Atheist Goes Political, vol. 3: Recession, Recovery and National Debt

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-mLdFUphis

            And then we have the national debt.  Most people, unfortunately, don’t understand the ramifications of having a country in debt.  You see, US debt is measured in increments of $10000 dollars.  One such increment is called a bond.  When one has $10000 to spare and decides to spend it on a bond, that $10000 is called the “principal.”  For other bonds, the duration may be longer or shorter, but for US gov’t bonds, it’s ten years.  That is what’s called the “maturity period;” that is, the period between when the principle is first put in and when it is paid back and the bond officially “matures.”  Each year in between, that bond pays $1000 to its holder.  Now where do you suppose that money comes from?
            The taxpayers of course.  Every $10000 of US debt costs the taxpayers $1000 per year.  That’s money which could be spent on Pell grants, public works projects, paving roads, or laying out new electrical, communication, or plumbing infrastructures.  Instead, it goes into the pockets of US bondholders.  This is part of the reason that the world’s wealthiest country can no longer afford to keep its roads paved.
            So what if someone happens to have $4 million dollars?  Well that someone has the option to buy enough of these bonds to generate $400,000 a year.  That’s $400,000 of passive income every year.  $400,000 of money flowing out of the pockets of US taxpayers into the pockets of US bondholders just for being bondholders; debt-holders.
            If we dichotomize US taxpayers into those who are wealthy enough to buy US gov’t bonds and those who aren’t, we find that one of the two is getting a free ride at the expense of the other.  When the poor get money for not doing anything and it’s barely enough to sustain their existence, it’s called “welfare” and this has all kinds of negative, freeloading connotations, but when the wealthy get money for not doing anything and it keeps them in luxury, it’s called “bonds” or “financial wisdom” or “fiscal responsibility” or something along those lines and this has all kinds of positive connotations.
            But the fact is, if you’ve been following me so far, you now understand enough about US gov’t bonds to use them yourself this way if you have enough money.  This is not difficult to understand.  Therefore, success in this particular market is less a measure of the intelligence one has to begin with and more a measure of the capital one has to begin with.  Thus, this is just one of many ways in which those who have lots of money are more able to make it than those who don’t even if their intelligence is greater.
            As it stands now, our national debt is $14 trillion.  That’s one trillion, four hundred billion tax dollars every year going into the pockets of US bondholders.  In a country with a population of a little over 300 million, that costs each of us almost $5000 per year.  Think about that.  That’s $5000 of your money which could be applied to educational spending or infrastructural spending or scientific research, which instead is going specifically to help the very wealthy get wealthier.
            Toward the end of Clinton’s presidency, we, as a nation, had been generating a surplus for several years.  That means that we had actually been bringing in more in tax revenue than we had been spending.  When a nation is as in debt as we were, that’s a wonderful thing, because every year of surplus is a year in which the debt is just a little lower than the year before.
            The economy was also doing very well.  The GDP was soaring.  The national unemployment rate was 4%.  4!  In every major city, and most of the minor ones, it was nearly impossible to find a retail chain whose biggest promotion did not include the words “Now Hiring.”  Two words one saw in the news every week were “labor shortage,” which is basically economic jargon for a situation with more jobs than employees.  This made it kind of a drag anytime one went shopping for anything other than a job, but given a choice between a national labor shortage and a job market with dozens of people competing for each opening, which would you rather have?
            So the middle class and the working class had virtually no difficulty finding work, GDP was showing annual growth, and the national debt was showing annual reduction.  The sweeping majority of the people in this country were very well off with this situation.  The very wealthy, on the other hand, weren’t so happy about it, of course, because this surplus was generated mainly by taxing them.  They remained quite wealthy, but of course, there’s no such thing as “wealthy enough.”  They knew, of course, that they would be wealthier if these taxes were cut, so they started concentrating on getting someone into office who would cut them.  Enter Dubya and a favorite Republican lie by omission.
            “We must cut taxes!  Cut taxes!  Cut taxes!  Cut taxes!”  Right off the bat, Bush commenced to pontificate about how, after several years of surplus, “...it’s time to start giving money back to the people.”
            “We must cut taxes and give money back to the people.”  Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?  The thing is, though, when a Republican in public office starts talking about the importance of cutting taxes, one must ask “For whom?”  When a Republican in public office starts talking about the importance of “giving money back to the people,” one must ask, “Which people?”  This is because, all too often, when a Republican talks about “cutting taxes,” he or she means “for the wealthy,” and when this Republican talks about “giving money back to the people,” he or she means “the very wealthy people who happen to be funding my campaign and furnishing me with kickbacks.”  These details, of course, are omitted.
            If the situation Clinton had established could have been maintained, the national debt would have continued to decline, GDP would have continued to climb, the subprime mortgage bubble would never have formed in the first place, let alone popped, and we would not still be paying 10 years later for the mistake of electing Bush.
            Now let’s not lose sight of one key fact here.  Even during Clinton, the very wealthy continued to get wealthier, just not at the expense of the middle class and the working class.  The only people not benefitting from Clinton’s presidency were the few who slipped through the cracks here and there, and we were still managing to generate a surplus and reduce the debt every year.  Even health care expenses were on the decline, because in the interests of competing for employees, companies negotiated competitively with healthcare providers.
            But no.  The time to start “giving money back to the people” does not come after just a few years of surplus.  It comes after the national debt is all paid off; a goal we would be much closer to now if not for Bush.
            Now look at how much of our debt is being held by the likes of China?  China is a big US bondholder.  That’s not just money we owe.  That’s money draining out of one country into another.  This is why we need to concentrate on getting this debt paid off; on getting this drain plugged.  The last time we made any such progress, Clinton was president, and we managed it by taxing those who actually had money to burn.
            If you need water, you don’t look in the middle of the desert.  Likewise, if you need tax revenue to help pay down the national debt, you don’t tax people who don’t have any money.
            So how do we make progress in generating enough revenue to pay down the national debt?  Well let’s see.  We could tax the poor, but they don’t have any money.  We could tax the working class, but in order to generate enough revenue to make a dent, we would have to leave them poor.  We could tax the middle class, but there we run into the same problem with just a slightly deeper dent.  We could tax the wealthy, but the Republicans and the blue dogs won’t let us.  So instead, we remain in debt and money continues to flow out of the pockets of taxpayers and into the pockets of bondholders, which means that bondholders don’t exactly have a reason to support efforts to reduce the debt.
            The real impudence of this is that Republicans insist on blaming this situation on Obama.  It’s true, one of his first acts as president was a huge stimulus package, but this was the only option left to him to get the economy moving again after the Republicans wrecked it.
            Whether an economy is officially in recession or recovery is determined by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  This economic indicator is officially defined as a measure of the worth of all the goods and services sold within the economy in question in the period of time in question, but I prefer to think of it as a measure of the amount of money circulating—being spent—within the economy in question.  Not the amount present; the amount being spent.  All the money in the world has no effect on anyone, positive or negative if it isn’t being spent; if it isn’t circulating; if it isn’t being used to foster trade.
            You see, the money in your pocket right now is valuable to you because you are able to exchange it for goods and services that you need and/or want.  But the whole reason this exchange is possible is that the money is likewise valuable to the parties you buy these goods and services from.  The whole reason it is valuable to them is that they too can use it to buy goods and services from other people who can use it to buy goods and services from other people, and so on, and so on.  Every time one of these transactions takes place, every time a certain sum of money is used to buy a final good or service, that trade gets counted in GDP.  That’s what I mean by the amount of money circulating.
            Most of the time, when one of these exchanges takes place, it is to the mutual benefit of both parties, and it opens the door for other exchanges that are to this mutual benefit.  Money freely circulating within an economy makes these trades possible.  The extent of that circulation is measured in GDP.  When GDP declines, it means that less money is circulating, which means that fewer such mutually-beneficial exchanges are taking place.  If your customers suddenly aren’t earning as much money, it means that they’re not buying as much from you, which means you’re not making as much from them, which means that you, likewise, aren’t earning as much money, which means that you are not buying as much from others, which means that they, likewise, are not earning as much from you, and so on.
            When this process begins, like it did with the bursting of the sub-prime mortgage bubble in 2007, it precipitates a decline in GDP.  When such a decline continues for at least two sequential quarters, then we have what is officially recognized as a recession.  It remains a recession until the GDP has started growing again.  So if we are going to get the GDP growing again, we have to encourage the spending of money within the economy.
            The money being spent within an economy comes from four sources: net exports, investing, consumer spending, and government spending.  When Obama was inaugurated, all of our trade partners were in recession as well, so clearly, we could not count on more spending from net exports.  The stock market and the bond market were both in rapid decline which meant no consumer confidence for investors, so clearly, we could not count on more spending from investing either.  Prospective consumers were losing their jobs left and right, so consumers were pinching their pennies, worried that they would be next, and clearly, this meant that we couldn’t count on more GDP growth from consumer spending.  The only option remaining was government spending, so that is the option that Obama and the Dems exercised.
            Perhaps they held some hope of paying for it by taxing the wealthy, but when the tax legislation was due to expire and the Dems wanted to enact new legislation concentrating the tax cuts in the middle class and the working class instead, the Republicans in Congress held that legislation hostage, filibustering it until the Dems agreed to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy.  So here we had a situation of increased gov’t spending and decreased taxes all around, resulting, of course, in increasing national debt, which meant more bonds ready to be bought by the well-to-do to funnel our tax dollars into their pockets.
            It is not Obama’s fault that he exercised the only option remaining to him to get the economy moving again.  It is his credit, rather, that this move took an unemployment rate that was skyrocketing and leveled it off.  Since then, the unemployment rate has had the occasional uptick, but overall, is slowly on the decline.  Unfortunately, especially given population growth, this figure always declines more slowly than it rises, and the Republicans have been seizing on this.  Unable to criticize Obama for costing jobs, except when dealing with people in no possession of any facts, they have to be content, instead, to excoriate him for adding them slowly in spite of the fact that this is still a great deal better than Bush could manage.
            Indeed, many of them allege “zero job growth.”  If this were true, it would still be a vast improvement over Bush.  Zero job growth is still better than negative job growth.
            Here’s a rhetorical question for my viewers to consider.  How come, every single time someone brings up tax cuts for the working class and the middle class, the GOP insists that they have to be paid for by cutting something, but never when it comes to tax cuts for the wealthy?  How come only one of these needs paying for?

