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@blip Sorry, I don't know how to use this very well. Using your example. I am not saying that legalizing of marijuana will lead to the legalization of heroin. I am asking what makes the legalization of marijuana correct in your view so that we can determine if your argument would also justify the legalization of heroin. Which, in your example, presumably neither of us want.

whether we want it or not wasn't really the point. Just using it as an example of the slippery slope fallacy so commonly used when debating politics.

I agree that it's not really the point, I was adding that in to assume the minimal possible difference between our positions in your hypothetical. But again, we haven't addressed the meat of the issue. Which is the preceding line.

If we say marijuana legalization is good for these reasons, but those reasons also apply to heroin legalization, then we've made a poor argument for the legalization of marijuana. Again this assumes neither of us want to legalize heroin. So your example is a textbook case of the slippery slope fallacy. "Would the reasons for which we are legalizing marijuana also legalize heroin?" is not an example of the fallacy.

It is the antithesis of it. Instead of accepting the causal relationship without question, we are investigating whether the causal relationship exists.

If it would be easier, we could make the hypothetical more absurd by replacing heroin with murder or something.

@DA. I think it would be strong to say that we supported it. In your own words we have perpetuated it by allowing it to continue. This may sound like just semantics here, but I think it does matter for the second point you make. The amount to which we were involved with the creation, continuation, and expansion of apartheid governs the degree to which speaking up now makes us 'gigantic racist hipocrites'.

@Edward no, that is the slippery slope argument. The reasons we could have used to legalize Marijuana could be the exact same reasons we could use to try and legalize heroin. But the fallacy is that legalizing one will cause the other to become legalized. Which simply isn't the case.

That'd be an entirely separate debate and legislation. Even if the argued reasons ultimately are the same.

As for the actual issue at hand, my main argument is that the actions Tucker Carlson and Trump are claiming aren't true. There isn't a "white genocide" going on in South Africa. The government may take over property, yes. But that's a right a lot of governments have.

And if their government and citizens ultimately decide it's a good thing, it may very well be.

But, like you say, yes, it's a distraction and that was kind of the point of my answer. It's not a real issue that the US is concerned about. It may turn into one...who knows? But what Trump is talking about is a) falsely stated and b) clearly aimed at riling up a particular demographic.

@DA. Yes it is a slippery slope argument, but not all slippery slope arguments are fallacies. The slippery slope fallacy is an informal fallacy which means it is governed by its content. Logically your statement doesn't make sense. If the reasons to legalize marijuana and to legalize heroin are exactly the same, then there isn't a reason to not legalize both if you legalize one without first drawing a distinction between them. We have to state why the same reasoning would not apply.

@DA. No there isn't a white genocide in South Africa. You and I have gone over the property before. Yes many governments have the right to take the land in various situations. But it is a human rights violation for them to do so without compensation. Again despite the fact that a government has the right and ability to take property from its citizens, that does not justify them doing so.

@Edward "We have to state why the same reasoning would not apply" ah! But, we don't! Not on the context of politics and the law. Laws don't automatically cascade to apply to anything and everything. Laws are written in very specific contexts.

Now, once a law is passed, perhaps another can be proposed, and we'd then look at that issue, but there is no slippery slope. There are very clear lines drawn between each issue.

As for your comment on compensation and the like, no arguments there. No one is saying it's 'right'. Whether it's right or wrong isn't really the issue at the moment. The issue is a) who is actually saying they are concerned b) are they sincerely concerned and representing the fact correctly and c) why are they concerned about this particular issue?

When you put all of that together in the context of Trump, it becomes a very different contet

@DA. I think you're ignoring how laws actually get made. When a new one is proposed and ratified, precedent is taken into account. Past arguments and reasoning are taken into account. Additionally, there is no guarantee that a future interpretation of a law wont over reach unless it is written in such a way to disallow that. Again you would have to state your 'why' either implicitly or explicitly in the text of the law or you risk a downward slope.

@DA. I think you're moving the goal posts here. For quite some time the bulk of my arguments have not been a defense of Trump, but a critique of South Africa's potential policy shift on land redistribution. I think we should clarify whether we are commenting on South Africa's policies or the nature of Trump's tweets. I'm not saying we can't do both or that they are totally unrelated from a political standpoint, but the original question was specific to the policies, not the tweets.