[oman]

And I'm sorry you think slippery-slope arguments are an embarrassment, but I don't. Look how the Patriot Act, passed in what I'm sure was good faith in the wake of an agonizing attack on the United States, has mutated into an excuse for the NSA to plunder through everybody's communications at all times. In discussion of basic rights, slippery-slope arguments get right to the heart of the issue. Hardly anybody would have cared about the rights of Nazis to march in Skokie. The question of who might get banned next if the government was given that power was a perfectly sensible one.

Yep.  I tried to type something like this but could not get the words out.  Glad I gave up and let Garvin do it.

[oman]

And I'm sorry you think slippery-slope arguments are an embarrassment, but I don't. Look how the Patriot Act, passed in what I'm sure was good faith in the wake of an agonizing attack on the United States, has mutated into an excuse for the NSA to plunder through everybody's communications at all times. In discussion of basic rights, slippery-slope arguments get right to the heart of the issue. Hardly anybody would have cared about the rights of Nazis to march in Skokie. The question of who might get banned next if the government was given that power was a perfectly sensible one.

Yep.  I tried to type something like this but could not get the words out.  Glad I gave up and let Garvin do it.