On 1/12/2011 11:27 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 19:54:12 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> And, I would, and many
>> others have, that if you do not enforce the matter strictly, you lend
>> yourself to a slow erosion of principle, in which the number of people
>> trying to actively violate it, or find ways around it, or even
>> repeal/change it, increases, as more and more succeed in finding such
>> loopholes. We often have difficulty seeing this, for much the same
>> reason the other side can't imagine every problem being solved from
>> guns, or prayer, or capitalism, or what ever combination of notions they
>> think are king of the hill at the time.
>
> My word, that's a very long run-on sentence. ;-)
>
> But it boils down to the "slippery slope" argument, and while I have been
> guilty of using it myself in the past, in more recent times, I've not
> really been convinced of it.
>
> Both ideologies use the argument when it suits them.
>
> I'm not really sure what the rest of what you wrote was, because it was
> so difficult to read.  Sorry.
>
> Jim
Well, the reason both sides make the argument is that its correct. If 
you don't enforce absolute moral codes, and arrest, hang, burn, or 
whatever, anyone you catch at it, you end up finding that some of the 
stuff you think is wrong becomes "normal", for everyone except your 
group. The flaw in the ointment is that they assume they *know* the 
answer, and what the consequences are, even when they have no evidence. 
I would say that, while this *sometimes* happens with the other side, 
most of the arguments *tend* to be backed by, "We tried that, it didn't 
work, made things worse, or nothing bad happened when no one followed 
it." All of them much more sane arguments than, "The world will come to 
an end if we let X people do Y thing! Someone told me, though I have 
know idea on what page, that the Babble says so!!!"

Or, Rand's book said so, or the wild guess I pulled out of my ass 
yesterday says so, or I find it icky, so it must be so, etc., ad nauseum.

Someone quoted the thinking behind some of this stuff as, "Credo quia 
absurdum" : 'I believe *because* the idea is absurd.'

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message