The slippery slopes of right and left...

Great Debates
1

I was discussing abortion issues with a very good friend this evening, and she was ranting about the latest ‘assault on abortion rights’, something about a fetus in utero being granted “personhood” in cases of violent assault on the mother (I have to get all the details, i believe a thread is going about it, I’ll have to check it out.)

She was, as she is wont to do, getting very upset at the prospect that “they” (hard core pro-life) would use this as a wedge, etc.

Her fear of course was the slippery slope… first they grant the fetus personhood in THIS instance, the next thing you know, we’re all at backalley butchers, or at the very least, the poor are at butchers.

Now, I am not a “pro-lifer”, by any stretch. But my friend and I have disagreed before about when a fetus has passed a point where destroying it is repugnant. For me, that point is around 5 months. More only if mother’s health is at stake. (I’ve said this before on these boards, this still isn’t the point I’m trying to make.)

My friend, who believes absolutely in the right of a woman to have an abortion right up to and including the moments before she actually goes into labor, simply as a hedge against the slippery slope, will never grant that compromise is possible. All roads lead to choiceless hell in her mind. And she MAY be right…it’s still not my point yet. (I’m working on it, hold tight… I’m getting closer!)

I pointed out to her that if she was going to cling to the position that no compromise can be allowed, lest all rights end up taken away, then she has to see the flip side of this: her argument against any modification of abortion law is essentially the identical argument made by the NRA against any further regulation of guns. First you make us wait three days, and before you know it, we are defenseless against a tyrannical government that has seized them all.

First, to my friend’s credit, she did not dick around with what I was saying (this is one reason she is my friend and I love her so much. She is instellectually honest and consistent.) She stopped for a moment and considered what I had said, and smiled and said “You’re absolutely right. They shouldn’t permit compromise because taking away the guns is exactly the end goal. I undertstand their position completely and do not begrudge them the fight they put up.” And then went on to add: “Which is why I will never concede an inch to them, because I know their ultimate goal is to take away a woman’s right to choose.”

Okay, I grant this. To the extremes at either end, on both issues. The stridently right and left want absolutely no ground given, because losing anything is losing everything. Which they know because for them that is in fact the goal.

I contend that neither side does themselves any favors in this. For instance, with abortion, no one that I’ve ever heard of is really thrilled or even indifferent to late-term abortion. Everyone finds it repugnant. But to rabidly cling to the right to have it (for reasons other than medical) doesn’t endear the pro-choice side to anyone, really, since the numbers tell us that most people, by a large majority, favor two things: a woman’s right to choose, and a belief that the longer a fetus develops, the more repugnant abortion becomes. So why not work for a compromise? Why not give the pro-life folks a little ground in the form of restricting a form of abortion that is anathema to most people anyway, and pretty rare to boot? The slippery slope, of course.

As a result of being so extreme, the various sides undermine their own cause by ultimately repelling the very folks they need for their cause: the rest of us.

So what I’m driving this long, long road to get to is actually this: most of us, on most issues, are somewhere in the middle. Yet the extreme edges will give nothing. Since compromise is what most people want, would giving in be giving up? Is the slippery slope for real? Are the extremes of both ends better off staying extreme, continuing to fight at the far edges of the battles, to keep from losing ANY ground? Are all compromises doomed to become total surrenders by one side or the other? In other words, do we need to be so paranoid?

And if so…why is that, when most of us don’t favor extreme positions?

Discuss

Stoid

PS: Interesting side note about my friend and I and our respective postitions on the abortion thing: she is the loving and very devoted mother to two really terrific children, and I am voluntarily and determinedly childless. Whoda thunk it?

2

Is your friend seriously trying to assert that the NRA’s ultimate goal is to ban abortions?!

But overall, a nice logical analogy between the two issues.

As I see it, it’s not the moderates that we compromise with today that either pro-gun or pro-choicers need to worry about. The moderates will compromise in a reasonable way and go home content.

Right behind those moderates begins the line of increasingly radical types, with more and more stringent lists of demands, until you’ve compromised yourself into a box.

