Stop the Cuts - National Demonstration

Understood, I am making that claim, but as I think that is the case I can't see it as a straw man - that is I am not trying to (wilfully) misrepresent an argument, I could of course be mistaken, but my mistake, if shown to be the case, is genuine.

I hadn't thought that a straw man argument required that the person making it intentionally present a 'decoy' or otherwise fictitious position for attack, merely that it be such a position. In any case, I see the distinction.

I agree that most people engaged in this kind of conversation tend to understand the basic concepts involved, but I suspect (and my suspicions are based on their arguments) that there is a section of people who do think such a thing exists.

And when I say they think this, I don't mean to say they actively engage the idea, they more tend to be people thrust along by emotion who hold the idea unthinkingly, they've not really given it much thought, they just assume education should be 'free' without ever considering what that means.

I can sympathise with this, and it explains why you wanted to make the point you made, but it opens a can of worms about whether we can say what people 'think' about anything they haven't given much thought to. If someone says to me they think education should be free and I ask them what that means, either they clarify ('free at the point of delivery') or they say they don't know, in which case who knows what they think.

I was at pains to list a cross section of low and high earners (low - high - low - high - low) - I made the deliberate move to not list careers like bankers and politicians (which might have been seen as an appeal to popular emotions.)

We have a name for an argument that cherry picks - in this case - 'bin men' and makes it's case based on that alone.

: P

Yes, very good, see what you did there, except I was explaining how your use of that term led to my misunderstanding your position, not trying to make a case against you.