Calories vs. Carbs

Additionally, protein and fat are of much greater physiological importance than carbohydrates. Typically when calories need to be reduced, it usually makes sense to reduce carbs in order to create the necessary energy deficit -- but obviously this is still dependent on context.

That's true, but only to an extent. After all, vegetables have great nutritional value and are also carbs. So it's not entirely accurate to say your body needs carbs less than protein or fat. If that were true, why would eating vegetables to achieve optimal health and fitness be pushed on dieters so much?

I said that protein and fat are of greater physiological importance. There exist essential fatty acids and essential amino acids that your body cannot supply on it's own. Your body can produce glucose through gluconeogenesis which makes carbs a non-essential nutrient.

EDIT: But obviously I would never suggest that anyone stop eating vegetables or eliminate carbs.

That still doesn't explain why most doctors you speak to and many studies you read will say you need the nutrition that vegetables, a carbohydrate, provide. I'm not saying fats and proteins aren't important, because they are -- I'm saying all three matter and we need to stop making one out of the three this enemy food that needs to be avoided.

Here is where you are confusing my statement with typical ignorant low-carb dogma (read: I agree with your bold part above, but you are assuming that I'm saying things that I am not saying):

I am not advocating low carb diets (although, there ARE some people that would benefit from them and it is not a dangerous approach when done intelligently). I am not suggesting that carbs are evil. Obesity is caused by overconsumption of energy over time. Carbs are your friend and because of the micronutrients they provide, you should probably eat them. I eat 250-300g/day in carbs.

If what you were saying made sense, there would be no point in eating healthy carbs, and medical evidence points to the fact that eating those things does improve your health.

I don't see where you are drawing this conclusion. My original statement was that usually when someone decides to restrict calorie intake (they are overweight, they are learning about nutrition, and they need to create an energy deficit), it makes sense to draw most of the deficit from carbohydrate. I would further conclude that most people, when they start to learn about proper nutrition, learn that they also should increase protein intake due to LBM retention. This further drives CHO intake downwards because you have to make up for that caloric increase in protein.

This is a risk I take for saying "usually" because we're arguing without context. I'm going to make the assumption, that I believe is fair, that the majority of obese people are consuming a diet that is hypercaloric (this is an obvious one) and they are also consuming plenty of carbs, and I'd further speculate they are not consuming enough protein. I'm not going to make the statement that this is the case with all obese people. I think this is the case with "most" obese people.

This does not make carbs the enemy. Carbs are not causing people to be fat. Hypercaloric intake is causing people to be fat. It just so happens that, the math works out such that if you tell Bob to reduce his caloric intake by 1200 to get him to a reasonable deficit, and you tell him that he should also bump his protein up to 150g, he's going to need to put down the donuts (reduce CHO).