That all important dependent clause, Depending on the restriction...  I completely agree with you.  We are a nation of laws.   Laws have been our strength.  The problem is if the laws are applied capriciously and to suit one's purpose instead of the intent of the law.  It's why I mentioned Bill Moyers.  Al Gore wrote a book on this.  There's also another author I heard interviewed last night, I can't think of his name.   I completely agree with you.  I'm just talking about Side B, the slippery slope.  Bill Moyers...

--- On Fri, 5/23/08, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The continuation of Realpolitik -- a counterfactual
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Friday, May 23, 2008, 3:08 AM

Irene wrote

> Depending on the restriction, this may be a slippery slope argument.  It 
> does describe Guantanamo.  Bill Moyers wrote a new book on the state of 
> our democracy today.  Needless to say, it's not healthy. 

If this was meant as a reply to what I wrote to the other fellow, I fail 
to see how touches on what I said. You write, quoting me

>     ...if some people are 'restricted' in some way, some of the 
>     time, it follows that all of the people may be 'restricted' in
any way 
>     at any time. 

This is not all I wrote though. I said that if I understood the other 
guy he seemed to be arguing this way, that is, that 'if some of the 
people...then...all of the people...,' etc. I said that this was a bad 
form of reasoning, for it simply doesn't follow that if there are laws 
against embezzlement, or child abuse, or stealing peoples' wallets, that 
someone, perhaps the government, has a 'right' to steal milk from my 
refrigerator. Where no actual examples of anything are given, not only 
does the imagination run riot, but the brain soon tires of the 
discussion. So here I leave, and commend the subject to others.

Robert Paul

------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html