Slippery Slope Problem Proved

[SpoofyChop]

Today's Massachussets decision conclusively demonstrates that the slippery slope argument cannot be dismissed.

Eugene Volokh helpfully demonstrates:

http://volokh.com/2003_11_16_volokh_...18247847378916

[Rywill]

Although I agree with what he's saying, it's a little disingenuous. It's clearly wrong for people on the "pro" side of an issue to dismiss a "con" argument just because it's a slippery slope argument. As people (including me) have said before on these boards, some slippery slopes really exist and merely saying "Your argument is just a slippery slope" doesn't end the matter--contrary to what a lot of people (especially on this board) seem to think. "Slippery slope" is like the thinking man's Hitler around here; you say it and suddenly everyone nods and goes "Yeah, slippery slope," and that's it.

But that also doesn't mean that all slippery slope arguments must be accepted, simply because of what happened in Massachussets. Lots of times people make unreasonable slippery slope arguments, such as "If you allow consensual gay sex, there is no way to outlaw sex with minors" or "If you allow gays to get married, there is no way to outlaw bigamy." Arguments like that are slippery slope arguments, but are also manifestly untrue. There's a clear difference between, say, gay sex and statutory rape.

As with most things, the debate is more useful if people address the merits of each others' arguments rather than relying on labels ("That's a slippery slope" "That's communist" etc.).

[SpoofyChop]

I think you completely misunderstand slippery slope arguments.

People always say "oh well that slippery slope argument was valid but those other ones are absurd." Then, within a few years when attitudes change and the previous standards have been swept away they say the same thing again.

Your post is unintentional self parody Rywill.

[Matthew Gallant]

I just find it hilarious that gay marriage is considered further down the slope from anti-discrimination laws.

[Raife]

I think you completely misunderstand slippery slope arguments.

Ad Verecundiam

[SpoofyChop]

I think you completely misunderstand slippery slope arguments.

Ad Verecundiam

Number one:

Why does everybody feel so compelled to be so incredibly smug about everything? Keep your latin and your sartre to yourselves ding-dongs

Number two:

Who exactly is appealing to authority here smarty pants?

[Jason Levine]

[/smugness]

Spoofy, your own argument reveals the problem with relying on the slippery slope: You say "Then, within a few years when attittudes change and the previous standards have been swept away..." (emphasis added). So what has happened? Is the slippery slope responsible for the change or is it the change in attitudes?

I find it particularly interesting that Volokh uses Schlafly's ERA argument as an example. The ERA was never ratified. Where is the slippery slope there? What happened, doubtless to social conservatives' chagrin, was that attitudes changed unassisted by any push down a slope, slippery or otherwise.

[Raife]

That was actually a joke. You yelling 'Slippery Slope,' Rywill saying everyone runs around yelling 'Slippery Slope...'

[Mark Asher]

[/smugness]

Spoofy, your own argument reveals the problem with relying on the slippery slope: You say "Then, within a few years when attittudes change and the previous standards have been swept away..." (emphasis added). So what has happened? Is the slippery slope responsible for the change or is it the change in attitudes?

I find it particularly interesting that Volokh uses Schlafly's ERA argument as an example. The ERA was never ratified. Where is the slippery slope there? What happened, doubtless to social conservatives' chagrin, was that attitudes changed unassisted by any push down a slope, slippery or otherwise.

I thought the same thing. The Amendment wasn't ratified. Where's the slope? Does just discussing an issue create a slippery slope?

What's especially ironic about those ERA arguments are that conservatives are the ones who made gay marriage an issue and forced discussion of it. If that's the first step down the slippery slope, they took it gleefully.

But hey, with any luck, Republicans will manage to make a campaign issue out of gay marriage and manage to avoid discussing any real issues. Why defend dubious White House actions when instead you can bash gay rights!

[Jason McCullough]

He uses the ERA as an example of something that could have resulted in a slippery slope, but didn't. The MA non-discrimination law is the actual slippery slope in this case, though I think he does a weak job of showing it was central to the decision.

[Rywill]

I think you completely misunderstand slippery slope arguments.

People always say "oh well that slippery slope argument was valid but those other ones are absurd." Then, within a few years when attitudes change and the previous standards have been swept away they say the same thing again.

