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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 2024

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Then by this logic driver's license are a slippery slope to, I dunno, banning Republicans from driving? After all, there's already a mechanism by which the government would prevent Republicans from driving (by not issuing them a license).

If you generalize it a little to "taking away drivers licenses for disfavored things that have nothing to do with driving", yes. They already take drivers licenses away for failure to pay child support.

Why generalize? If the slope is slippery, it's slippery.

Because a slippery slope isn't going to slip to every possible thing in a category all at once. If you're too specific about which thing it slips to, you can endlessly deny that the slippery slope exists. By your reasoning, since you specified Republicans, a slippery slope towards taking away the licenses of Democrats, or people who won't get vaccinated, or people whose names start with the letter A, wouldn't count because it's not exactly the same as the example you gave. That's sophistry.

The substantive part of a slippery slope here is that drivers licenses will be taken away for things with no connection to driving, not specifically Republicans and nothing else. They have indeed slipped like this.

You're basically claiming that the slope is slippery, but it's not actually going to slip towards any particular thing.

Cool, then my response to you is simple. Just as you simply claim that there isn't a slippery slope to Republicans losing their license for being Republicans despite all mechanisms being in place, I will simply claim that there isn't a slippery slope to "taking the wilderness away from us" despite all (hypothetical) mechanisms being (hypothetically) in place. That was easy!

You're basically claiming that the slope is slippery, but it's not actually going to slip towards any particular thing.

It is slipping towards a category. Many things are in the category. Republicans losing their license is one thing in the category, but not its entirety. You'd also need multiple slippery slopes all failing to get to the point of taking away the licenses of Republicans, but that does not mean that each individual slope isn't real. Republicans would need to be seen as evil enough that it's okay for the law to stop them. Freedom of speech and association would have to end. You could claim something similar for not being allowed to drive into the wilderness, but the principles that would be violated by that are a lot weaker, if they exist at all, than the principles violated by not letting Republicans have licenses.

I'd also expect "taking the wilderness away" to not immediately happen in its full form, while the pot of water with the frog boils over. Self-driving cars could first be limited to not run into protests, or the police could be given discretion to stop them when crimes are involved. Once that's established, the next step might be to keep them out of busy traffic if congestion would be too strong, or some other similar restriction that isn't just "can never go there". Cars may be commandeered by the government to take suspects to the police station, maybe even just for questioning. Police will get warrants to exclude someone from being allowed to have any vehicles go to their house. Cars will be kept out of the wilderness in nighttime hours when, you know, the wilderness isn't patrolled, and away from top-secret government areas. By the time you get to "can't go to the wilderness at all" it'll be a minor step.

This of course can happen for Republicans as well.