Atheist Goes Political, vol. 2: Trickle-Down Economics

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKWRoOtj8Jk

            One subject my investigation has lead me into is economics.  Politics can sometimes be considered without economics, but economics usually cannot be considered without politics, so the one offers a great deal of insight into the other.  Conservatives are very fond of pedaling trickle-down, supply-side economics, which is the idea that, if the very wealthy are granted tax cuts, they will, of course, use their new-found savings to expand their businesses, adding jobs.  After all, the extremely wealthy are practically chomping at the bit to add jobs, but they can’t because they don’t have enough money...right?
            But the people in question already have money up the wazoo which they are not using to create jobs.  Why not?  To understand the answer, you have to think of both opportunity and motive.  Any time you want a certain group of people to take a certain course of action, you have to make certain they have both.  Otherwise, forget it.
            The people in question, being so wealthy, already have the opportunity, but they’re not creating jobs because they don’t have the motive.  A business owner’s focus is on maximizing profits.  The only reason he or she has any motive to take any course of action, whatever it may be, is to that end.  The only time these people ever hire more people—ever create jobs—is when they believe they stand to profit from doing so.
            So when does that happen?  Business owners have reason to believe that they stand to profit from creating more jobs and hiring more people when they have reason to believe that they stand to profit from the act of increasing the supply of the goods and services their business provides.  To increase one’s supply, one must expand one’s apparatus, and to do that, one must hire more people.
            So when does one stand to profit from increasing the supply of the goods and services one’s business provides?  This happens when one has plenty of competition for those goods and services and the demand for those goods and services is on the rise.  Under these circumstances, one understands that, if one does not meet this increase in demand with an increase in supply, one’s competitors will, which will lead to a loss of customers, business and profit.  So if we want to foster an increase in hiring, we have to stimulate an increase in demand.
            So how do we do that?  By concentrating the tax cuts among the people who provide most of the demand in this country.  That’s the middle class and the working class, not the well-to-do.  When the people in these tax brackets find themselves spending less on taxes, we are going to spend more on goods and services, thus driving up the demand for them; an increase in demand that suppliers are going to be compelled to meet with an increase in supply, and to do that, they will have to hire more people from these very tax brackets, which yields even more money flowing into these demographics, leading these demographics to do more spending, leading to an increase in demand, leading to an increase in supply, leading to more jobs, leading to more people hired from the middle class and the working class, leading to more money going to the middle class and the working class, and here we find ourselves in a self-feeding cycle.
            Now the biggest drawback to this is that, eventually, if enough jobs are added and the unemployment rate drops low enough, it’s bound to lead to a labor shortage, but so what?  Sure, such can be inconvenient and annoying.  It can be kind of a drag going shopping over and over again and never finding anyone available to help you, but compare that to the situation we have now.  Which is preferable?  At least, during a labor shortage, we are not wondering how we are going to keep our bills paid.
            This is one form of what economists usually refer to as “fiscal policy,” but which Robert Reich more descriptively dubs “bubble-up economics.”  Economic prosperity does not trickle down.  It bubbles up.  The well-to-do usually understand enough about financial matters that we can expect them to prosper pretty much no matter what.  This same guarantee cannot be expected with the middle class and the working class.  Thus, we have to concentrate on ensuring that they are taken care of.  A society which concentrates on directly benefitting these demographics indirectly benefits everyone.
            It’s funny.  The case for trickle-down economics is all-too-often packaged with the argument for capitalism in general which purports to harness the profit self-interest as a force for good.  But in asking the middle class and the working class to accept tax cuts for someone else instead of themselves, they ask them to abandon that very motive.  Can it be trusted or not?
            “The self-interested profit motive can be trusted, unless it is yours.”
            So tell you what.  Everyone watching who sincerely believes in trickle-down economics, try this little experiment.  Try mounting a campaign to persuade all the people and organizations in the world to take all the money they have and give it all to me.  After all, such will benefit them... somehow... some day... and if it doesn’t, it means that I still don’t have enough.

