Slippery Slopes

How many times have you heard or read arguments being made against changing something because it would begin a slide down a “slippery slope”? You can take almost any issue you want that involves a push to change something, and someone is bound to raise the specter of the fearsome consequences, as if doing something that is, by consensus, popular with people in general and seems rational and appropriate, would cause changes to accelerate uncontrollably until disastrous consequences result. Here are a few examples:

--In the 1970s, opponents used the slippery slope argument in arguing to defeat ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which stated that a person’s rights could not be abridged because of his or her gender) by, among other things, suggesting that men and women would ultimately be forced under the ERA to share the same public restrooms.

--As the technology put into each successive generation of small arms becomes more advanced and deadly, there is a rational reaction to want to regulate their availability to the general public. But when any law is proposed to this effect, gun organizations and some owners say that this is but a step to the ultimate goal of the state confiscating everyone’s arms.

--The idea of teaching sex education in school with the aim of avoiding teen-age pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases, including AIDS, is a slippery slope promoting sexual behavior that will result in mass promiscuity.

--Any attempt by the government to regulate health insurance so that the population will be guaranteed universal coverage is the first step down the slippery slope of socialized medicine and state takeover of all medical institutions, with all freedom of choice eliminated and poor medical service provided.

--If embryonic stem-cell research is publicly funded, then this can only slide toward the nightmarish growth of an industry that grows and kills human beings for their body parts.

--The outlawing of the procedure in abortion known as intact dilation and extraction is but one step sliding down a slope toward the ultimate outcome of outlawing all abortions.

--If a community takes upon itself the compassionate goal of providing a more humane environment for its homeless population, then that will start the slippery slope slide of attracting others from outside, who then will hopelessly swamp that community and make it unlivable.

--Any sign of the U.S. reassessing its military policy in Iraq starts us down the slippery slope ending with the terrorists winning the war on terror.

--Allowing conditional amnesty for illegal aliens and implementing a guest worker program is just the start down a slope that will end with the U.S. being overrun by an invasion of people who would impose its language and culture on us without respecting our own.

--The authorized used of electronic surveillance to prevent terrorist attacks is just the first step in the slide leading to the curtailment of our fundamental freedoms as Americans and our subjugation to the state.

--If the minimum wage gets raised, then this will start the slide down a slippery slope with runaway inflation, mass layoffs, business bankruptcies, and economic devastation.

I disagree with the “slippery slope” arguments attached to each of the aforementioned issues. While it is rational and prudent to carefully explore the ramifications of changes we make in our society, we also need to avoid becoming hostages to our fears. That would only lead us down the “slippery slope” to utter stagnation!