Really? I asked in good faith for you to better articulate your position, not to be condescendingly told to read it again.
Your post consists of a paragraph about externalities, some lovely-sounding "I believe that..." positions, and a couple example axes on which a society might bifurcate. I don't see a logical connection between them, and I think a leap like that warrants articulation.
So, one more time for the folks who don't share your implicit premises: how do sin taxes result in a structurally bifurcated society?
>I don't see a logical connection between them, and I think a leap like that warrants articulation.
I do see a connection, and moreover that connection is obvious to me. I genuinely see your statement as a low quality argumentative technique to ask me to repeat a very clear statement in different phrasing in the hope that you will find some triviality that is easier to attack than my core premise.
If you'd really like an answer, please articulate the nature of the logical disconnect you see.
> ... in the hope that you will find some triviality that is easier to attack than my core premise.
That "core premise" is the very thing I want to see articulated here. What you've offered is your conclusion: that sin taxes somehow entail a structurally divided society.
> If you'd really like an answer, please articulate the nature of the logical disconnect you see.
That's literally not how argument works. The burden of proof lies with the party making the positive assertion — in this case, something about societal bifurcation and sin taxes and their causal relationship. I suppose you could say that means I somehow need to "prove" that I don't follow you, or amn't merely trolling you into tripping up as you assert, but that's a reductio and then some.
If the connection is "obvious" to you, but you are unwilling or unable to articulate it, it isn't implausible for me to surmise that we're talking around unexamined axioms (or, as I often call them, "articles of faith") of yours. Which is fine; I have my own such.
But what you're doing here isn't argument, and I have now spent more time explaining that than I think hearing whatever argument you might have to articulate is likely to be worth, in terms of the amount of my life spent.
EDIT: Not trying to be mean. Just, with this dialogue as my sample, I'm not inclined to anticipate an argument that will enlighten me, or change (or even challenge) my perspective. I'd be delighted to have been mistaken, though.
It wasn't obvious to me either. It sounded like you made an argument that at least 30% of people shouldn't be allowed to drive, and then leaping to that leading to some sort of societal bifurcation? Your argument or point isn't obvious or clear at all.
>It sounded like you made an argument that at least 30% of people shouldn't be allowed to drive, and then leaping to that leading to some sort of societal bifurcation?
Aha, a tangible argument. You don't see the possibility of social bifurcation from 30% of the population not being allowed to drive?
Most tradie jobs require a car. It's very hard to be an electrician, plumber, chippie etc. that services homes as if you don't have a car. It might be possible to do commercial work in those fields without a car but every apprentice I've ever known has needed one to carry around the huge pile of tools they're expected to bring on site themselves.
There are also a lot of entry level unskilled jobs that require a drivers licence (assuming you consider a drivers licence "unskilled", which it sort of is but wouldn't be of 30% of current drivers had their licence revoked overnight), like delivering pizza or doing private courier work.
So yeah, changing driving laws to make it a requirement that drivers be consistently safe, courteous and predictable and refusing to give licences to people who can't meet that criteria would definitely be a social bifurcation because it would all but eliminate whole categories of otherwise relatively accessible industrial for the people that cannot get the licence, and in so doing widen the already increasingly wide (lower/middle)/high income divides that most western nations are seeing.
However, that was not my point. My point was that the argument "we shouldn't let people do this because it has costs to society" doesn't really go anywhere as an argument. That's true for pretty much everything we do in society, it's a nothing argument.
> Most tradie jobs require a car. It's very hard to be an electrician, plumber, chippie etc. that services homes as if you don't have a car.
Then how do people do those jobs in countries that do meaningfully select for good drivers, instead of dispensing licenses to all comers? Last I checked, continental Europe hasn't entirely descended into disrepair, because not everyone can drive.
If your position is that overnight switching to a tough drivers licensure regime would be disruptive, I can only say, "Of course it would". Literally no-one is advocating that, either in this thread, or in The Fine Article, however, so I'm vague on its relevance.
> My point was that the argument "we shouldn't let people do this because it has costs to society" doesn't really go anywhere as an argument.
Which would be an interesting discussion if that was the argument being made. Sin taxes aren't "We shouldn't let people do this", and it's a fundamental mischaracterization of them to say they are. They discourage it, sure. They can also be used to mitigate the cost of the "sin" in question.
But it is fundamentally incompatible with most of the goals of a sin tax, to be used to outright prevent the thing being taxed.
No, I don't see "social bifurcation" (which I think needs to be defined) happening over drivers licensing requirements. Over race? Sure. Over systemic income/opportunity inequalities? You bet. But over driving? I just don't see it.
First, how is this 30% cut going to be enforced? At the licensing test? Is it that if you get a single ticket or report for unsafe driving, your license is revoked? You are going to look at existing drivers license holders and determine their fitness to be operating a vehicle, how exactly? Is it a lifetime ban from driving? How many times can I take the test of it just didn't come naturally to me?
Second, there's already a portion of the population that for whatever reason (DWI is a common one) aren't allowed to drive, and I don't see them rising up in the streets.
I don't think anyone is arguing that people shouldn't be allowed to do things that have costs to society, they are discussing whether or not taxation of the behaviors is effective.
Your post consists of a paragraph about externalities, some lovely-sounding "I believe that..." positions, and a couple example axes on which a society might bifurcate. I don't see a logical connection between them, and I think a leap like that warrants articulation.
So, one more time for the folks who don't share your implicit premises: how do sin taxes result in a structurally bifurcated society?
EDIT: phrasing