Here’s the new ad from McCain…it’s called “Slippery Slope.”
Perhaps nobody told McCain and friends that the term “Slippery Slope” refers to a form of logical fallacy.
The definition, as listed in Wikipedia, is as follows: “the slippery slope is one of the classical informal fallacies. It suggests that an action will initiate a chain of events culminating in an undesirable event later without establishing or quantifying the relevant contingencies. The argument is sometimes referred to as the thin end of the wedge or the camel’s nose. In broader, especially recent, pragmatic usage, the term slippery slope argument alternately refers to a non-fallacious argument that such undesirable events are rendered more probable. The fallacious sense of “slippery slope” is often used synonymous with continuum fallacy, in that it assumes there is no gray area and there must be a definite transition at a certain point from category A to category B.”
Here’s the ad:
It obviously meets the criteria for this fallacy in both name and substance by insinuating that if “Obama is taxing the rich now…he’ll tax everyone later” when there is little more than a skeptical prediction on there part to support it. What’s more…they use a misstatement by Biden (he said $150,000 in error) and a quote from Joe the Uninformed Pseudo-Plumber to make their case. I’ve often argued that the GOP’s arguments engage in the use of poor logic…but rarely do they ANNOUNCE that they are about to engage in an unsound argument.