How the Left brushes away warnings of bad outcomes of their policies: "slippery slope"
When the Left proposes some obviously flawed or dangerous new government law or program, conservatives often respond that "If you do that, X is bound to happen."
Leftist "intellectuals" airily, contemptuously brush that objection aside by citing "the slippery-slope fallacy," which holds that just because you take one step in the direction of disaster doesn't mean you'll necessarily take a second or third step.
And that's certainly technically true. The problem is, Leftists never stop with the first step, but always take the second, third and fourth steps. And five or ten years down the road most Americans have forgotten that the Left sneeringly dismissed the warning from conservatives as an absurd "slippery slope" argument.
Of course if society--at the command of the Left/Democrats--proceeds down the slope, the argument ceases to be fallacious. But no one remembers that the Left dismissed the warnings.
Examples:
In 1986 the Left demanded "immigration reform"--which was actually a push to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens already in the U.S. Conservatives warned that rewarding people who had broken the law by entering the U.S. illegally would encourage millions of others to do the same, hoping that the amnesty would be repeated.
The Left swore this could not happen, because the amnesty was a one-time offer.
The Left won: congress passed the "Simpson-Mazolli Act" in 1986, legalizing illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982. Candidates were required to have a minimal knowledge about U.S. history, government, and the English language. President Reagan signed the bill.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service estimated that about four million illegal immigrants would apply for legal status through the act and that roughly half of them would be eligible for the amnesty. No one spoke about what should be done with illegal aliens who didn't qualify.
That was 1986. By 2010 an estimated 11 million more people had entered the U.S. illegally, and Democrats and other liberals were hell-bent on granting citizenship to all of them. Cynics claimed the push by the Left was designed to ensure Democrats would win the presidency and control of congress for at least 50 years. In 2010 National Public Radio sought to win younger or less-informed conservative voters over to the pro-amnesty side by implying that Reagan was the main push for amnesty back in 1986.
In 2014 MSNBC echoed that claim, falsely asserting that "the grandfather of amnesty happens to be one of the Republican Party’s most beloved heroes: President Ronald Reagan."
In 2012 five robes on the supreme court ruled that Arizona--and by implication no state--could enforce known, legal federal immigration laws. To say the reasoning was strained is a huge understatement. (As an aside, the Wiki history is very poorly written.)
In June of 2012 the emperor Obama decreed--by executive order--what Wiki cunningly describes as "an American immigration policy." That's because it wasn't a law but an imperial decree. Cleverly mis-named "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" [nothing about "illegal aliens"--just people who mysteriously arrived in the U.S.], it allowed "certain illegal immigrants who entered the country as minors, to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and eligibility for a work permit."
In November of 2014 the emperor tried to expand DACA to another few million, and announced a new "policy" called DAPA, which is described either as "Deferred Action for Parents of Americans" or "Deferred Action for Parental Accountability." You may find it odd that a law would have more than one name. That's because once again, DAPA wasn't a law. It wasn't even an "executive" (imperial) order, but was a directive Obama cunningly had Jeh Johnson issue, to disguise the true source. As Wiki coyly puts it, "DAPA was neither a law passed by Congress, nor a Presidential executive order, nor even a regulatory ruling, but it had the effect of a new law passed."
You may also find the title astonishingly uninformative. That's intentional. DAPA was Obama's attempt to invite the parents of millions of illegal alien "children" who had managed to sneak into the U.S.--often at the urging of the parents themselves. You may also wonder how the policy could ever be called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, when the children of those parents were in fact not Americans. That would be because way down toward the end of the "policy" was a 'graf that declared that people covered by the "temporary, renewable" amnesty of DACA were--bingo!--Americans.
Some 26 states sued the emperor's administration over this. As a result ONLY of the determination of these states, the courts ruled both the emperor's proposed expansion of DACA and the entirety of DAPA unconstitutional. But of course this was merely a temporary delay for the Left.
By 2014 the emperor's regime declared that the federal government would no longer use the terms "illegal alien" or "illegal immigrant."
Today we're in free-fall, with dozens of Democrat-controlled cities and the state of California having declared themselves "sanctuary cities" (or state) and have decreed that their law enforcement people must not cooperate with federal authorities. We've gone from the emperor suing Arizona to prevent it from enforcing federal immigration law to declaring de-facto amnesty for everyone, to entire states declaring they won't cooperate with the feds in enforcing existing immigration laws.
It's interesting that back when the emperor's regime sued Arizona, the courts found that federal law overrode state laws; but now that cities and states are deciding NOT to cooperate with federal laws, no one has raised the same issue. Eh, who cares?