Atheist goes Political, vol. 1

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNPSGAFgF9Q

I was originally planning to make this all one video, but I’ve decided it would be wiser to break it up into smaller, more digestible increments; especially considering that it will probably be an ongoing series.  I have tried to make it a point to exclude politics from the main focus of this channel, but I’m changing that.  I am officially going political.
            For at least two years, it has been apparent to me that the most misunderstood term in the English language is “atheist” and the second most misunderstood is “evolution.”  As I investigate ever more, it becomes increasingly clear to me that the third most misunderstood is “liberal.”  These terms are the three most misunderstood and stigmatized because a lot of obscenely wealthy people stand to become even more obscenely wealthy by discouraging the investigation of these terms, what they actually consist of, and the reasoning behind them.
            For many years, I called myself an agnostic, avoiding the label “atheist” like the plague.  This was because I saw theism and atheism both as forms of dogmatic, falsely-perceived gnosticism.  But the reason I saw atheism like this was that, rather than investigating it, I accepted this stigma of it erected by well funded, dogmatic, zealous interests to the end of preventing this investigation.
            But then, one day, I actually began investigating atheism, and shortly thereafter, evolution and creationism, and began acquainting myself with the arguments on both sides, and I realized that the only times the arguments against atheism and evolution ever seemed to make sense was times when they addressed arguments that were not actually being made.  In my study of logic, I learned that this is what is known as a strawman fallacy.  The parties trying to argue against these positions, being unable to refute the actual arguments in favor, have to pretend that the arguments in favor are something else.
            Also, for many years, I called myself a moderate, likewise avoiding labels like “liberal” or “conservative” like the plague.  But as I learned about atheism, evolution and logic, the differences between the two wings of the political spectrum became increasingly pronounced, coming ever more clearly into focus.  In the ’08 presidential election, every time I watched part of one of the debates, I caught McCain relying on the same fallacy.
            “Senator Obama, what do you have to say about issue A?”
            “Oh, well on issue A, we have these facts, and using these facts as premises, I draw these conclusions, and using these conclusions as further premises, I draw these further conclusions, and on these grounds, I think this would be a good idea and I’m laying it all out there for the general public to examine, in the true spirit of democracy.”
            “Hmm.  Interesting.  Senator McCain, what do you have to say on that subject?”
            “Well look, my friends.  I have experience, so just trust me.”
            This was his reply over and over again.  He was like a doll with a string.  This is what’s called an Appeal to Authority.  You know who else has plenty of experience?  Gadhafi.  “Don’t examine my argument.  Just take the fact that I am an authority of some sort as an excuse to stop thinking.”
            “Follow the example of my good friend Joe the Plumber, who isn’t actually a plumber, and whose name is not actually ‘Joe.’  Obama is elitist.  I own seven mansions, but he is elitist.”
            What do you call a politician with tons and tons and tons of experience?  Well, there are two things you call him, or her, in the unfortunate event that calling is, indeed, necessary.  First, old.  Frickin’ old.  But second, and more importantly, corrupt.
            Public office is a position of public trust and authority.  One who holds it is inevitably, invariably corrupted by it.  Power corrupts.  This is why the comparison is so frequently drawn between politicians and diapers.  Both must be changed often, and for the same reason.  This is one of the reasons the US presidency must have term limits.  After eight years in the single most powerful position of public trust in the entire frickin’ world, one is most likely too corrupt to be trusted with it any more.  Better, at that point, to accept retirement and spend the rest of one’s days lending notoriety and writing memoirs, and if you’re up to it, accepting less powerful positions of public trust, the way Taft did.  But I digress.
            After reading up on atheism, I found it interesting that, virtually every single time a Republican campaigning for public office made an argument on that subject, it was either an argument I knew how to refute or a refutation to an argument that wasn’t actually being made.  It was an argument I had heard refuted, and seen refuted over and over again and always the same way.  This was always the case with Republicans, but virtually never the case with Dems.
            Then I familiarized myself to the same extent with evolution, and started noticing the same tendency.  How in the world can a subject be a “controversy” if one side has not a single argument that has not been refuted?  What does it mean if such a party continues to trot out those arguments over and over again?
            Can I really be expected to entertain the notion that, when Bush argues that “Evolution is still only a theory,” that he has never, in all his years, had this misuse of the term “theory” explained to him?
            Gravity, too, is “only a theory.”  Cell theory is “only a theory.”  Atomic theory is “only a theory,” but members of the general public are still being advised to maintain a distance of at least 80 km (50 miles) from the ruptured nuclear power plant in Japan.  Why in the world would that be unless, in science, a concept being a “theory” does not prevent it from also being a “fact?”
            Atomic Theory is a theory; also a fact.  Cell Theory is a theory; also a fact.  Gravity is a theory; also a fact.  Evolution is a theory; also a fact.
            In science, a theory is a school of thought.  When the concept in question has so much evidence in support of it that the act of refuting it would be unavoidably revolutionary, then it is a fact, but becoming a fact does not mean that it ceases to be a theory.  These two concepts (theory and fact) are not mutually exclusive.
            This particular argument has been made continuously for the past 1.5 centuries and it has always had this very problem.  Yet, over and over again, it is conservatives, not liberals, who trot it out as if it’s new and completely irrefutable.  Either I accept that the scientific consensus about evolution is lacking (and I can’t, because I know better) or I accept that no one has ever explained the problem with this argument to the conservatives (which I find extraordinarily unlikely) or I accept that a significant percentage of the general public simply doesn’t happen to know the problem with this argument and conservatives are participating in an effort to capitalize on that.  I find the third of these the most likely, but if true, it paints a tremendously unflattering image of conservatives, or at least, the ones campaigning for and holding public office.
            Conservatives, over and over again, argue that evolution is “only a theory” and should therefore, not be taught as fact, since being a theory, allegedly, prevents it from being a fact.  Liberals never rely on this particular canard.
