Politics
Out of context: Reply #2887
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- tommyo0
'Slippery Slope' is actually exactly how our government operates. When you start looking at pretty much every issue we face these days you need to see that it starts with something minor and seemingly innocuous, which then grows and grows. Income Tax was originally pitched as only effecting the richest of the rich, then it widened and widened until only the poorest of the poor weren't paying it. Health care is also a good example. Government mandated that only the smallest companies didn't need to provide HMO coverage, this had negative affects within the health care industry and raised prices dramatically ... now their solution is to provide gov run health care. Banking? They started manipulating banking through the Fed, so that they could try and control our economy more through inflation and interest rates. Now look at the mess we're in. It always starts with something minor, which in turn has an effect, then they step in again to attempt at correcting or exploiting the original even further. Which has more and sometimes deeper outcomes. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Even look at what Bush did with the war. A US President is not allowed to declare war without first getting Congressional approval. But he did. If you think that the liberties taken by government are new they're not. We've seen a steady and constant erosion of Constitutional provisions and outlines since the start. I believe it was Andrew Jackson who favored central banking after Thomas Jefferson and the framers of the Constitution spoke at length about the bad it could do. Same with gold standard money which got tossed on it's head for the last time during the Nixon administration. It always starts with something small that affects things only slightly and then like a iron wedge, it gets driven deeper and deeper until it affects everyone in corresponding proportions. Even if you hate smoking, it's a great issue to follow down the rabbit hole. Here is the timeline: No smoking in airplanes (sounds good!), no smoking inside restaurants (sounds okay!), let's add lots of taxes on cigarettes (huh why?), no smoking 20 ft from entrances (hmm), add more taxes (okay this is getting out of control). Now using the exact same reasoning as smoking, there are some groups in government who are trying to levy extra taxes on potato chips and soda. So you might not like smoking, but you need to realize that it generally starts with something that the 'many' agree with, and then it continues down the line until we're all sitting in the same broken row boat. So in essence Gov runs the country in pure Slippery Slope fashion.
There are quite a few examples I can think of and none of them are positive. Did you know that gov is now helping fund a program that does mental health testing on all school children? It's starting out small, with a few schools, but if successful do you think it's going to stop there? Us tax payers will fund it through taxes, and the big drug companies and psychiatric industry will make billions with their new customers. Slowly and slowly our rights as parents and free individuals are taken bit by bit and it always follows a slippery slope pattern. Usually sold to us through simple word justifications like 'war on terrorism' or 'economic rescue' (not 'bailout' because that would mean that there is someone to blame, which there is).
- So i guess the only solution is to apply this Slippery Slope idea to every issue from each candidate and evaluate where each will end up.locustsloth
- obesity starts for many in vending machines in school causing a lifelong debilitation that costs billions of dollars********
- Well no not really. Neither of them talks about scaling back gov. They both talk about making it bigger...but no taxes?tommyo
- And you think it's governments job to regulate vending machines?tommyo
- Some of you really need to start valuing even the smallest of your current freedoms before they're gone.tommyo
- +1********
- actually, I don't think vending machines have a place in schools selling processed foods to a captive market.********