Your post is unintentional self parody Rywill.

I don't think I misunderstand them at all. Maybe if you explain to me what you think a slippery slope argument is, we can see. My view is that when you say "Yeah, but if you permit X, logically there's no reason not to permit Y," that's a slippery slope argument. Similarly, saying "If we as a society accept X, then pretty soon we will be accepting Y" is a slippery slope argument. In both cases, X is the thing under discussion and Y is something that, at least in the arguer's mind, is clearly unacceptable.

You assume in your response that all things predicted by slippery slope arguments come to pass ("when the old standards are swept away" or whatever). I already said in my post that I don't think that's true; sometimes we as a society allow one thing (such as gay sex) without automatically allowing the thing supposedly "down the slope" (such as sex with minors) sometime later. In other words, just because you personally see no difference between gay sex and sex with minors doesn't mean there isn't one, or that other people don't see one. Sometimes society allows you to do certain things but not other, arguably very similar, things. You can advertise liquor in magazines but not on television. You can smoke cigarettes but not crack. And so on. Society draws these lines in the middle of a "slippery slope" all the time.

[Midnight Son]

I was going to make some remark about how it's best to have some KY-Jelly handy it you're going down the slippery slope.... but thought better of it.

[Rywill]

You actually didn't.

[Midnight Son]

Ah would like to mention for the record that the slippery slope can be used in heterosexumal encounters! :wink:

[bmulligan]

I'm hoping "heterosexumal encounters" is a typo and not a new word for beastiality.

But hey, with any luck, Republicans will manage to make a campaign issue out of gay marriage and manage to avoid discussing any real issues. Why defend dubious White House actions when instead you can bash gay rights!

You nailed it, without even the courtesy of a reach-around. Another great valance issue right behind abortion to pull out in an emergency. The whole spin on this case is that the court is allowing gay marriage, or creating a new right for gay couples. Government should never be in a position to 'allow' behaviors, only prohibit certain behaviors that infringe on the rights of others.

A contract is a contract, I don't see the difference between the male-female marriage contract and the same sex one. If justice is supposedly blind, then she shouldn't be able to tell the difference either. Perhaps the slippery slope could be in the opposite direction. If a legislature were to define marriage as between only a man and a woman, then whose to stop them from legislating only a white man and white woman, or prohibit a jew and a muslim from marrying, or an american and a canadian?

[Bull]

I was going to make some remark about how it's best to have some KY-Jelly handy it you're going down the slippery slope.... but thought better of it.

You're saying you go down the slippery slope without using any K-Y? Often?

[Alan Au]

This must be the part where I mention that...

- Alan "Itsatrap" Au

[Midnight Son]

Heterosexumal=purposeful misspelling.

(I misspelled misspelling! Time to go to sleep.....)

[SpoofyChop]

When I say you don't understand the slippery slope argument I'm not really saying you don't understand it per se since you can obviously state it in basic terms. What I'm saying is more that you don't get it.

As a society we should intend to make decisions based on what we believe is right and wrong even if making that decision will possibly have negative side effects. Democratic societies are based on the idea that we sometimes act on principle. So the people that are arguing against permitting or legalizing cetain behaviors are looking at the big picture and they are considering an entire set of principles.

The reason I don't think you (or any of the rest of you liberals) get it is because you insist upon considering each case entirely individually and you refuse to admit that one issue can have implications for other issues.

What Volokh proved (by showing case law and citations, not just by being Volokh you ad viagradummies) is that the courts will look at things from a holistic point of view even if you don't.

You refuse to believe that granting new "rights" may have a negative impact on society as a whole. Any time somebody asks for the right to do something, you guys all put on your "lets look the other way" hats and decide that you simply can't bear to say no to anybody that wants to do anything. It happens time and time again.

Liberals generally don't want ANYBODY to tell them what to do and they don't like accepting authority. Consequently when any "aggrieved" group shows up claiming that they should be allowed to do something, you tend to want to let them do it.

My theory is that it comes from a warped sense of the golden rule. You guys tend to operate on the principle of "don't say no unto others and they won't say no unto you."

Unfortunately, all this permissiveness eventually leads to some pretty irresponsible behavior.