That’s “the slippery slope.”

To my way of thinking, and apparently yours too, it’s a readily apparent danger, not a logical fallacy to be cavalierly dismissed by someone talking on the finer points of logic.

Good god. I actually agree with Stoidela. Shut down the message board and send everyone home, the end draweth nigh.

3

Slippery slopes aren’t really a threat though. They would be a threat if we did not live in a democracy. However extremists most often on either side are simply ignored. Since we live in a democracy having a completely uncompromising opinion turns you into part of the fringe with no real power.

4

I disagree – slippery slopes most certainly can be a problem.

For example, we have “In God We Trust” on coins. I (and others) think this is a violation of the First Amendment. Alas, the courts have not agreed. Now, some legislators are trying to use that loophole to get their version of religion imposed on others.

In another thread here, there is discussion about an Ohio motto, taken directly from the New Testament, “With God All Things Are Possible.” The full appeals court just ruled it okay, and I believe said it was similar to “In God We Trust.” Is it? Well, sort of. Both seem to refer generically to “God” (which, right there, should be a problem). But the second goes farther by directly quoting the NT.

In other news, several states are considering (or have passed) laws to allow schools to post “In God We Trust” mottos to force religious beliefs on children.

With each step, we move further down the slippery slope of government pushing religion. How was it started? Because of the motto on money, which some people will say is harmless. Well, that’s the thing about the slippery slope – the first step always looks harmless enough…

5

I’ll get to the slippery slope in a follow up post, but first I MUST take DavidB to task for his very incorrect analysis of the religion issue. Specifically, the statement that

This statement implies that we were at some point totally separated as regards government and religion, and someone managed to start the issue down the slippery slope by getting a religious motto put on money.

This is incorrect. Religion and government in this country have NEVER been totally separated, not even remotely close. Not even the most liberal point reached in First Amendment analysis by the Supreme Court does that; as Justice Burger himself once noted, the issue is not cut and dried, even under the Lemon analysis. So there never was a first step down a slope. Rather, the issue was never pushed UP the slope all the way to the top. Any implication to the contrary shows an incorrect view of the history of First Amendment law in this country. As I said in another recent post, wishing it so doesn’t make it so.

6

I agree with Stoid’s concern about all-or-nothing approaches to issue resolution. I, as an attorney, often am faced with legal issues that end up on some sort of ‘slippery slope’. But the assertion that one cannot offer an inch because it leads to total capitulation is a defeatest attitude. It assumes that reasonable viewpoints won’t intercede and keep the actual practice somewhere in the middle.

Most who take an all-or-nothing approach do so because, for them, the position they take is very important to them, and if they were asked, their fear of applying some compromise principle that doesn’t go as far as they think is needed at a minimum is substantial. Thus, the environmentalist that can’t compromise on use of natural resources is so afraid that the practice will shift significantly away from the cherished ideal that he or she can’t conceive of letting it slip even a little away; similarly the gun right activist is so concerned that he or she can’t keep what they think they ought to have by right that they won’t agree to reasonable proposals for fear someone will someday take the gun away. Thus, it is fear that drives such feelings, fear of loss of something very very important to the person.
Of course, given the track record of the Supreme Court in application of ‘reasonable man’ standards, one can’t really blame them sometimes. :rolleyes:

7

Good analysis, Stoid. And I think Asmodian is too quick to dismiss the extreamists. With any given issue, if you have enough extreamists for whom the issue has a high priority, the possibility exists that they will eventually get their way, or something close to it. Look at the way the anti-abortionists are chipping away at abortion rights.

I think Stoid’s analysis applies to other issues, as well as guns and abortion. The death penalty, for one. The war on drugs, for another.

There’s another reason why these longstanding debates are never solved. I call it the convicing arguments trap. On any of these issues, the farther you are from the middle, the more likely you are to latch onto several standard, established reasons why your position is correct. These reasons are parroted over and over, year after year, in hopes of persuading people of the rightness of one’s cause.

