The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[Alex]

Slippery slope arguments aren't necessarily invalid but they're very problematic for reasonable debate since, to a degree they can't be negated. Doing so requires proving a negative.

When it comes to any legislation that reduces in any way access to abortion it is reasonable to be worried about the slippery slope since it is almost always being submitted by people who are quite explicit that the ultimate goal is for abortion to never be legal. Does that mean any such legislation is, on its face, a travesty? I'd say no.

When it comes to health care it is reasonable to worry that the current proposals are the first step on a slippery slope to single payer since many of the people pushing it in the past have said that is there goal and are now counseling that it is best to get there incrementally.

"Even though X isn't that horrible of a thing I oppose it because I see it as the first step towards Y, which is completely unacceptable to me" is not a bad point of contention. Especially if it opens a door for negotiation wherein a proponent of X could include roadblocks that make Y less likely to occur. Or at least attempt to show that the benefits of the intermediate step are sufficient that the battle lines should be drawn at the next step down the slippery slope.

The two problems in how most people using slippery slope arguments are

1. They intentionally misstate (or have been themselves deceived into believing) that the feared end state is actually the immediate result of the item being discussed ("requiring a doctor to mention the opportunities of adoption will result in 2 million botched back-alley abortions a year!" or "the House Ways and Means bill is British style socialist medicine!").

2. Misstatement (intentionally or otherwise) of the intent motivating various parties. I grew up being told not that certain Reagan policies would hurt the poor but that Reagan wanted to starve the poor. This is also an extrapolation of unintended consequences, which are also a type of argument that is nearly impossible to negate. "The mechanism by which the proposed plan funds end of life counseling will create a series of perverse incentives that after several iterations and over time will discourage people from using ever-less-drastic measures for extending life" is a reasonable argument. "Obama wants to euthanise old people" is not. "Requiring parental notification is going to lead to more young girls seeking abortion through less safe means resulting in negative health consequences to both them an the fetus at a rate that negates any avoided abortions" is a reasonable (and by reasonable I don't mean correct, just that it allows for discussion) argument. "You'd rather girls die in back alleys with hangers up their nethers than allow even one safe abortion" is not.

[wendybeth]

VAM.

I'm guilty of the 'slippery slope' speak as well- I suppose many of us are, no matter what our political affiliation. Scaeagles comment "And honestly, I don't fault them for doing so. What happens is the look at what the next step might be and therefore want no movement at all in that direction" is how I feel about many of the conservative's motives, and I can understand they feel the same way about liberal proposals. I don't know if there can ever be a meeting of minds in this environment of such extreme distrust, but I do wish the violent rhetoric would cease. It's non-productive, divisive and dangerous. For the record, I get just as irritated with liberal extremism as well.

[scaeagles]

Alex has us all singing Kum Bah Ya together. Alex for President.

I <3 Alex!

[Alex]

Just read this on the incremental "slippery slope" (why do I keep typing that as slipper slope?) of anti-smoking laws and regulations.

Regardless of whether you agree or not with where things currently stand (generally I don't and the last cigarette I smoked was in 1981) try to imagine being back in the early '80s. There's discussion about new laws to ban smoking on airplanes.

How crazy would the person saying "if you pass this law it is just the first step towards them telling you that you can't smoke in your own home, or that you can't smoke in your city park even if there isn't another person with a football field of you?"

But back in 1982 how would you have differentiated this one from the guy saying it'll inevitably lead to the same logic being used to outlaw fatty foods (mostly hasn't happened yet but the logic is starting to move that way in obvious ways) or from the guy saying that it will eventually lead to stoning in the public square of any offenders (still doesn't look likely).

[Strangler Lewis]

While scaeagles teabags Alex, I will observe that the slippery slope argument makes much more sense in criticizing the things the left criticizes the right about than the other way around.

The slippery slope argument from the right assumes that the left's ultimate goal is socialism. The problem with that is that Democrat proposals address large, bulky systems that are naturally only modified incrementally--the economy, the tax structure. Thus, while it may have happened before in other countries, it is less reasonable to assume that some total systemic transformation is the goal.

The Democrats' concern about Republicans' dangerous ultimate goals tends to focus on civil rights issues. These are far more easily undone with the stroke of a pen. Thus, to my mind, the slippery slope fear is more legitimate.

