Greasing The Slope
The Slippery Slope is generally considered to be a fallacy. It is an argument in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another, prior event without any providing any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. In most cases, there are a series of steps or gradations between the eventual event and the one being argued against but no reason is given as to why the intervening steps or gradations will simply be bypassed or enacted in their turn.
In general I agree. The Slippery Slope is a fallacy and, much more often than not, sloppy thinking. But what if we’re greasing the slope as it were?
Many laws, especially those dealing with sexual partnering, sexual acts, and sexual relationships are wholly or primarily based upon societal mores and cultural “prejudices.” Many of those laws that once had valid scientific rationales at one time have lost those rationals due to medical advances. Others had and still have outcome-based basis in the effects such things have upon the titular children of such unions, yet those negative consequences have been ignored in favor of a new ideology.
As you chip away at those laws that are based upon societal mores and cultural “prejudices” or apply new societal mores and cultural “prejudices” to existing situations you can make it so that each increase in permissiveness makes the next incremental increase that much more likely through normalizing or “main streaming” what was once unthought-of, abhorrent, and/or outre.
Western, especially American, jurisprudence also has to be taken into account because it’s inherently based upon Common Law and under the US interpretation of such court cases are decided based upon prior argument, precedents, and judicial pronouncements rather than solely on legislative enactments. in other words, arguments and verdicts in prior, similar court cases can be compelling or even binding precedents in current and future cases.
The Slope As It Was, Is, and Will Probably Be
| Past | Present | Future | ||||||
| Miscegenation | → | Sodomy | → | Gay Marriage | → | Polygamy | → | |
| Fornication | Incest | |||||||
| Adultery | Pedophilia | |||||||
| BDSM | ||||||||
Progress Is Opinion. Progression Is Mathematics
The battle to overturn the laws against miscegenation was long and hard-fought but it was victorious. But many of the same arguments that were successfully used Loving v. Virginia to end those “Jim Crow” statutes were later used in Lawrence v. Texas to abolish or make largely enforceable the various laws against: Sodomy, Fornication, Adultery, and violent sexual fetishism (BDSM). In turn, arguments from both Loving and Lawrence have been used to legalize Gay Marriage in various states and to overturn DOMA at the federal level.
Each set of court cases added their levels of grease to the slope, making it increasingly slippery. Hence, there is no logical reason not to predict that this progression will continue and that these increasingly entrenched arguments and precedents will be used to legalizing polygamy, incest, and some forms and/or levels of pedophilia.
Tags: America | BDSM | Children | Courts | Crime | Cultural Mores | Ethics & Morality | Homosexuals | Incest | Law | Marriage | Miscegeny | Paraphilia | Pedophilia | Politics | Polygamy | Sex | Slippery Slope | Society
October 23rd, 2013 at 2:14 pm
I think the only thing that can grit the rails as it were is the Libertarian principles that actually form the foundations of the previous judgements. Mixed race relations or same sex relations or kinked out relations between consenting adults is in fact what exists above the bickering,screeching etc.
i think it safe to say that even where it is seen consensual polygamy would fail precedents that are established regards free will etc as per law. The coercive nature inherent to polygamy would need to be championed by the ACLU for some of the reasons you hint future laws will come.
Also under zero legal standing will pedophilia or bestiality be codified in any way other than the NO category.
October 23rd, 2013 at 4:46 pm
Alfie,
PLEASE come down to NYC and tell my two wives that there’s a coercive nature inherent to polygamy! PLEASE! I really need that myth reinforced for the sake of my fragile ego.
There’s NO nature inherent in polygamy. It spans the entire range of human relationships.
As for pedophilia – I said some forms of it, not all. Let’s face one fact – the age of consent is a very modern construct and it’s not based upon any solid facts. This is compounded by the way our children grow up, both physically and “worldly” far faster than before.
If we keep going as we’re going don’t be surprised if the laws governing age of consent aren’t altered to make it younger…and the same legal arguments that we’re used for interracial marriage and queer marriage will be used again to enact those changes.
Personally, I think that will happen before polygamy becomes legal.
October 25th, 2013 at 10:16 am
As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia or paedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in persons 16 years of age or older typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest toward prepubescent children (generally age 11 years or younger, though specific diagnostic criteria for the disorder extends the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13).[1][2][3][4] An adolescent who is 16 years of age or older must be at least five years older than the prepubescent child before the attraction can be diagnosed as pedophilia.
I dont think we will ever have to worry about that becoming legal……EVER
October 25th, 2013 at 10:36 am
That’s a good medical diagnosis, T4T. It doesn’t, however, mesh with the laws as they are now for the most part.
October 25th, 2013 at 12:55 pm
Statutory Rape is for underage sex. I dont think in many of those cases they would call the person a pedophile.
October 25th, 2013 at 3:40 pm
Jonolan I am not judging you or those that feel they are in solid multi partner relationships. I for one can’t get past the point that in almost all cases polygamy rests on a foundation of misogyny ergo my coercive comment.
As for the age of consent as it pertains to marriage I think we’re safe there too. The contractual aspects of it just really puts up way too many obstacles for any serious reversal. Of course in the USA we’re more likely to accelerate our pace against marriage and the 20 somethings alone will help perpetuate a culture that prevents 16 year olds from clear headed decisions on wedding bliss.
October 26th, 2013 at 8:35 am
What you can’t get past is the myth that the MSM has told you all your life, Alfie. Most polygamous families in the Western World aren’t like the ones the MSM talks about, who are just as they and you claim. Hell! polyandry is almost as common as polygyny as are families with multiples of both sexes.
As for age of consent – you’re thinking in terms of marriage. I’m talking about it becoming legal to have sex with a 12 or 13 year-old.