Examples: The claim that abortion is killing a baby. The claim that the death penalty acts as a deterent. The claim that if you own a gun it’s more likely to be used in a domestic dispute then against an intruder. The claim that records checks and waiting periods will keep guns out of the hands of people with criminal intentions. The claim that marijuana use leads to hard drug use. The claim that decriminalizing drugs would cause a signifacant increase in the number of users.

When someone makes one of these claims, how can anyone know – does he really believe what he’s saying, or is he just cynically using an argument he believes might be convincing, without knowing or caring if it’s true? And if he is using an argment in which he does not actually belive, how can you have any real discussion of the issue?

You can, for example, put lots of effort in to tryiing to prove to someone that the death penalty does not deter people from commiting murder. This accomplishes nothing if the person you’re debating does not actally belive in the deterence effect, and is just saying it because he thinks it may convince others.

If all we are doing is reciting slogans in which we do not really belive, how can we ever solve anything?

8

The thing that scares me is that it was exactly this sort of “no compromise” mentality on both sides that led to the Civil War. I sometimes wonder if abortion might be the issue that ignites another civil war.

9

Both the gun rights and pro-choice folks are correct in that a significant chunk of the opposition will use any wedge it can to achieve its goals - in one case, no legal privately-owned arms except with the most stringent government controls, and in the other no abortions except to save the life of the mother.

At the same time, the reasonable supporters of the civilian right to bear arms and the defenders of choice must recognize when defending every inch of their perceived turf becomes politically counterproductive. I think the abortion rights movement was hurt on the so-called “partial-birth” abortion issue, especially when it was revealed that such procedures weren’t quite so rare as first proclaimed and medical necessity wasn’t always the ruling factor. Expressing concern over potential abuses and supporting more study and possible tighter controls of late-term abortions would have given pro-choicers more credibility and increased the perception that their opponents were cornering the market on extremism. Likewise, gun rights backers take a hit when they are uncompromising on things like armor-penetrating bullets and other armament that it’s hard to justify as being essential for self-protection or hunting.

Worry too much about the slippery slope, and you wind up looking like a greased pig. :slight_smile:

10

I really don’t think that it is that polarized. I know there are the extremeists on both sides, extremeist Pro-lifers who think that abortion doctors laugh with satin glee at each baby they kill as they advance up hell ladder, and the rabid pro-choicers who think that nobody cares about the baby and that it is just an excuse from the cabal of men trying to get women in chains.

But the majority of people I’ve discussed with it have already done a lot of compromising in their heads. Most people think, killing babies is bad, and forcing people to do things they don’t want with their bodies is also bad. Most people end up mentally weighing those to ‘evils’ in their head to come up with their personal belief on abortion. If it’s a life with rights after birth, maybe it is before, maybe one week, maybe a month, maybe three months, maybe the life has enough potential to have rights at conception. Maybe right up until the moment it’s born the right of the mother to control her body is the most important factor. A statement I’ve often heard is "I believe abortion is morally wrong, and could never support someone doing it, however morality shouldn’t be decided by the government, and abortion should never be made illegal.

In general I think that the slippery slope is a real phenomenon, and that there are people who realize that the quickest way to getting their views enacted is to slowly erode at the border of whatever issue it is. However I don’t think it is very effective at getting things done, because with each successive movement of the line there are more people on the other side ready to stop you from moving the line anymore.

11

I think the difference here is that this law is entirely designed to grease the slippery slope. Abortion rights are already limited by Roe v. Wade and most people are comfortable with those limitations.

12

Given how handy Slippery Slope arguments are, are they still in the catalog of Logical Fallacies?

Many use the “crack in the dam will lead to a flood” analogy to argue against that first crack. They use it because it is too often true. It seems a slender distinction between an argument that forecasts actual undesired consequences, and an argument that cites imagined bad effects. Wouldn’t the latter fall under the category of Non Sequitur?

I’ve seen too many politicians use the term “Slippery Slope” as though it was no longer taboo rhetoric. Maybe we should take it off the list.