[Matthew Gallant]

Gay people living together monogamously is irresponsible?

[Bull]

That you would even post that is sad, SpoooyChop.

[Jason McCullough]

Might I point out that if you don't like the implications in other areas you can always go back and change the law to fix it?

[Rywill]

Well, I think you're lumping me in with some folks that I'm not like, and who might not even exist. I acknowledge--I did in my first post and my second post and I have time and time again on these boards--that "slippery slope" arguments sometimes hold water. You're absolutely right that allowing one behavior can make it more likely that we will allow some other, related behavior (usually that happens because we see that allowing X wasn't nearly as bad as some people were saying it was going to be, so Y is the next logical step; but that's an argument for another time).

And that's something that, I agree with you, is often unfairly dismissed, especially on QT3. People seem to think that labeling an argument a "slippery slope" is sufficient to refute it, when really it's not. It would be like saying, "Oh, that's just an anaology." So? Is it a valid analogy or not, and why? OTOH, you seem to be taking the opposite--and equally flawed--position that ALL slippery slope arguments should be credited, when clearly that is not true either. Like I said, sometimes society allows X but never allows Y. Just because you can think of something that is similar to what is being allowed, that you don't like, doesn't mean the argument is over. There are serious questions like "But would we really allow Y?" and "Is there some meaningful difference between X and Y?" and even "Okay, is Y actually something bad?"

I'm not going to get into your anti-homosexuality arguments. My views on the matter have been made clear in other threads, as have yours. I will say, though, that your assumption that only the anti-gay side is fighting for "principles" is crazy and insulting. I'm not looking at the gay marriage issue "individually." I have no clue who any of the people suing in Massachussets are or what their stories are, or even whether they're men or women. None of that matters to me, because I'm looking at it as an overall societal issue, and one of principle, just like you are.

[SpoofyChop]

That you would even post that is sad, SpoooyChop.

I'll say it again then so you can cry all the way home:

Permissiveness leads to irresponsibility.

I think that if you guys were more interested in understanding my arguments than scoring points you would admit that I said nothing about specific behaviors that I consider irresponsible.

Also, please spell my handle correctly.

[Rywill]

I said nothing about specific behaviors that I consider irresponsible.

Can I get this mounted on one of those Hummel dolls or Christmas ornaments? Does it not occur to you that calling a behavior "irresponsible" is saying something negative about it?

I mean, unless what you're saying here is "I haven't identified any specific behaviors as behing irresponsible," but if that's the case, allow me to point out that since this is all coming up in the context of gay marriage, it's pretty obvious what you think is irresponsible whether you say it or not.

[SpoofyChop]

Well I still disagree with you and stuff Rywill but at least it's a pleasure to debate you. At least you write coherently and know how to spell.

I see what you're saying about slippery slopes...I suppose you yourself aren't one of the offenders. And I'm not trying to say that slippery slope arguments are always valid. If somebody argued that legalization of homosexual marriage is more likely to lead to legalized euthanasia then that's clearly invalid.

I'm also not saying that liberals don't have principles. I'm just saying that they're stinky.

And I'm also not saying that liberals never consider the big picture. I'm just saying that they only consider the big picture if it helps their cause.

:D

Anyway, Volokh has revisited the issue far more eloquently than I do:

http://volokh.com/2003_11_16_volokh_...19249326450915

[Matthew Gallant]

Permissiveness leads to irresponsibility.

Well, cars lead to car crashes. They're not an inevitable result though, which is what you seem to be implying here.

[SpoofyChop]

I said nothing about specific behaviors that I consider irresponsible.

Can I get this mounted on one of those Hummel dolls or Christmas ornaments?

HA!

You guys are the best.

:wink:

[SpoofyChop]

Permissiveness leads to irresponsibility.

Well, cars lead to car crashes. They're not an inevitable result though, which is what you seem to be implying here.

Hmmm....you're probably right. I shouldn't imply that.

I should just state it outright!

Permissiveness always leads to irresponsibility.

Just look at the way TomMarks run the board! I've never seen such a bevy of irresponsible ding-dongs!

:wink:

[Bub, Andrew]

Spoofy,
I think you understand the Golden Rule, but I don't think you get it.