I can't tell you how many times someone has told me that this or that particular development in our society has put us all on the "slippery slope" to who knows where-- damnation, probably.
It's a long slippery slope. It started when Clark Gable uttered those immortal words, "Frankly, I don't give a damn", in Gone With the Wind. Or it began when Pierre Trudeau announced that the state had no business in the bedrooms of the nation. Or it began with Roe vs. Wade. Or it began with Elvis. Or the Beatles. Or Harvey Milk. Or Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. Or Watergate. Or the Internet. Or Mad Magazine. Whatever.
Most people don't realize that "slippery slope" is a derogatory term. Yes, it is. If you take logics in college-- something you are usually required to do for a philosophy degree-- you will learn very quickly that "slippery slope" arguments are almost always invalid. Why?
The essence of a "slippery slope" argument is this: this particular development, while not in and of itself evil, will lead to other developments that are really bad. Therefore, we should stop it all right now and take action against this particular development.
It's appealing-- isn't it? If we allow sex education, we encourage promiscuity, and if we have promiscuity, we will have abortions, and then pretty soon we'll allow voluntary euthanasia, and then involuntary euthanasia, and then we'll be Nazis.
But imagine you were in court and a the crown attorney argued thusly: "Yes, picking pockets is not a very serious crime, but many pick-pockets go on to become murderers, so we ask to the court to sentence the defendant, who has been found guilty of picking pockets, to 30 years in prison."
The judge, of course, would laugh at this logic, and sentence the defendant to 30 days (except in the U.S. where he would, in fact, be sentenced to 30 years). You can't convict a man of a crime he might eventually commit. It offends our fundamental principles of justice. In the same way, you can't argue for capital punishment on the reasoning that it will prevent murderers for murdering again. Many people don't understand this-- you can't punish someone for a crime he has not committed. It's against our most fundamental principles of justice. Many people don't care. You should read that again-- many people don't care.
"Slippery slope" arguments should always be rejected as feeble and specious and absurd. If homosexuality is evil, let it be evil, and let's oppose it. Let's throw all the homosexuals in jail. If it is not, in itself, an evil thing, then permit it. If there are other things that you think are evil but they haven't happened yet, by all means, let's be ready to deal with them when they come.
You see, that's another problem with slippery slope arguments-- if you follow the logic consistently, you would never permit anything, for there is nothing that does not come before something else. It is obvious that abortion is the result of feminist activism. And feminist activism is only possible because women have the vote. And the vote is only possible for women because a court ruled that women were "persons". So, to prevent abortion, we should never have decided that women were "persons".
So where do you stop your slide down the slippery slope? Logically, you should stop the courts from defining women as persons. But everybody knows that is absurd. So you pick and choose. Many people choose abortion. Some choose birth control. It's entirely arbitrary. And that, again, is why slippery slope arguments are so weak.
It is so elegant, so beautiful, and so reasonable to simply say that we will decide whether any particular act is right or wrong and respond accordingly. It works well. It is at the heart of all that is good about our system of justice.
