RexHamilton
Gumshoe for hire
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2012
- Messages
- 4,543
Just to show how awful this argument is, its the 1700's and I turn to you and say - ''I'm pretty sure the child labour we have in Ireland is awful and needs to go'' and then you say - ''Are there problems in Ireland at the minute? Of course there are. We shouldn't have the number of homeless that we do, we shouldn't have small children dying in factories andhouse prices are far too highthe bloody Brits are everywhere in general. But point to a country in the world where there are no problems? Where there is no child labour ? Where there isn't the British empire ? Where 100% of the people are utterly content with their lot. It doesn't happen. There are no Utopias!''
Nonsense argument. There are around 10,000 people homeless in Ireland and it's a national disgrace. Never once did I say it's acceptable. It's a problem, it needs to be solved. Reading back over what I wrote, I can see how it came across that I was trivialising the homeless crisis. I wasn't. I was acknowledging that it's a genuine issue. We can both be horrified by the homeless crisis and annoyed by people who always feel entitled to more at the same time. There are not utopias was a poor choice of phrase, when talking about homelessness, that was directed at those who are doing ok, but feel entitled to more. Having engaged with lots of my friends in discussions about the election over the past few weeks, I met a few who wanted the homeless crisis solved, the health service reformed, they want a higher miniumum wage, they want USC abolished, they want lower taxes and the thresholds for higher tax brackets raised and so much more. You could make an argument for each and every one of those things, absolutely, but where is the money to pay for all of this supposed to come from?
You're argument is nothing but a nihilistic defence of the current state of things. If you actually care about homelessness, health services etc then you wouldn't be talking about utopias and slagging off people on the dole. Again it can't be understated that ''there is no Utopian's argument '' has been used to stop every gain we take for granted, be it the right for working men and women to vote, the american civil rights movement, LGBTQ rights, ending slavery, child labour, fighting against colonialism etc etc etc.
As I said above the "There are no Utopias" was directed at the people who have, but want more. Not directed at the homeless or the people on trollies. As for "slagging off people on the dole", I argued against people that feel they are entitled to everything, both working people and people on social welfare, but of course ignore that and say I'm "slagging off people on the dole".