            Conservatives, over and over again, argue that atheism is the “belief that God does not exist,” or the “hate of God” or the “belief that everything came from nothing” or “adolescent rebellion” or “communism” or “fascism.”  Conservatives (especially Christian conservatives) make the argument, over and over again, that the United States was founded on Christian principles, in spite of the fact that this canard is demonstrably false.  Liberals never make this argument.
            It is right wing organizations from whom one hears the argument that “Well, you know the Constitution doesn’t actually say ‘Separation of Church and State.’  It doesn’t have those exact words.”
            That’s true, in the same way that it doesn’t have the exact words “The people have the right to own guns.”  Nonetheless, we do have this right.  Why?  Because of what it does say.  “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
            Do I get to spin this and say that, well, it just means that the government doesn’t get to order amputation campaigns?  Of course not.  Do I get to insist that by “arms,” it means those things that have a shoulder at one end and a wrist at the other?  Of course not.  What does it mean by “arms?”  Well, it means armaments—things with which one arms oneself.  Guns.  Knives.  Swords.  Cutlasses.  Tomahawks.  Battle-axes.  Spears.  Even suits of armor, if you like.
            “Well then why are the Democrats trying to take away the Second Amendment?”
            Are they?
            “Well of course they are.”
            Can you show me any bills to that effect that they have ever actually tried to get signed into law?
            “Um........”
            In the mean time, what about the First Amendment?  “The Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion OR restricting the free exercise thereof.”  “...no law respecting an establishment of religion...”  Say it with me.  “...no law respecting an establishment of religion...”  That’s what it says.  It doesn’t make exceptions for one religion in particular.  The free exercise of a religion is one thing.  The establishment of one is another.  If a nation has no laws respecting an establishment of religion, it has no established religion, and a separation of church and state, mosque and state, synagogue and state, temple and state, or whatever, is the unavoidable result.  Sure, it doesn’t have these exact words per se, but that’s irrelevant.  This is the unavoidable effect of this particular clause.
            “Separation of Church and State” and “owning guns” are both examples of colloquial language; the language of the general public.  “No established religion” and “keeping and bearing arms” are both examples of legal language, and since the US Constitution is, in fact, a legal document, the latter choice of words is appropriate and to be expected.
            Lack of an established religion does not guarantee freedom of the people, but it is necessary to that end.  On its own, this will not establish or protect freedom to the people, but such freedom is not possible without this.  A legal system that protects and preserves freedom needs many essential components, of which this is one.  An established religion will, unavoidably, tread on the freedom of the people.  It will tread on the freedom of those who don’t practice that religion, but also the freedom of those who do.  Those who don’t will automatically be relegated to second class citizen status.  Those who do, on the other hand, will face the prospect of becoming second class citizens whenever doubts arise about whether the religion in question is true, and will thus be motivated not to freely, honestly consider those doubts, but to bury them instead.
            If it is true, as is so often alleged, that Christianity rests on reason, then Christian authorities have no reason to discourage the honest examination of these doubts.  They should be ready to address them.  Every time a Christian or Christian conservative authority tries to undermine the no establishment clause and the subsequent separation of church and state, this amounts to an admission that Christianity does not, in fact, rest on reason and has to rely on force instead.
            The Federalist Papers make the case for the Constitution, at least, as it was first ratified.  Every single clause of it has the case for it laid out there.  This invites public scrutiny of the case for the Constitution.  This is done in the spirit of democracy which is predicated upon the assumption that the people are, for the most part, smart enough to decide for ourselves how we are to be governed, by whom, for what ends, and by what means.  One who does not believe that does not believe in democracy.  Every time someone makes the case that the many should forego our own judgment in deference to the few, this is an argument against democracy.
            The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution and the Federalist Papers because, among them, religious and nonreligious alike did believe in democracy.  They were confident, first, that the general public was smart enough to use rational, critical scrutiny the vast majority of the time on any argument laid before it, and second, that the Constitution and the Federalist papers could withstand this scrutiny.
            Presently, no part of the Constitution tries to get itself accepted by threatening the rights and freedoms of those who don’t accept it.  The moment a nation has an established religion, this is no longer the case.  Why would any party seek to threaten the rights of the general public with second-class citizen status in the event that problems with their shpiel are found?  It can only be because there are problems with their shpiel and they don’t want the general public to realize it.
            People who lend their shpiel to public scrutiny want any problems with it found.  This opens the door for those problems to be corrected.
            The moment a nation has an established religion, those who don’t follow that religion are unavoidably punished, and those who do are discouraged from giving it any real examination, lest they risk that punishment.  Every time in history that a nation has had an established religion, this has been the case, no matter what that religion has been.  Thus, the freedom of both is unavoidably infringed upon if not discarded altogether.  Thus, the freedom of religion and the freedom from it are unavoidably linked.  A nation cannot have the one without the other.
            Personally, I would not want to live in a nation that does not defend both these freedoms vigorously.  Just as it is not possible for the freedom of religion to exist separately from the freedom from it, the reverse is true as well.  I am not religious, but my freedom not to be religious must coexist with the freedom of others to be religious, however obnoxious they may get about it sometimes.
            Over and over again, it is conservatives, not liberals, trying to undermine the no establishment clause.  Over and over again, it is conservatives, not liberals, trying to tear down this vital safeguard of basic liberties; this fundamental component of democracy.  Over and over again, it is conservatives—not liberals—trying to undermine democracy allegedly in the name of democracy.
            Conservatives reiterate these canards constantly; these and many others I have found.  Liberals virtually never use them at all.  When I noticed this particular track record, I was compelled to investigate the arguments to see what other refuted arguments conservatives are determined to rely on.  My examination of those arguments and counter-arguments will follow.

