hankfu's.

In future Debates in the Comments perhaps I'll list which number the responses I get fall under.  I'd like to add two, however:

7) name calling

8) insults

With these 8 ways that liberals respond in my debates the comments the debates may become much more amusing.

***

On Monday, or so, I plan on a whole long post describing why egdot's comment is wrong.

My arguments will be:

1) more government always means people are worse off

2) socialized healthcare has not worked well in the places that it has been tried

3) egdot has called me "immoral" for not wanting to insure everyone.  I will point out why his position is immoral.  And even more so.

egdot accuses me of not wanting to help someone who is injured.

egdot's preferred healthcare plan does the injuring in the first place.