Want another example of a slippery slope that turned out to be deadly? Consider how fast the nation went down the tubes in terms of marriage and gender:
Gays had first pushed to decriminalize homosexual acts. Right after that victory they began pushing to legalize same-sex marriage. Conservatives warned that if that principle was established, there would be no rational barrier to polygamy, or marrying siblings, or animals. The Left laughed off these warnings: Gay marriage, they claimed, had no connection to anything else.
So surely it was mere coincidence that shortly after the Left won on same sex marriage, the next push was for the right of children to declare they were actually the opposite "gender." The emperor's regime sent down a decree that all schools had to allow students who wanted to be the other gender to use the bathroom and locker room of their choice.
Shortly afterwards both New York City and California passed rules or laws making it a crime to address someone by their preferred pronoun. Academic conferences in the social area printed name tags saying "my preferred pronoun is ___." New York City decreed that there were 30-some "genders."
A former army private who was in prison (sentenced to 35 years) for giving 750,000 classified cables to Wikileaks insisted he was a she, and demanded that the Army pay tens of thousands of dollars for his sex-change operation. The top Pentagon civilians--taking their cue from the emperor--agreed. Shortly thereafter the emperor--in a move designed to reward leakers and traitors, and give the finger to actual dedicated soldiers--commuted this scrunt's sentence after he served less than four years.
Hmm...pardoning a leaker and traitor, versus Trump's pardoning of Sheriff Arpaio for enforcing the law. Which outrages liberals more?
In only one state--North Carolina--did the legislature muster the courage to buck the emperor's order that transgenders be allowed to use whatever bathroom they wished--and the trans snowflakes quickly got their friends in high places to boycott that state. The NBA pulled playoff games, NCAA pulled everything, snowflake-run states banned state employees from using state funds to attend meetings in NC.
Now a cable television network--eager to get its virtue card punched--has invited transgender members of the military to sit on the front row of its annual awards show. This is another middle finger to the serious military, but all too predictable.
Shall we turn to the firestorm that's blown up over statues? Nah, this is too long already, so I'll save that for another post. The point is that whenever the Left demands one step down what's clearly a bad path, they'll always follow it with another, and another. Then when disaster is unavoidable they piously wail "NONE of this is our fault! It's all due to those damn conservatives! If they hadn't tried to obstruct this faaabulous, glorious program/policy all would have been great! Blame them, not us!"
Leftist "intellectuals" airily, contemptuously brush that objection aside by citing "the slippery-slope fallacy," which holds that just because you take one step in the direction of disaster doesn't mean you'll necessarily take a second or third step.
And that's certainly technically true. The problem is, Leftists never stop with the first step, but always take the second, third and fourth steps. And five or ten years down the road most Americans have forgotten that the Left sneeringly dismissed the warning from conservatives as an absurd "slippery slope" argument.
Of course if society--at the command of the Left/Democrats--proceeds down the slope, the argument ceases to be fallacious. But no one remembers that the Left dismissed the warnings.
Examples:
In 1986 the Left demanded "immigration reform"--which was actually a push to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens already in the U.S. Conservatives warned that rewarding people who had broken the law by entering the U.S. illegally would encourage millions of others to do the same, hoping that the amnesty would be repeated.
The Left swore this could not happen, because the amnesty was a one-time offer.
The Left won: congress passed the "Simpson-Mazolli Act" in 1986, legalizing illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982. Candidates were required to have a minimal knowledge about U.S. history, government, and the English language. President Reagan signed the bill.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service estimated that about four million illegal immigrants would apply for legal status through the act and that roughly half of them would be eligible for the amnesty. No one spoke about what should be done with illegal aliens who didn't qualify.
That was 1986. By 2010 an estimated 11 million more people had entered the U.S. illegally, and Democrats and other liberals were hell-bent on granting citizenship to all of them. Cynics claimed the push by the Left was designed to ensure Democrats would win the presidency and control of congress for at least 50 years. In 2010 National Public Radio sought to win younger or less-informed conservative voters over to the pro-amnesty side by implying that Reagan was the main push for amnesty back in 1986.
In 2014 MSNBC echoed that claim, falsely asserting that "the grandfather of amnesty happens to be one of the Republican Party’s most beloved heroes: President Ronald Reagan."
In 2012 five robes on the supreme court ruled that Arizona--and by implication no state--could enforce known, legal federal immigration laws. To say the reasoning was strained is a huge understatement. (As an aside, the Wiki history is very poorly written.)
