When you debate with statists, the logical device they use the most and is also the hardest to get around are their altruistic ethics, or “human rights” reasons for supporting socialized medicine, higher taxes, business regulations, higher minimum wage, etc.
So how do you get around, or logically disprove their “human rights” arguments? I would also like to say that a lot of the time it is an emotional argument.
It’s funny how they believe medicine is a human right, yet they don’t believe that they should have the food industry nationalized and they never say it’s a “right”.
Block points out that people are subject to pessimistic bias against markets, that because people are without X now, they will continue to be without it in the future. We have the humanitarian high ground because nothing has ever brought humanity out of the dumps like capitalism. You can win via empiricisim.
Alternatively you can use theory. The way human beings get more stuff is through balancing capital investment, savings, and consumption. Only a free price system can transmit information effectively. Life is not “sim city” where you can simply demand that more healthcare be produced for 100 simoleans.
First you ask them whether if they should ever discover convincing evidence that although directly helping people you want to help with your own resources was fine and dandy as far as it went, the most efficacious recipe for peace and prosperity was a no-government free-market approach, would their altruism lead them to adapt their political stance, even if it did not alter their charitable habits?
If they say no, forget them
If they say yes, teach them economics from scratch.
“It’s funny how they believe medicine is a human right, yet they don’t believe that they should have the food industry nationalized and they never say it’s a “right”.”
They would if food prices were so high as to prevent them from getting what they wanted.
Sorry for double post, but I’m actually undergoing expensive prolotherapy treatments right now. If I ever have a debate with anyone about healthcare, i’m going to ask them if they can pay for me, or if their families can pay for me, or if they could ask all their friends and family on facebook to ask their friends of friends to see if we can get someone to cover my treatments.
If they don’t fund my treatments, I’ll just say “too bad, if national healthcare is passed I’ll effectively be able to take what I want out of you and your parent’s pockets”
If they do fund my treatments, I win anway 
The food industry is fairly unregulated. The only notable regulations off the top of my head are sanitation / health laws. Thought he health “laws” might get out of hand.
My discussion with a protester at a University.
Him, “Hey”
Me, “Hi?”
Him, “could I ask you to sign something?”
“What?”
“To sign this petition to ban trans fats from foods. Trans fats are a cheap fat used by our food industries that clot your blood arteries and could cause things like obesity or heart attacks. The american corporation system uses this to poison the food supply of americans, and most of the families struggling to get meals on the table everyday, buy a lot of foods with trans fats in them because they are what they can afford. Its a very sad thing, the children then grow up obese and have so many health problems later in life after they are already trying to make it.”, “So please sign this petition to band trans fats”.
Wrong on so many levels!
On the altruism deal two points:
How “expensive” a thing is, is completely subjective -if I think that peanuts are healthy for me and peanuts are $7/pound and if I think that meat is bad for me and meat is $7/pound then I’m going to call meat “too expensive” and peanuts “worth the expense”. The actual money price makes no difference.
Given the above, how are people going to react when human rights (food, shelter, medicine, etc.) have their price(s) lowered? If peanuts are now $6.00/pound and meat is $7/pound then I’m going to buy a ton of peanuts and then I’ll buy some meat (with my expanded income from the peanut-price decline) because “I should eat a more balanced diet”. If peanuts are actually healthier than meat, then won’t people be buying too much meat now? And if people who are totallly convinced that peanuts are bad, decide to take the cost and just buy peanuts, then will there be enough peanuts left for them?
These things might be food for thought for the “bleeding-heart”.
As an addendum to the above:
Every year thousands of young-children die from price controls; wealthy urbanites and large corporations lobby the government so that they can help-themselves to food, water, and electricity -something that the poor need more and express this need through higher prices. This is nothing more than robbing the poor to give to the rich, it’s so sad -could you sign a petition ending price controls?
For a good summary of the empirical evidence you should check this* out. It has very easy to read charts and addresses basically altrustic concerns.
*Two Cheers for Capitalism? by Peter T. Leeson
Source this.
The food industry is fairly unregulated. The only notable regulations off the top of my head are sanitation / health laws. Thought he health “laws” might get out of hand.
The food industry is heavily influenced by government subsidies and other interventions, which is why we’re inundated by junk food containing wheat, corn, milk, and the accompanying trans fat, chemicals, colorings, and additives. High fructose corn syrup is a great example. We could import cane sugar from Cuba, but instead the precious corn industry at home needs to be protected and subsidised. So everything is sweetened with corn syrup, which is much more fattening and unhealthy than cane sugar. In a free and competetive market, healthy, natural foods would not face an uphill battle against all the subsidized foods and would become more abundant and cheaper.
Yes, trans fat is unhealthy, but where does the banning end once you get it started? It’s impossible to claim the moral high ground if you must sacrifice basic human liberty to get there. The moral thing to do is to educate your fellow consumers about the dangers of junk food, not to ban it. If the petition guy cannot understand this, then…not much you can do.
I’m about 15 pounds overweight myself and it’s because I eat too damn much and exercise too little and when I do eat, it’s often junk food because that’s what I like to eat. I don’t feel sorry for myself or anyone who’s overweight because it’s a self inflicted condition. Trans fats aren’t responsible for fat people being fat, fat people are.
I was just trying to show the rhetorical form of the counter-argument, I really have no sources.
It’s just that x is a bad thing. Y is behind this x. This makes Y evil and so we should end x.
I think I have read that once the enzymes in your mouth start breaking down High Fructose Corn Syrup, it is pretty much identical to sugar. I don’t think either of them are good for you.
Poor people should be bowing down to the fast food industry for allowing them to be able to purchase affordable food. Who cares if it’s unhealthy, I’m pretty sure not eating anything at all is worse
I seem to remember that in the old days, poor people only bought the healthiest of foods [=non processed] because thats all they could afford.