You seem to think my reasoning in non-syllogistic. i.e. Arthur has whiskers, all cats have whiskers, Arthur is a cat. This is illogical. (Thank you Mr Spock.). Arthur might be a rat, mouse, dog etc. Correct syllogistic reasoning would be Arthur is a cat, all cats have whiskers, Arthur has whiskers.
I'll copy your text - my attempts at nested quoting nearly gave my laptop a seizure.
I think you are conflating active criminals with single parents struggling to feed their kids because of the difficulties associated with getting social support.
Forgive me if I am wrong, but putting everything together that you have said your thought process goes something like this:
1) there are bad criminals - I deal with them on a daily basis and see the worst of it (sure, no argument) - Yes indeed I do.
2) parents drink and smoke instead of feeding their children and they are abusing the system - Yes, some of them do and are. Some don't.
3) All these people are criminals and helping them changes nothing. - No, I do not believe that. There are many such as single parents, lone people with no family and the ill/disabled who struggle and need help. We have a system called MARF (Multi-Agency Referral Form) whereby we flag up to Social Services someone who is struggling. That my be mental/physical health, family pressures or anything that impinges on their life. This goes into a central board that gathers every day to send them to the appropriate agency. I do try to help where I can but I'm not an expert and I'm a scant resource. My final departing words to anyone is "If all else fails, dial 999 and ask for the police. We are not specialists, we can't solve every problem, but we will always come". This we do.
I have seen no evidence of any zealotry here in this thread, you introduced it as a way to add validity to your argument, but this didn't really work, now we are into cancel culture? This is why I think we are off track, I just don't see the relevance. - Sorry, the zealotry exists in main-stream media, academia, the arts...just about everywhere. Thankfully the Home Brew Forum is free of said zealotry (perhaps with the exception of water treatment, but I ignore that as I live in an area with beautiful, soft, clear water and just bung it in straight from the tap and let the beer ferment- it hasn't killed me yet).
Then I am quite at a loss as to what we're discussing now...
What started this was:
The state can intervene when things get critical but like it or not if the feral underclass prefer to spend their money on fags and booze and give their children minimal basic food, there's not much the rest of us can do about it
That is what I have been challenging, this ubiquitous application of derisory punching down, but you seem to have just undone your own position quite well in your last post with:
There are many such as single parents, lone people with no family and the ill/disabled who struggle and need help. We have a system called MARF (Multi-Agency Referral Form) whereby we flag up to Social Services someone who is struggling. That my be mental/physical health, family pressures or anything that impinges on their life. This goes into a central board that gathers every day to send them to the appropriate agency.
Of course it's not your job to fix everyone's problems, I don't believe anyone said it was, that you have referrals in place to the relevant agencies is great. I had not heard of MARF before.
What myself, and I think everyone here is suggesting, is that these agencies need to be improved for the people that can be helped, just like the ones you mention, including the hungry kids!
This doesn't mean falling into extreme communism, it just means doing what we do now, but better!
QED.
p.s. re. some unemployed smoking, I actually found some statistics, far from being the majority of people on benefits, it's about 1 in 4. This is still high, but not enough, not even close, to make broad strokes like the one that started this discussion.
"economic activity: the proportion of current smokers is significantly higher among unemployed persons (26.8%) when compared with those who are employed (14.5%) and economically inactive (12.8%)"
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...lletins/adultsmokinghabitsingreatbritain/2019
Also, don't forget that it's not that long ago that smoking/cigarette advertisements were everywhere, it's only a couple of generations ago that it was
promoted so it's hardly fair to criticise anyone older than say 50? or their immediate family members (kids tend to do what they see not what they are told) for smoking when it is extremely addictive and is often compared to being as difficult to quit as heroin.
https://www.heart.org/en/news/2018/10/17/why-its-so-hard-to-quit-smoking
Easy to see how someone could end up as a single parent, who has grown up in a family of smokers, they're addicted, they're struggling to make ends meet, the idea of quitting a highly addictive substance in an extremely stressful situation... is just too far out there! I think these people need a break and some more help! Not slagging off. In fact, I would even go as far to say anyone in this position should be given a cigarette allowance, so that they are not faced with the horrendous decision of buying food or a substance they are addicted too, that's awful. Take the pressure off, reduce the stress,
then help them quit in the longer term.
p.p.s. thanks for your efforts and the laptop's efforts too, there is a quotation system on the forum, select some text and a 'quote/reply' option pops up, if you select 'quote' it gets added to a collection of quotes which can then be inserted into a new post by clicking the 'Insert Quotes' button. It's good, worth learning how to use, makes things a lot easier.