–Grump “it’s a hell of a toboggan ride!” y

13

No, of course not. I believe was merely making the not-unreasonable leap that among the hard-right gun lovers and the hard-right prolifers, there’s a fair amount of overlap. Since my friend is a through-andthrough lefty, across the baord, she knows the type.

stoid

14

Yeah, me too.

15

Ok, but David is talking about legal precident and Stoid is making a point about political strategy. Different, though related, beasts.

16

If you look at history in the United States, I think you’ll see that there is no slippery slope. We live in a democracy (mostly) and in a democracy there is always compromise. Generally, on any one issue that the US has faced, the two sides have tugged back and forth. When one side takes to much, the other side fights a little harder. Look at civil rights for an example.

Now, in response to Hazel, I have to say that I politely but vehemently disagree. Nobody that I know holds opinions that they do not have solid reasons for, or gives reasons that they do not believe. Why would they do that? Usually when arguing with someone about an issue, nobody is convinced in the end. An argument is just a forum to air your beliefs.
If you ask any person their opinion on abortion, for example, most people would be able to defend their answer with intelligence. Even when their arguments are wrong, they have thought about it. I personally do believe that abortion is killing a baby. I am not parroting; it is a belief that I have come to after thinking about the issue. To say that anybody is parroting is to insult their intelligence and dismiss their arguments without really responding to them.

17

DSYoung said:

Yes, it is incorrect. And no, I never meant to imply that. I didn’t say it was a “first step,” though it could be interpreted that way, so I should have been clearer.

I was talking more of recent times, not looking all the way back 200 years ago. Recently, IGWT has been ruled okay. More recently, religious right folks have been trying to use this loophole to push us down a slippery slope.

Clearer?

18

No one should ever use slippery slope arguments. I mean, people start using them in situations where they make some sense, but then they get so used to the idea of slippery slopes that they use the argument in more and more ridiculous situations, until eventually they’re using the slippery slope argument to support incredibly stupid positions.

[sub]and yes, that is a joke[/sub]

Seriously though, asking whether the slippery slope argument is valid is like asking whether the ends justify the means. They are both such broad questions that it really depends on the situation. There are cases in which the slippery slope clearly makes sense. For instance, one of the ideas of Communism is that if someone is causing sufficiently large damage to society, it is moral to kill him. While I agree that there are indeed situations in which killing someone would make society as a whole better, I can not condone such killing because while it may be of overall benefit in one particular case, allowing the government to decide who lives and who dies in all cases will cause a totalitarianist state. So in this case I believe that a slippery slope argument would be valid.

But I can also think of cases in which the slippery slope argument would not be valid. For instance, I have seen people arguing that we can’t allow Affirmative Action to be abolished, because that will eventually lead to blacks being reenslaved. In that case there is a clear difference between AA and slavery, and eliminating the first in no way presents the danger that the second will reappear.

While I can’t know for certain what people believe, the absurdity of some of their beliefs makes it very difficult to believe that they actually have any reason to believe what they are saying.

Because they don’t want to admit that they’re wrong.

19

Some people’s reasons may seem absurd, but in their minds, their logic is infallible. There are still people out there that believe that the earth is 4,000 years old. I don’t believe that is true. In fact, I might even call it absurd. But if you were to go up to such a person and ask them why they believe such an “absurd” belief, they would give a response something like “well, that’s what the Bible says and the Bible can’t be wrong because God wouldn’t let it be wrong.” That seems absurd to me, but to that person, it’s perfectly reasonable. I guess my point is that you cannot call someone’s beliefs absurd without ignoring their basis of judgement. And to call their beliefs absurd is an insult that does nothing to answer their arguments.
I’m sorry, it seems I have digressed from the main point. I apologize. Carry on.

20

If someone simply has blind faith that the Earth is 4,000 years old, and is upfront about it, then I wouldn’t call that absurd. It’s when they make statements which are obviously and demonstrably false that I consider their reasoning to be absurd. For instance, someone once told me that the Bible was written in the first person. The fact that anyone could state such an obviously false statement shows that they are being intellectually dishonest.