> ... 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 articul

> ... 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.