Stop the Cuts - National Demonstration

This is getting silly. I hope I'm not misunderstanding you, but I'm beginning to fail to understand what it is you want from me. So.... Here's my response.

I am looking at it from outside, as I am neither a student, nor someone who is subject to our hypothetical 18k tax.

First, that was never my perspective. Mine was from an individual's response to being asked for £18,000 more money than they already give/planned to give. And the anger that individual would feel. So you've already misinterpreted what I'm saying.

Let's stick to the original argument

Yes. Let's.

Here is the "original argument":

If more people were hit as hard as students are about to be financially, you would see a lot more protesting.

So instead of insinuating I'm changing my position, read my last post as an example of what I meant, as an attempt to give a better understanding of what it is I'm arguing (believe). Do not take what you believe me to be arguing and throw it back in my face (again).

Again, I fail to see where I said "an 18k tax on everyone [...] would see people take to the streets - and as such is comparable with student tuition fees and the protests against those fees."

I did say this:

You said cuts are affecting everyone, and you don't see them protesting. I'm pretty sure, however, if you asked everyone in the UK, poor-to-rich (as there is no progressive payment scheme here), to fork out 18k, you'd see a whole lot more people on the streets.

This is the point I made above, which you ignored, restated in a different way.

I'm not sure what you are looking for from me? A argument in defence of a structural similarity between an 18k tax and tuition fee increases of 18k? I'm arguing that the experience, of being put in that situation is the thing that causes the anger, and this is what is comparable. One more time: "If more people were hit as hard as students are about to be financially, you would see a lot more protesting." Most people are not in a comparable situation in the UK today, and that's why they're not protesting. There is not something inherently inhuman or irrational about students that make them act like idiots. They are acting like humans.