Stop the Cuts - National Demonstration

Hmmm, I'm reading what you've written to say the same thing again.

I'm saying it is imposed and is not "ultimately optional" to students. You cannot be a student without paying the monies. My comparison is between students and "middle England." So saying it is optional is the same thing as saying there doesn't have to be students.

The people who are protesting are students or people who see themselves as potential students. People who will have to pay this free. It is not an option (less they decide they no longer want to be, or will be, students).

It's ultimately optional in this respect:

Our hypothetical 18k tax would be enforceable by law I presume, ie: if you don't pay up you will face whatever sanctions come with not paying - this sanction can only ultimately be prison as any intermediate fines or penalties can be rejected in the same way as the original - and if we want to avoid an infinite regress of some kind we need to see prison at some stage in the sanctions (otherwise we build an infinite regress of fines for not paying fines for not paying fines. . . . etc). On the other hand if there were no sanction, no threat of prison, people would likely not bother paying, and people are unlikley to take to the streets to protest something they can more easily ignore.

So logic tells me the 18k tax is enforceable by law - and non-payment ultimately carries with it the threat of prison.

In this respect, one is non-optional, whilst the other is ultimately optional, I understand your idea that we can define a student as a kind of creature in and of itself, rather than a person (like other people) who is studying and if we stick to that definition we can describe the fee as non-optional, I understand the idea but don't agree with it.

Not sure where the rather loaded term 'Middle England' came from - can we not stick to your original - and less emotive term - "everyone in the UK, poor-to-rich"