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> it presents a great possibility of abuse; I appreciate your concern, but this is a slippery slope fallacy. It's highly unlikely it would be abused without kn

• GauntletWizard 11y ago
  Slippery slope is not automatically a fallacy. In fact, since this is a political (and more importantly, rhetorical) debate, slippery slope isn't a fallacy at all. It is an argument, carrying some weight or none at all, depending on how it is presented. In light of an article that is precisely about how "Big Pharma" overprescribed drugs to people who didn't need them, suggesting that allowing the government to enforce prescriptions will lead to more corruption and overprescription, this argument should hold a lot of weight. More generally: Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy. It, along with many of it's brothers [1], do nothing to prove a point in a logical debate. They do no represent MUSTs, they represent SHOULD, MAY, and OPTIONAL [2]. These are rhetorical devices that you should use when you are feeling out the scope of the problem and advocating for policy in a political debate. And it can be relevant to call them by name, but dismissing an argument because you can name it is actually illogical. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Informal_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Informal_fal... [2] https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt
  • chadgeidel 11y ago
    Point taken. I should not have used that rhetorical device. Thanks for the correction.