Muslims and Bad Jokes

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H35WIM28iIo

            I often find myself in the awkward position of asking others to differentiate between the act of deprecating Islam and the act of impugning the humanity of Muslims.  If I recall correctly, it was Louis Farrakhan (Actually Malcolm X) who originally taught a form of Islam that cast Caucasians as the devil, until he made his pilgrimage to Mecca, where he met Muslims of every ethnic group, including my own.  This changed his view in a way that a lot of especially vocal people have yet to undergo.  These very vocal people are found among Muslims and the most vitriolic anti-Muslims.
            Over and again, anti-Muslims can’t seem to differentiate between allowing the religious freedoms of people who happen to be Muslim and paving the way for Sharia law.  Over and again, allegedly, the only way to form a strong opposition to one tyrannical authority (Islamic theocracy) is by handing over our freedoms to another (anti-Muslim fascism).  Over and again, the only way to defend democracy is by discarding it completely.  Over and again, the arguments follow this pattern.
            At the same time, time and again, the downtrodden masses in the Muslim world cry out for democracy, not theocracy.  Time and again, Muslims have no difficulty understanding as well as anyone else that the freedom of religion must apply equally to those with any religion or those with none.  Time and again, they demonstrate a comprehension of the fact that, the moment a society infringes on this right for any of its citizens, it infringes on it for all of them.  Time and again, they have no difficulty understanding that in order for the Muslims in any given society to have complete religious freedom, so must the Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists and so on.
            In a video he made a while ago, (I believe I’ll start calling him...) Underf00t cast Muslims in this false-dichotomy, us-versus-them framework with a picture of suicide bombers with whom he equated all Muslims on one side and a picture of a stealth bomber on the other, with which he equated all non-Muslims.  But Underf00t is a resident of the United States; a nation defended by very diverse armed forces with a number of Muslims serving in its ranks; Muslims laying down their lives in defense of his right to lump them together with the Taliban.  In this very picture, the pilot of that stealth bomber could very well be Muslim himself, or herself for all I know.
            But I would hazard to say that not all of the blame for this falls on just the one side of this particular conflict.  Over and again, there are Muslims who can’t seem to differentiate between times to protest injustices committed against Muslims and times to solicit conversion to Islam.  Over and again, one cannot speak out against injustices committed in the name of Islam without opening the door for bigots to vehemently impugn the humanity of Muslims, but at the same time, over and again, one cannot take up for the rights and freedoms of Muslims without also opening the door for the solicitation of converts.  One finds opportunists frothing at the mouth on both sides for the chance to usurp one’s call to justice for their own ends.
            “All manner of injustice is committed in the name of Islam.  Muslims, stop it.”
            “Yeah!  Muslims are scum who need to be wiped out!”
            “I didn’t say that.  Don’t put words in my mouth.  Most Muslims aren’t part of it.  Most Muslims are good people.  It’s the few who are involved in this sort of thing that I have a problem with.”
            “Yes.  You’re right.  Islam is the most beautiful religion.”
            “I didn’t say that either.  What is with you people?”
            When people are committing injustice against Muslims, the problem here is that they are infringing on the rights of human beings, not that they are not abiding whatever constitutes “true” Islam.  This is a time to peddle the message that Muslims are human beings, and as such, they have basic human rights, not that all human beings should be Muslims.  The first of these is a demonstrable fact (Muslims are human).  The second is an opinion (everyone should be Muslim).  Muslims who cannot take up for the rights of other Muslims without trying to pedal their own conversion shpiel to non-Muslims in the process only act to drive others straight into the arms of these extreme anti-Muslim organizations who do their best to equate all Muslims with terrorists.  These recruiters make it worse.  If you want to make the world a more peaceful, tolerant place, you will have to differentiate between demands for equal treatment and demands for superior treatment.
            It seems to me, to this end, there are a few things the moderates on both sides can do to aid this differentiation.  You see, in a recent video of mine in which I extended a few olive branches to believers, one of them was a Muslim.  Before I began work on that particular video, I made it a point to contact each believer I intended to mention by PM to ask if he or she had any objection.  The Muslim I contacted said in one message that she would have no objection as long as I didn’t say anything bad about Islam.  I explained that I cannot promise that because that would mean giving Islam better treatment than I give other religions which would not be fair.  I can promise absolutely not to impugn the rights and humanity of Muslims, as I’m pretty good at that with all believers, but I can’t and won’t promise to give one religion better treatment.  What I’m taking up for here is the rights of Muslims, not the alleged veracity of Islam.
            I believe in democracy.  Democracy is a system of government predicated upon the recognition that authority can never be simply trusted.  Under democracy, those who want authority must labor not only to earn trust and respect in the first place, but to keep them, and one thing they have to do to that end is to lend their activities, especially the activities that involve public funds, to public scrutiny.  Taxpayers deserve to know how their tax dollars are being used.  Those who are unwilling to do this don’t deserve trust, respect or authority and those who deserve trust, respect and authority will have no objection to this.  They don’t get to just go on receiving these just because they are accustomed to receiving them.  That’s a problem I have with religious authorities; they tend to have precisely this undemocratic expectation, especially those outside of the democratic world.
            Most authority figures for other religions live in democratic nations with no established religion.  For most Muslim authority figures, this is not the case.  Most Muslim authority figures do their thing in nations in which Islam just happens to be the established religion.  This being the case, Muslim authority figures have, for the most part, been able to go centuries without the higher degree or scrutiny that authority figures from other religions have had to undergo.  So being accustomed to just receiving this trust, they expect to go on doing so.  This attitude trickles down to Islamic followers.  So with Islam continuously receiving different treatment, Muslims expect it to continue doing so.
            Muslims, this drives a completely unnecessary wedge between you and most of the western world.  You see, there are those one behaves respectfully toward and those one actually respects.  They are not necessarily the same.  People can be cajoled and trained to behave respectfully toward characteristics like power, majesty and eminence, but we don’t really respect them.  We respect characteristics like courage and character.  There is a difference between showing respect and actually having it.
            We respect people who are willing to be a punchline, provided that the joke in question doesn’t impugn their humanity.  This being the case, in the democratic world, we poke fun at ideologies and religions and the people who practice them.  Consider for a moment, Judaism.
            You see, at Jewish weddings, at least the more orthodox ones, it’s the custom to have all the men dancing in one place and all the women dancing in another, and not together.  So there’s this Jewish couple engaged to be married and the date of their wedding is approaching, and they are meeting with their rabbi to discuss the kind of behavior that is appropriate for the wedding night (like it’s his business).
