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To: RoosterRedux

a slippery slope isn’t just an observable and predictable phenomenon, given enough time to measure. It is also an intentional sociopolitical technique, otherwise known as boiling the frog.

I remember when they first passed seat-belt laws in my state. I was very young, so even though there are hundreds of examples I could cite from my life, this was the one that became the formidable lesson. At first they said it was only the driver who had to wear it, and that you couldn’t be pulled over for it. Opponents and cynics pointed out that this is just the start. Someday it will be all passengers, and they will pass new laws to permit law enforcement to target it specifically. This may not be the best example, as most people agree with the restraints as a public safety issue, but given much time (well over a decade in fact) all those things they said came true.

I can also remember when people were offering warnings about Europeans falling for the notion that you need a single currency and to remove trade barriers, because it will eventually lead to the loss of sovereignty. The proponents, of course, scoffed and even chaffed. But they knew. We all know that at the deeper levels anyway, beyond the useful idiots, they knew.


8 posted on 12/03/2018 5:28:57 AM PST by z3n
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To: z3n
"This may not be the best example, as most people agree with the restraints as a public safety issue"

I agree, it's not a good example. I was an adult at the time and remember it well when you didn't have to have seat belts. Driving is a privilege not a right and when you are belted in, not only yourself and passengers are better able to survive a crash but you are better able to control a car if you are belted in.

A better example is that when I was growing up, each state set it's laws in regards to the age of being able to purchase and consume alcohol. Throughout the 80's the Federal Government wanted all states to conform to the drinking age to be 21. They did this by threatening to hold Federal Highway funds to states unless they conformed. They all did. Where in the Constitution did the states give the Federal government the authority to set drinking age policy among the states? It's been a slippery slope that the Federal government has gone down to get more power for itself and take that power away from the states.
9 posted on 12/03/2018 5:42:58 AM PST by Old Teufel Hunden
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To: z3n

“This may not be the best example, as most people agree with the restraints as a public safety issue”

I agree, it’s not a good example. I was an adult at the time and remember it well when you didn’t have to have seat belts. Driving is a privilege not a right and when you are belted in, not only yourself and passengers are better able to survive a crash but you are better able to control a car if you are belted in.


Actually it’s the perfect example as the second statement shows. When a law is passed infringing upon freedom eventually the public will come to justify it by the type of reasoning expressed above. There’s always an excuse given for loss of freedom such as “it’s a privilege”, “you can better control the car”, my insurance rates will go up, it’s for the children, etc. None of them are valid reasons for government interference in something that poses no threat of harm to anyone else.


15 posted on 12/03/2018 8:02:23 AM PST by GaryCrow
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