Howard Schultz on CBS This Morning, employing a remarkably bad analogical argument to attack the Medicare-for-all plan from Kamala Harris that woulld likely abolish private health insurance (thank God):
That’s not correct, that’s not American. What’s next? What industry are we going to abolish next? The coffee industry?
So, let’s say you are in a high school debate class or a college course on introduction to logic, and the teacher/professor asks you why Howard’s argument is completely fucking stupid. Obvious answer — it’s a blatant false analogy as the coffee industry is entirely dissimilar to health care. Basic health care is a fundamental right, coffee is not. Basic health care is a highly-specialized, highly-skilled service that is difficult to procure and disproportionately expensive. Without it, you may suffer terribly and die early. Coffee is a cheap, ubiquitous commodity that has almost no relevance to overall quality of life on an individual or collective basis.
What are true analogical items for health care? How about education, environmental safety, worker safety, food safety, travel safety, rights to judicial remedies, rights to participate in government, etc. Funny fucking thing there Howard — all of those items are completely or partially within the control of government and all are totally fucking American.
Just an idiotic argument from Howard. Yet, it went pretty much unchallenged when uttered. And of course, Faux News is running with it as one of its principle attacks against Harris for the day.
Good grief people, we are smarter than this.