            “Rabbi, can we have sex lying down?”
            “Oh sure.  Nothing wrong with that.”
            “Can we have sex lying on our sides?”
            “That’s fine, too.”
            “Can we have sex this way?”
            “Sure.”
            “That way?”
            “Sure.”
            “The other way?”
            “Why not?”
            This goes on for about twenty minutes, and then one of them asks, “Rabbi, can we have sex standing up?”
            “ABSOLUTELY NOT!”
            “But Rabbi-“
            “OUT OF THE QUESTION!”
            “Well why?”
            “Well... it could lead to dancing.”
            <rimshot>
            Or consider Catholicism.
            Q: How do you get a nun pregnant?
            A: By dressing her as an altar boy.
            <rimshot>
            There’s this small town in which most of the citizens are Catholics but there is one fellow who happens to be a Lutheran, and every Friday night, he’s out in his yard, running the grill, barbecuing venison.  Well these Catholics are more traditional and so they observe the custom of having no meat on Fridays, so when they smell the scent of venison wafting over the town it really irritates a lot of them.
            So they start trying to cajole this fellow into converting... since... for some reason... it’s not enough to just try asking him not to barbecue venison on Friday night.  They keep after him and after him week after week, and finally, he agrees.  So he goes to the local Catholic church and they go through the conversion ceremony, and at the end of it, the priest stands before him with a chalice of water in one hand and dips the fingers of his other hand in it and says, “You were born a Lutheran, you were raised a Lutheran, but now <splish, splish> you are a Catholic.”
            And at first, everyone in town is happy about this, but then, the following Friday night, they all smell venison yet again, and someone goes to peer over this guy’s fence and there he is running his grill, and he has a cup of water in one hand and he dips into it the fingers of his other hand and says, “You were born a dear, you were raised a dear, but now <splish, splish>, you are a walleye.”
            <rimshot>
            Or how about Buddhism?  Who hasn’t heard that one about the Buddhist who walks up to a hot dog vendor and says, “Make me one with everything,” <rimshot> and so he does and the Buddhist stands there holding the hot dog until the vendor says, “What are you waiting for?” and the Buddhist says, “My change,” and the vendor says, “Change must come from within?”
            <rimshot>
            Q: How come the Dalai Llama can’t vacuum out his house?
            A: Because he has no attachments.
            <rimshot>
            I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I must digress for just a moment.
            Q: What did one drummer say to the other?
            A: <rimshot>
            Maz Jobrani is a Muslim comedian who chafes at suicide attacks, because after all, over and again, it’s Muslims carrying them out.  He jokes that, just once, he wishes the suicide attacker could be a Buddhist or something.  But then, he explains, he realizes that this could never happen, because Buddhists would never blow themselves up.  Buddhists live in the moment, after all.  A Buddhist would say, “Well, you know, I was going to blow myself up, but that moment has passed.  I’m in a different moment now.”
            <rimshot>
            Now in this case, I’ve really got to hand it to the Buddhists.  They’re real sports.  I mean if there’s one religion we love to poke fun at in the western world, at least in the English-speaking world, it’s that one.  But Buddhists take it all in stride.  It runs off them like water off a duck.  They laugh it off right along with the rest of us, because they know that, tomorrow, they will still be Buddhist and Buddhism will still be around.  They don’t go around simply demanding and expecting respect, and for this, they become more respectable.  They make no effort whatsoever to discourage laughter at their expense.  Indeed, they welcome it because they know that their religion is strong enough to endure it, and I find it especially curious that Christianity and Islam each have so many especially outspoken proponents who find it so difficult to just borrow a page from Siddhartha.  But I digress.
            Observe the tendency among the jokes I just rattled off.  In the western world, one finds jokes like these targeted at virtually every religion, except Islam.  Each of these jokes engenders laughter at the expense of the religion and the people in question, but not derisive laugher.  This is the kind of joke one would make at the expense of an old friend or a sibling because friends and siblings are people we respect for their willingness to be the occasional punchline.  Each of these jokes is what could be called an affectionate elbow in the ribs; a pie in the face, not a slap in the face.
            This presents something of a problem for Muslims living in the western world.  In the western world, this is the treatment received by the followers of religions and ideologies of every sort, and our willingness to find the character to tolerate this treatment is what engenders the mutual respect that usually enables these practitioners to coexist.  When Muslims in the west demonstrate an unwillingness to tolerate such treatment, an unwillingness to be the occasional punchline, this demand for superior treatment alienates them.
            The people we get along with are the people with whom we can exchange jests and verbal barbs over coffee; or, perhaps, halal coffee as the case may be.  So what we need here are such jokes for Muslims; jokes that engender laughter at the expense of Muslims and Islam, but not derisive laughter.  I think, primarily, we have to make it a point to concentrate on jokes that poke fun at Muslims in such a way as to equate them with our goofy, quirky neighbors and co-workers, instead of terrorists and suicide bombers.
            Coughlan, I think, came up with a pretty good one when he actually appeared in a video with a clean shave.  I haven’t seen this in any of his videos before, or since.  In this one, he had shaved off his beard, and of course, he knew that this would be the first thing we would notice, so he said, “Yes, my beard is gone.  (It has) run away to join Islam.”
            <rimshot>
            Oh yes.  If you’re a beard, Islam is just the place for you.  Those Muslims give beards the royal treatment.
            Desertphile recently had a video up announcing a contest he was hosting.  He read to us this story about a doctor’s office that had a meteorite crash through its wall that happened to have a piece of paper attached to it.  He told us that the piece of paper had a note on it that said something funny and invited us to speculate about what it said.  He then appointed two judges to decide the two funniest comments and offered a first prize, a second prize, and a few honorable mentions, none of which, it saddens me to say, went to me.
            Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not jealous of the guy—I think it was a guy—who came in first.  My suggestion was funny, but his was side-splitting.  I’m just annoyed that I didn’t even get an honorable mention.  I mean come on!
            I made several suggestions.  One was, “Directions for use: build a giant cube around this and pray toward it five times a day.”
            <rimshot>
            Q: How come you can’t tell north from a Muslim compass?
            A: Because they all point to Mecca, instead.
            <rimshot>
            I know.  That one’s kind of lame, but it’s along the right lines.
            So there’s this ship currently in the south Pacific and it has a few Muslims on board.  These Muslims do their five daily prayers, of course, but oddly, anchor themselves to the walls first.
            At first, everyone else on board is content to ignore this, but finally, one guy’s curiosity gets the better of him and he asks why they do this and they explain that, this being the south Pacific, the Kabba is clear on the other side of the world, so to face it, they have to face down.
            <rimshot>
            I know.  That one is a little weird, but considering that I’m the one who came up with it, this is not surprising.  So what do you guys think?  Can you come up with more?

