How Not to Make a Point

A recent comment on my municipal election endorsements post (which has turned out to be quite the search engine fodder - not much coverage otherwise I guess) has inspired to me to discuss effective communication. I'm sad that I won't be bothering to respond to the comment, in spite of the fact it looks like the author invested some real time writing a coherent post (he gets a point for that).

So here is some advice to commenters that would like a response from me.

"You Are Wrong" Is Not Constructive
Asserting that my opinions are wrong without providing reasons is not much of a basis for a discussion. A statement as to why you believe I am wrong would at least give us something to talk about. (The commenter in question isn't too bad in this regard - there are points of substance behind at least one of his three core complaints.)

Narrow Your Focus
OK, so we disagree on everything. Please don't try to address every issue at once. I really don't like writing rambling responses, and an unfocused critique puts the burden on me to tease out one high value thread to continue with.

"I Hate You" Makes Me Dismissive
An excerpt, to demonstrate my point.

Let me guess: you voted Conservative a month ago and you would have liked for the Republicans to continue their reign of terror with John McCain?

I interpret this to mean the author personally dislikes anyone who votes Conservative in Canada, or Republican in the US. That's roughly 40% of Canadians, and 45% of Americans. How can one go through life hating that many people that you don't know? That probably isn't really the case for this author, but I only have his written words/rhetoric to go by.