Thomas Sowell: The polio fallacy

Town Hall ^ | Jun 16, 2005 | Thomas Sowell

[Mind-numbed Robot]

So what happens when a socialist Dim gets in office in the coming decades? It's all a slippery slope and you never see the damage done by incrementalism until it's too late. Did income taxes decline or go away after they were introduced back 70-80 years ago?

Although your statement is true and a valid caution, it makes me think you know the media version of the Patriot Act, not the real version. No freedoms were lost. The courts were still required for approval of taps, etc. It basically just brought existing laws into the present by accounting for cell phones, the internet, and such.

[dpa5923]

As Rush says "Words mean things." To suggest that the TSA implementing security screening is the same as a fascist state is a bit of hyperbole to say the least. Although the state does place restrictions and requirements on private business and the TSA is no exception, this is could not be called total control. By your definition, meat inspectors are a characteristic of a fascist state. Hell, even safety requirements imposed on the auto industry would be fascist by you definition.

Can the screening process be better? Sure.

Can it be more effective and cost efficient? Absolutely.

Is it (screening) in its present form a royal pain in the butt? You bet.

Is it fascist? Nope, that one just doesn't fly.

[tnlibertarian]

this could not be called total control.

The federal government essentially controls the private airline industry. They live or die at the whim of government bail-outs. The TSA, with their arbitrary singling out of passengers who receive 'extra' security treatment, feeling up of women, forcing mothers to drink their own milk to prove what it is, stealing everything that isn't nailed down from passengers, and other stories that would feel the page, are not simply "implementing security screening". Do you think the airlines like the fact that they know they are losing passengers because of TSA's tactics? Of course not, but what can they do? The State has power over them to tell them 'tough'. I really don't see meat inspectors infringing upon my rights in quite the same way.

[Hank Rearden]

I love Tom Sowell, but it seems he hasn't been through an airport shakedown recently.

[RockyMtnMan]

I'll admit to not having read the details of the Act but I am leery of anything the government does in "reaction" to a traumatic event like 9/11.

Nothing ever seems to grow smaller in scope in the world of government and what the act says now could become radically different under future administrations. There is now a foot in the door that is waiting to be pried open by a charismatic Dim in the future.

I prefer to close the door now rather than risk a serious cold later because the draft of incrementalism is always blowing from the left.

[mysterio]

Sorry, I don't think I'll be writing John Ashcroft any thank you letters for lacking foresight and laying the groundwork for tyranny. I will thank him for showing me that Republicans look at the Constitution as a "living," elastic document just like the demos do, though. The "patriot" act made me realize that if there's a (D) or an (R) by a candidate's name, there is about a 95% chance that the candidate is for bigger, more intrusive government and thinks the solution to every problem is more government and less liberty.

[MrNeutron1962]

"Never mind that NO ABUSES have occured under its watch."

and you know this to be a fact because?

[Mind-numbed Robot]

I prefer to close the door now rather than risk a serious cold later because the draft of incrementalism is always blowing from the left.

You and I probably have similar political philosophies, hey, we're both on FR, and I agree with your caution. However, the PA changed very little and we must remember we are at war with an unconventional enemy. While the Democrats hold us, the U.S., to higher than normal standards they excuse our enemies and their atrocities.

Your fear that we will pass a law that will enable the Democrats to misuse it later is noble but misplaced. The Republicans in Congress commit the same error. Just remember that the Democrats are going to lie and abuse the laws anyway. The Clintons used the FBI and the IRS to fight their political enemies, not the enemies of the country but their perceived personal enemies. Free Republic was sued, found liable for $1 mil and forbidden to excerpt from the Washington Post, The LA Times and any other publications owned by them or theirs. I repeat, the Democrats are going to abuse power regardless of what we do. They threaten us just to keep us from protecting ourselves and we always seem to fall for it.

[RockyMtnMan]

I just passed my 4 yr anniversary as a member so I suspect we are close in philosophy and paranoia toward the Rats. I'd do the usual Ben Franklin quotes but I know you've already had that conversation by now based on your profile.

I've had close family in positions of government who have directly benefitted from the PA. If the bill would have been passed without the 9/11 event then it fills a neccessary hole. But if it could not have been suported without that horrible event then it should sunset. The problem is knowing whether or not it would have stood on it's own.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Ben Franklin was as prescient in that comment as he was in many other aspects of his life. (I always had enough trouble getting a kite into the air that I wondered how in the heck he did it in a thunderstorm.)

We are discussing the slippery slope argument which we have already slide down so many times we can hardly afford more. States rights and our tax system took it in the gut under Abraham Lincoln and immediately following the Civil War and the Constitution has been continually eroding since. Franklin and the other founders understood human nature and we will forever be fighting that. It is a blessing and a curse, going back to the Garden of Eden.

However, we must adjust to changing technology and changing circumstances and we must do it within the Constitution. That is what the battle over judges is all about.

RICO was a law passed to combat organized crime and it was, like the PA, one not previously thought necessary. The crime bosses insulated themselves, much like the Clintons do, with layers of underlings between them the actual commission of a crime. The law was changed to make it illegal to conspire with others to commit a crime not just to commit a crime personally. In fact, I wonder why we don't use RICO more in our war on terror, especially against the sleeper cells in this country.

The Patriot Act may have been precipitated by 9/11 but it stayed within the Constitution in that it still requires that evidence be presented and judges must approve any covert activities. A big part of it was to keep pace with the proliferation of cell phones and the internet, technology not previously covered.

It is interesting that the Democrats so vehemently oppose it because they do the same surreptitiously anyway. They just don't want their opposition, the Republicans, to achieve anything noteworthy even if that causes innocents to die and the country to suffer.

I understand the slippery slope danger and agree we should guard against it. I think we have, at least the conservatives have. The Patriot Act in its present form is no danger.

[LifeOrGoods?]

Liberals are a farcical lot. All a liberal can do is disapprove any major move made by anyone he calls intolerant. But listen to what his alternative liberal solution is, and you will find silence.

[LifeOrGoods?]

Main Entry: fas·cism
Pronunciation: 'fa-"shi-z&m also 'fa-"si-
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces 1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader,severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition 2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

Enter the U.S. Senate, enabled by the U.S. Federal Courts, manned by the Very United Socialist States of America, enabled by the liberalized masses, educated in the federally-controlled and state-patroled public schools system. Welcome to WW3, boys and girls.