Dakota Beacon

Have you ever attempted to explain your concern for establishing an unfortunate precedent by acquiescing to what might seem to the other person a small matter?  For example, you might say that looters should be dealt with harshly and perhaps not offered bail.  Someone will assert here that this really isn’t at the level of “deadly force” and it might be best to just let this go.  Next morning you read that half of the city has been smashed, looted, defaced and a number of police officers are in the hospital.  It’s not a small matter to the victims, it turns out.

This is the much-maligned “slippery-slope” argument.  We are supposed to shun this kind of thinking.  It is generally dismissed as a debate tactic, discredited simply for its plain logic.

The other day the question came up, can the government really force us to put a mask over our face?  Can you be arrested and fined for simply not wearing a mask over your face now?  You go out of your house and someone calls the police and you are arrested and face a sentence or fine because you did not put a mask over your face?  Can they really do this?  Ben Shapiro had the handy answer for this the other day.  He asserted that, well, yes, they could.  It’s the same principle that applies to a seat belt.

Now, a seat belt in a car has been accepted by pretty much everyone.  Everyone gets in the car and “buckles up”.  If you forget there will be a billboard screaming at you to do so immediately or you’ll be pulled over and fined - “click it or ticket” is the cute little slogan some Karen thought up for this.  

Okay - now go the other direction from the face mask.  You’ve established that the mask requirement is within bounds.  Now, what about a burka?  Never! You yell.  Well, let’s be reasonable here.  If the government can tell you that you must cover your face or be fined for noncompliance, why quibble about covering your hair, ladies?  There is a more compelling reason to accept the burka than the face mask.  Why would you want to risk being raped by a Muslim, whose culture has taught him that a woman not wearing a burka is okay for him to attack?  That’s right there in the Koran.  There are places in Europe and the British Isles where acid attacks are becoming more frequent.  It only happens to women not wearing burkas.  So, there is probably a greater risk involved in not wearing a burka than in not wearing a face mask.  The chances of being attacked are probably greater than of catching COVID-19 and the results could be far, far worse.  Is simply donning a head-to-toe covering too much to ask to protect you from assault and possibly death?  It’s a very small step, now that you are already wearing a mask.  

The matter of vaccines will be next.  A lot of people are highly skeptical of the safety of a vaccine which was “developed” with virtually no testing, which requires no accountability for possibly serious side effects, even deadly ones, and which need not promise even effectiveness to prevent disease.  Yet we are more likely than not to be threatened with some dire kind of punishment for refusing to allow cancer cells, mercury and other heavy metal poisons, fetal cells and viruses to be injected into our bodies.  Well, stop fussing - it’s for the good of the public.  Just shut up.  

This is the road we have been taking - the road of seemingly less resistance.  We go along to get along.  We do this for the small things and suddenly we find we must do it for all things.  Anyone who has ever raised a child knows that it is important to set the limits.  Failure to set limits and stick to them results in more and more liberties taken by the kid.  Have you ever heard this progression?  “Don’t go outside to play until you’ve finished your homework.  But if you do, stay home in our yard, don’t go to Josh’s house.  But if you do, don’t go off somewhere with Josh - we’re going to have supper soon.  But if you miss supper I’ll save some leftovers for you or make a sandwich.”  How far do you think little Brent will take this?  I’ll bet he doesn’t stay in to finish his homework.  

It is the same with our government.  We are blessed in that we have the power to control it, rather than the other way around.  What we seem to lack is the will.

When government tells us we must wear a helmet when we ride a motorcycle or fasten our seatbelt or wear a mask . . . or wear a burka . . . “for our own good” or “for the good of the public”, we should say no.  There should be rebellion over this.  

A private business has every right to say who may or may not come through their doors, no question about it.  But a public place, a place we pay for as taxpayers, has no such right.  

It would be a shame if our freedom comes crashing down because of a virus.  We have provision for national emergencies.  We can allow our rights to be suspended or temporarily abridged in time of acute attack - war or epidemic or natural disaster - but we must have an end to it and that end must be in sight.  A few months ago, I was in favor of using a mask in stores or other places where we come into close contact with others.  But this was when it was to "flatten the curve", to give our healthcare people time to prepare for the expected epidemic.  No one back then suggested that we should make this a lifestyle for perhaps years into the future, nor that this should be imposed on us in parks or even imposed at all.  When it was voluntary, temporary and limited, it was one thing.  Now it is something else.  Now we are being told, not asked, to submit to something that is neither convenient nor healthy.  

Where we are going off the rails now is by allowing open-ended special conditions which curtail our freedom and our natural rights.  There is no one who can say when the end of these special conditions will be.  This could be a matter of weeks . . . or months . . . or years or decades.  How long are we going to subject ourselves to these extraordinary conditions?  This is the legitimacy of the “slippery-slope” argument.   There is no reason whatsoever to reject the argument of incremental loss of freedom.  Stick to your guns.  It’s your life.  You don’t really owe it to the “authorities”.  

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