Britain: No More Additional Benefits If You Have Over 2 Children

[Autolykos]

Thank you for finally having enough backbone to respond to that post. I told you it wasn’t over. Now then…

@Consumariat

I inferred it from your apparent belief that charity could take up the slack if government was to withdraw. If I inferred wrongly then I take it back. Maybe you could clarify your opinion on the issue of charity as a substitute for welfare.

You’re backpedaling pretty furiously on this one. So you said I made a claim, but now you’re saying that you inferred a claim from what I said? In other words, I didn’t make the claim that you said I made? And since you’ve now admitted to this, doesn’t that mean you’ve now admitted to having lied? I can’t think of any other way to look at this.

@Consumariat

Yes, I am sure. At a time when the state provided little to no assistance to the poor, poverty was rampant. When the welfare state was introduced, this poverty declined. When in the 80’s Neoliberalism began it’s gradual assault on the welfare state, poverty began to increase again.

First I’ll attack your charts. The first chart is for the US, not the UK. Its direct source is also from Blogspot, so I’m not sure whether to believe that it originally comes from the US Census Bureau. The second chart has no source listed on it, and its direct source is from a site called “leftfootforward.org”. So basically I see no reason to put any stock in either of those charts. I won’t even call it a nice try on your part.

Now then, what definition of “poverty” are you using? What definition of “rampant”? Do you understand that correlation does not imply causation? Were all other variables controlled for during the period in question? If not, then how can you be so sure that the reduction in “rampant” “poverty” was necessarily caused by introducing the welfare state?

You see, your entire position is intellectually bankrupt and it’s simply a matter of blind religious faith to you. Yes, religious. I’ll say it again and again if I deem it necessary.

@Consumariat

It’s only a proof given certain provisos such as the predicates being true. Of course, you then need to prove the predicates, which brings in the need to prove yet more auxiliary assumptions. As such, all individual claims to truth are interlinked and mutually contingent. Truth values are therefore spread over theories as a whole, not concentrated in individual statements.

See the Duhem-Quine theory for a better explanation of what I am getting at.

…

You don’t seem to understand what I mean by “proof”. Is the syllogism I presented logically consistent? Yes or no?