In June of 2012 the emperor Obama decreed--by executive order--what Wiki cunningly describes as "an American immigration policy." That's because it wasn't a law but an imperial decree. Cleverly mis-named "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" [nothing about "illegal aliens"--just people who mysteriously arrived in the U.S.], it allowed "certain illegal immigrants who entered the country as minors, to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and eligibility for a work permit."
In November of 2014 the emperor tried to expand DACA to another few million, and announced a new "policy" called DAPA, which is described either as "Deferred Action for Parents of Americans" or "Deferred Action for Parental Accountability." You may find it odd that a law would have more than one name. That's because once again, DAPA wasn't a law. It wasn't even an "executive" (imperial) order, but was a directive Obama cunningly had Jeh Johnson issue, to disguise the true source. As Wiki coyly puts it, "DAPA was neither a law passed by Congress, nor a Presidential executive order, nor even a regulatory ruling, but it had the effect of a new law passed."
You may also find the title astonishingly uninformative. That's intentional. DAPA was Obama's attempt to invite the parents of millions of illegal alien "children" who had managed to sneak into the U.S.--often at the urging of the parents themselves. You may also wonder how the policy could ever be called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, when the children of those parents were in fact not Americans. That would be because way down toward the end of the "policy" was a 'graf that declared that people covered by the "temporary, renewable" amnesty of DACA were--bingo!--Americans.
Some 26 states sued the emperor's administration over this. As a result ONLY of the determination of these states, the courts ruled both the emperor's proposed expansion of DACA and the entirety of DAPA unconstitutional. But of course this was merely a temporary delay for the Left.
By 2014 the emperor's regime declared that the federal government would no longer use the terms "illegal alien" or "illegal immigrant."
Today we're in free-fall, with dozens of Democrat-controlled cities and the state of California having declared themselves "sanctuary cities" (or state) and have decreed that their law enforcement people must not cooperate with federal authorities. We've gone from the emperor suing Arizona to prevent it from enforcing federal immigration law to declaring de-facto amnesty for everyone, to entire states declaring they won't cooperate with the feds in enforcing existing immigration laws.
It's interesting that back when the emperor's regime sued Arizona, the courts found that federal law overrode state laws; but now that cities and states are deciding NOT to cooperate with federal laws, no one has raised the same issue. Eh, who cares?
Want another example of a slippery slope that turned out to be deadly? Consider how fast the nation went down the tubes in terms of marriage and gender:
Gays had first pushed to decriminalize homosexual acts. Right after that victory they began pushing to legalize same-sex marriage. Conservatives warned that if that principle was established, there would be no rational barrier to polygamy, or marrying siblings, or animals. The Left laughed off these warnings: Gay marriage, they claimed, had no connection to anything else.
So surely it was mere coincidence that shortly after the Left won on same sex marriage, the next push was for the right of children to declare they were actually the opposite "gender." The emperor's regime sent down a decree that all schools had to allow students who wanted to be the other gender to use the bathroom and locker room of their choice.
Shortly afterwards both New York City and California passed rules or laws making it a crime to address someone by their preferred pronoun. Academic conferences in the social area printed name tags saying "my preferred pronoun is ___." New York City decreed that there were 30-some "genders."
A former army private who was in prison (sentenced to 35 years) for giving 750,000 classified cables to Wikileaks insisted he was a she, and demanded that the Army pay tens of thousands of dollars for his sex-change operation. The top Pentagon civilians--taking their cue from the emperor--agreed. Shortly thereafter the emperor--in a move designed to reward leakers and traitors, and give the finger to actual dedicated soldiers--commuted this scrunt's sentence after he served less than four years.
Hmm...pardoning a leaker and traitor, versus Trump's pardoning of Sheriff Arpaio for enforcing the law. Which outrages liberals more?
In only one state--North Carolina--did the legislature muster the courage to buck the emperor's order that transgenders be allowed to use whatever bathroom they wished--and the trans snowflakes quickly got their friends in high places to boycott that state. The NBA pulled playoff games, NCAA pulled everything, snowflake-run states banned state employees from using state funds to attend meetings in NC.
Now a cable television network--eager to get its virtue card punched--has invited transgender members of the military to sit on the front row of its annual awards show. This is another middle finger to the serious military, but all too predictable.
Shall we turn to the firestorm that's blown up over statues? Nah, this is too long already, so I'll save that for another post. The point is that whenever the Left demands one step down what's clearly a bad path, they'll always follow it with another, and another. Then when disaster is unavoidable they piously wail "NONE of this is our fault! It's all due to those damn conservatives! If they hadn't tried to obstruct this faaabulous, glorious program/policy all would have been great! Blame them, not us!"
posted by SF at
7:12 PM
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