David Pelzer and Me

            I recently read the book A Child Called “It” and it royally pissed me off.  For any of you who aren’t familiar with it, it’s basically the author’s personal account of his own childhood of abuse.  His mother, at first, is the virtual paragon of motherhood.  At first, she’s just the kind of mother virtually anyone would love to have.  She’s loving, protective, supportive, but not coddling, clingy or suffocating.  This must have continued for at least a few years.  We can conclude from the book that this continued at least long enough for him to have memories of it.  Then the account leaves off and picks up again a couple years later and she has taken a turn for the downright sadistic.  She’s a completely different woman.  It’s as if she’s an impostor.

            Now personally, I have no objection to sadism per se.  As long as the sadists in society keep their inclinations directed against the masochists in society, I have no objection.  As long as those who enjoy dolling out suffering restrict themselves to those who enjoy receiving it, I have no objection.  I’m mystified, but content.  If that’s the sort of thing my neighbors are into, fine, as long as they don’t make too much noise when I am trying to sleep.

            But if someone who happens to be neither is left at the mercy of a sadist who doesn’t care that he or she is neither, then we have a problem.  This is the author’s situation here.

            The mother isn’t just physically abusive.  She plays mental games.  She deprives him of food.  She punishes him for obtaining food through other sources.  Sometimes, when he manages to get food through other sources, she actually goes so far as to force him to regurgitate it.  Once, after doing that, she forces him to consume it again.

            This much was alarming, of course, but the part that pissed me off was the father’s behavior.  For years, he knew this was happening and responded to it by trying to gingerly coax and cajole the mother into changing her MO.  For years, his way of dealing with this abusive, sadistic, blood-sucking harpy was by shaking his little finger at her for being naughty.

            Then, finally, the father reaches the point where he can’t take it anymore, and leaves.  This guy’s not even being abused.  This poor fellow has to put up with the suffering of another and he can’t take it anymore.  He finds himself unable to suffer the suffering of another.

            I found myself, with limited success, fighting down the urge to yell at the book.  What is wrong with you?!  Get that kid out of there!  When you realize that a child is in an abusive situation, the highest priority is to get the kid out of it!  Get that kid away from that abusive parent!  If you have to make noise and hurt feelings in the process, if you have to rock the boat, capsize it, or even leave it in pieces, then so be it!  If the boat in question keeps the child in question in the situation in question then such is a public service!  When it comes to removing an abused child from an abusive situation and putting an end to the abuse, every other concern is secondary!

            Ah, but wait a minute.  That’s easy for me to say.  I have never been that parent.

            That’s true.  I have been that child.  For me, it wasn’t just one parent who did the abusing.  It was both.  And it wasn’t just one parent who looked the other way.  It was all my aunts and uncles and all four grandparents.

Science vs. Science Education

Most societies have both scientists and science teachers, but which is more of a benefit?  I dare to say the latter and here I explore my reasoning for this conclusion.

            Science is often criticized for having conclusions in a state of transition.  “How can one trust science when it’s always changing its mind?” is the question.  Funny, I think, how the image evoked here is of a field in a continuous state of wild fluctuation.  Here we have an image of scientists going inexorably from one conclusion to another which is wildly different, but in fact, this is less of a fluctuation and more of a modification.  The difference is scale.

            Every last one of us may be completely certain of one thing.  Somewhere in our current understanding of the world lies error.  It may seem surprising, but that’s a good thing, because where there is error in one’s understanding, there is room to improve that understanding and this leaves the door open for discovery.  Thus, each of us having an error in our understanding, has the opportunity to discover something, and since we all have this error, we all have this opportunity.  One engaged in a continuous search for those errors is exploring.  One engaged in revising one’s position with each error discovered is bound to have a more accurate picture than one remaining intransigent in one’s conclusions in the name of being constant.

            The conclusions of science remain in a state of gradual, slight modification because science is dedicated not to the end of claiming to have every answer, but to the end of achieving the highest degree of certainty humanly possible about the answers we have.  The fact that science is ready to admit its errors and the fact that it remains ever vigilant in the search for these errors is precisely what makes it trustworthy.  Science is a self-correcting process, continuously seeking out an understanding of the world better than the one it furnishes today, and though “different” doesn’t necessarily mean “better,” “better,” does necessarily mean “different.”

            Science is the best method we have for furthering our understanding of the world, because it works.  If one wishes to send a rocket to the moon, one relies on astronomy, not astrology; physics, not metaphysics; chemistry, not alchemy.  When a woman goes into labor, one calls a doctor, not a homeopath.  When one collapses with a heart-attack, the paramedics bring a defibrillator, not magic crystals.  There’s a reason one never hears the words, “Those odds are astrological.”

            I appreciate science because I understand this.  I understand this because of my science teachers.  In high school, I took two semesters of biology, physics, botany, earth science, and psychology.  In this, I came to understand and appreciate this.

            A society benefits directly from scientific research, but to conduct this research, one needs both expertise and funding.  With either of these taken away, the research simply won’t happen.  Well the scientists who provide the expertise are much more able to secure the necessary funding in a society that supports that funding, and that is much more likely to happen in a society that understands and appreciates science.  A society that has no science teachers is a society in which the general public ceases to understand science, and subsequently ceases to appreciate it and support its funding.  Where there is no science education, there is no science.  Thus, I conclude, when society loses its science teachers, when those teachers are negligent in some way, or when they are in some way hampered in their efforts to teach science, that society derives more harm than when the same happens to its scientists.

            Therefore, in the interests of protecting his or her trade, every scientist is well advised to maintain a high level of skill for colloquial explanation.