[Alex]

Perhaps, though I'd say it is also the case that slippery slope arguments seem a lot more reasonable when you agree that the feared end state is a bad thing.

I should have had a 3 in my post above about how slipper slope arguments are misused. The 3 is to pretend that there are no countering forces resisting the slide down the slope, that it is a frictionless surface. And therefore, that essentially any end result that can be imagined is equally as likely as any other. (When I see this it reminds me of people who call into sports radio and say "all our problems would be solved if we traded the 25th man on our roster for Alex Rodriguez and Tim Lincecum" in how they seem to think that just because they can imagine it, it must be possible.)

[JWBear]

Ain't capitalist heath care just grand?

An investigation this summer by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and earlier ones by state regulators in California, New York and Connecticut, found that thousands of vulnerable and seriously ill policyholders have had their coverage canceled by many of the nation's largest insurance companies without any legal basis. The congressional committee found that three insurance companies alone made at least $300 million over five years from rescission. One of those three companies was Assurant...

...During the case, evidence emerged that Health Net had paid bonuses to employees to reward them based on the number of policyholders they had rescinded. The judge who awarded Bates the $9 million said in his decision: "It's difficult to imagine a policy more reprehensible than tying bonuses to encourage the rescission of health insurance that keeps the public well and alive.

[Betty]

Originally Posted by JWBear

Ain't capitalist heath care just grand?

Shameful! What's next? Rewards for the number of people that die waiting for approval when they can draw that process out? Why - it's almost like a death panel! Oh the irony.

Perhaps health insurance should be more of a non-profit sort of deal.

[Betty]

Huge protest - but over what?

http://www.time.com/time/politics/ar...rss-topstories

On Sept. 12, a large crowd gathered in Washington to protest ... what? The goals of Congress and the Obama Administration, mainly — the cost, the scale, the perceived leftist intent. The crowd's agenda was wide-ranging, so it's hard to be more specific. "End the Fed," a sign read. A schoolboy's placard denounced "Obama's Nazi Youth Militia." Another poster declared, "We the People for Capitalism Not Socialism."

Because we all know the Nazi Youth Malitia is sooo getting out of hand.

And they were motivated by a concern about runaway government spending — that, plus an outraged feeling that their views as citizens are not being heard. "We are sick and tired of being ignored," she said. "There is too much money being spent."

Hmmm - and did they protest this when Bush got all spendy I wonder?

Be afraid says Glenn Beck

"I'm afraid," he has said more than once in recent months. "You should be afraid too."


His fears are many — which is lucky for him, because Beck is responsible for filling multiple hours each day on radio and TV and webcast, plus hundreds of pages each year in his books, his online magazine and his newsletter. What's this rich and talented man afraid of? He is afraid of one-world government, which will turn once proud America into another France. He is afraid that Obama "has a deep-seated hatred for white people" — which doesn't mean, he hastens to add, that he actually thinks "Obama doesn't like white people." He is afraid that both Democrats and Republicans in Washington are deeply corrupt and that their corruption is spreading like a plague. He used to be afraid that hypocritical Republicans in the Bush Administration were killing capitalism and gutting liberty, but now he is afraid that all-too-sincere leftists in the Obama Administration are plotting the same. On a slow news day, Beck fears that the Rockefeller family installed communist and fascist symbols in the public artwork of Rockefeller Center. One of his Fox News Channel colleagues, Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber." Beck countered that he preferred "doom room."

What a load of manufactured BS he puts on (for ratings?)

It would seem to be the case when just last year after the election he said in an interview:

The inevitable question is, How much of this industry is sincere? Last year, shortly after the election, Beck spoke with TIME's Kate Pickert, and he didn't sound very scared back then. Of Obama's early personnel decisions, he said, "I think so far he's chosen wisely." Of his feelings about the President: "I am not an Obama fan, but I am a fan of our country ... He is my President, and we must have him succeed. If he fails, we all fail." Of the Democratic Party: "I don't know personally a single Democrat who is a dope-smoking hippie that wants to turn us into Soviet Russia." Of the civic duty to trust: "We've got to pull together, because we are facing dark, dark times. I don't trust a single weasel in Washington. I don't care what party they're from. But unless we trust each other, we're not going to make it."

[BarTopDancer]

I find it sad that the people invoking calls of Naziisim by the Obama administration seem to have forgotten that Nazi's were about white supremacy.