Logical Fallacies 35: The Slippery Slope

Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EUBvFZgAx4&feature=watch_response

            Now this one’s kind of tricky.  In use, it might not actually be a fallacy.  It depends.  Here’s the pattern.

            “Well, if event A happens, what’s to stop event B from happening?  And if event B happens, what’s to stop event C?  And then what’s to stop event D and E and F?  And suddenly we’re in totally different territory.”

            That’s the pattern.  Here’s the logical structure.

            First premise: Event A sets off a chain reaction that leads inexorably or almost inexorably to event Z.

            Second premise: Event Z is something unfavorable.

            Conclusion: In the interests of preventing Z we should prevent A.

            The key question here is, does event A have any actual bearing, as far as we can tell, on the odds of event B, C, and D, etc?  Is the first premise well founded?  Maybe it is.  For example, when I was in grade school, one day, the teacher assigned us a book report, and she insisted that the book we used as a subject had to be at least 100 pages; maybe more, but not a single page less.  Not even one.  After all, she explained, making such an allowance was virtually guaranteed to set this sequence in motion.

            first student: “Well, 97 pages is close to 100.”

            second student: “Well, 93 pages is close to 97.”

            third student: “Well, 89 pages is close to 93.”

            And the next thing you know, we have students writing reports on books only 15 pages long.  Do I doubt the likelihood of this sequence?  Not at all.  I dare to say that this teacher gave the assignment this stipulation out of her own acquaintance with the psychology of the typical grade-school student.

            Now let’s look at the age-old dilemma of the parent of a teenager.

            “Heh heh.  Sure, Son.  Your girlfriend can come over to study in your room, but you keep that door open while she’s here.  Do you understand me, young man?  Keep it open or I’ll remove it.”

            Does this make sense?  Is it prudent for the parent to impose this boundary?  Of course.  Why?  Because one thing tends to lead to another.  This first step is, indeed, onto a slippery slope.  In this particular setting, this observation (one thing leads to another) has predictive power.  Here we have another non-fallacious slippery slope.

            “Teenagers.  You give them an inch and they walk all over you.”

            Here’s another non-fallacious example:

            “If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men. If you can do one you can do the other. Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers, tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lectures, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After [a]while, your honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind.”

            This is a quote from Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey trial, defense council for a biology teacher named John Scopes who was taken to court for having the audacity to teach evolution.  Now how about another historical example?

            The expansion of the Japanese Empire, during World War II was driven by an odd kind of circular reasoning.  They needed to expand their territory so that they could obtain more material resources.  But they needed to obtain more material resources so that they could expand their territory.  Therefore, though I don’t know if it actually happened, many voices of reason and prudence would have been well founded in concluding that, in the event the Japanese Empire was allowed to expand a little, they would subsequently expand a little more, and a little more, and next thing you know, even if they started clear on the other side of the world, they are now threatening your territory and/or the territory of friends and allies of yours.

            Here’s a non-fallacious example I would like all my Muslim subscribers to make note of, given the growing popularity among Muslims of Holocaust denial.  The Holocaust is a widely and heavily documented historical event.  To deny it is to deny and abuse history.

            Among the world’s most famous holocaust deniers, and by that I mean people famous specifically for their holocaust denial—those who’ve made a career out of it with virtually no attention to anything else—a significant portion are not Muslim.  What’s to stop these people from turning right around tomorrow and denying that Mohammed ever existed?

            One also finds a psychological slippery slope in Germany, leading up to the Holocaust.  The powers that be in that country, in 1930, would not have been able to get away with the Holocaust then, but instead had to be content with much more minor injustices, and then slightly less minor, and then slightly less and slightly less, incrementally more and more severe, until we have a holocaust.

            Now how about a few fallacious examples?

            “If you teach people they are biologically related to animals, won’t they start acting like animals?”

            This slippery slope is kind of short, but still fallacious.  First, although most animals are not people, all people are animals.  To be human is to be a pattern-seeking primate; one particular species of animal.  Therefore, to act like a human is to act like an animal; albeit a particular species.  But second, you mean other species of animals, don’t you?  Any species in particular?  I mean one thing evolution shows us is that human beings are biologically related to kangaroos.  Are you telling me that, if you came to accept evolution, you would start to act like one of them?  I would like to see that.

            You can’t allege behavior like animals with any meaning unless you are prepared to specify what species of animal.  Camels are animals too.  Does this mean that accepting evolution will lead to people acting like camels?  What about goldfish, jellyfish, moths, anemones, or choral?  These are all animals and these all have very distinctly different behavioral characteristics.  If the act of accepting evolution leads to animal behavior, what species?

            Just to digress for a moment, I mentioned anemones there.  I don’t understand why anyone has a difficult time pronouncing this word (anemone).  I mean you pronounce it the same way you would pronounce these four letters (N M N E) in this sequence.  Simple.  Now back to the subject.

            “Well, if you legalize same-sex marriage today, you’ll be legalizing bestiality tomorrow, then pedophilia, then vandalism, then murder, and so on and so on, until you get to ethnic cleansing, and soon the whole world will be consumed in flames!”

            How in the world do you figure that?  How in the world does restricting same-sex marriage mitigate the occurrence of any of the rest of these?  A number of states in my country alone have legalized same-sex marriage.  Has this brought any change at all in the amount of political pressure brought to bear by bestiality-rights groups?  What laws are there, currently, against bestiality?  How are they enforced?  How could they be enforced except by a complete, utter, total disregard for privacy in any form?

            “If you permit scientists to destroy human embryos for the purpose of research, it's a slippery slope from there to killing human fetuses in order to harvest tissue, and from there to euthanizing disabled or terminally ill people to harvest their organs, and from there to human cloning and human-animal hybrids, and if making chimeras is okay, well then Dr. Frankenstein must also be okay, and Dr. Mengele, too, and before you know it, it's one long hapless inevitable slide from high-minded medicine to the Nazis.”

            Of course.  Nazism has so much to do with stem-cell research, euthanasia, cloning and making chimeras, doesn’t it?  After all, those mad scientists in Saturday Morning cartoons which are always making chimeras are all Nazis, aren’t they?  The very same argument could be made about the slippery slope from legalizing mustaches into Bolshevism.

            So the key question here is how great are the odds that each event in the proffered sequence actually facilitates the occurrence of subsequent events?  How much veracity is there to the first premise in this argument?

            Incidentally, this drawing of a slippery slope into fascism, Nazism, Communism, Maoism and such is a very common practice.  You could almost call it hackneyed and predictable.