Empty Hands
Senior Master
I did that too. So I guess I'm doubly blessed. Logic and military bragging rights... You lose again.:mst: I gots the whole stick.
Sean
Sharia Law in the USA!
- Thread starter Bill Mattocks
- Start date
Twin Fist
Grandmaster
the best stick, if wielded improperly, is useless. as we have seen from you....lol
Let's see... Ho!, Ha!, Hee!, Dodge!, Parry!, Spin!, Thrust!... It seems to work fine.
Sean
This where you are wrong. I took logic in college. You must not have.
Hmmm, I took logic, and I'm quite sure it isn't. I guess clarification of terms is in order first, but if by "snowball effect" you mean the "slippery slope" argument, then you are wrong to assert that it is a fallacy. It is sometimes considered an informal fallacy depending on how the argument is employed, but such nuance is present in all of debate and rhetoric.
However, it is only considered a fallacy if no logical or plausible chain of events or relationships can be shown, or, if there is no past precedent to suggest that such action could be followed by a logical chain of events. Did your class skip Eugene Volokh? To assert that a slippery slope argument is patently false would be the same as ruling out all inductive reasoning. Slippery slope arguments have been used by many social scientists in discussing likely outcomes of social change, and history gives us numerous examples of minor events or first small changes that absolutely had a snowball effect. Some good, and some bad.
Like any means of constructing an argument, it can be used appropriately or fallaciously, but to say that it is always fallacious is just plain wrong.
Well the answer is here. Rush addressed this on his show today, here is the link.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_032411/content/01125104.guest.html
From Rush:
This happens all the time and this is why the judge wants to make clear his ruling. In other words, the judge is not sanctioning Islamic law as a basis for absolving disputes here among all people. These were two groups of people that agreed to mediation, arbitration, they wanted to do it under Sharia law, that was their contract, the judge said fine. Everybody's having a cow or a lot of people had a cow so he's coming out and explaining here, "I am not enforcing Sharia law on anybody. I'm not trying to tell everybody that Sharia law is gonna be the law of the land here in my county. It's just these two groups agreed that Sharia law would be how we are gonna adjudicate this." I can see why a lot of people would be concerned by it, particularly how headlines get written and a number of other things. And you can't deny that, okay, here we've got some people in Hillsborough County and they want Sharia law as the determining factor in how their disputes are gonna be resolved. That can't be denied and that's gonna cause a lot of red flags with a lot of people, understandably so.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_032411/content/01125104.guest.html
From Rush:
This happens all the time and this is why the judge wants to make clear his ruling. In other words, the judge is not sanctioning Islamic law as a basis for absolving disputes here among all people. These were two groups of people that agreed to mediation, arbitration, they wanted to do it under Sharia law, that was their contract, the judge said fine. Everybody's having a cow or a lot of people had a cow so he's coming out and explaining here, "I am not enforcing Sharia law on anybody. I'm not trying to tell everybody that Sharia law is gonna be the law of the land here in my county. It's just these two groups agreed that Sharia law would be how we are gonna adjudicate this." I can see why a lot of people would be concerned by it, particularly how headlines get written and a number of other things. And you can't deny that, okay, here we've got some people in Hillsborough County and they want Sharia law as the determining factor in how their disputes are gonna be resolved. That can't be denied and that's gonna cause a lot of red flags with a lot of people, understandably so.
In this case, it is a falacy.
Sean
OP
- Thread Starter
- #27
If I can intrude on this back-and-forth for a moment, here's why I don't think this application of Sharia Law is part of a slippery slope effect.
We have seen religious law applied in civil law for a long time in the USA. The application of Islamic law is new only because the influx of Islamic citizens and residents is new. Jewish and Catholic and other religious law have been considered acceptable ways of resolving civil differences between parties that agreed to be bound by it for a long time. There literally is nothing new here in the application of the law. No new law is being made, no new legal precedents being set, no new ground being broken.
In order for it to be a slippery slope effect, we'd have to see the application of Sharia Law in more intrusive ways, including applying it to people who did not agree to be bound by it, or to people who were not even Muslim, or in cases of criminal law. We've seen no agreement by the US legal system, nor is there any precedent, for stoning of adulterers, for example.
If and when Sharia Law creeps into the criminal law system, then I would definitely agree, and that would be a very bad thing indeed. However, several centuries we have had the same principles applied to civil disputes only with other religion's laws involved and THEY have not crept into criminal law.
In fact, the USA stands quite apart from most of Europe on this - and has since the beginning. We do not support, for example, laws against 'blasphemy'. Not only do many Christian nations have such laws (they don't put people to death for it, but they have such laws or had them), but in England, it wasn't that long ago when the Ecclesiastical Court could imprison people for up to six months! Yeah, Christians! Funny.
In any case, I don't see us going that way. We're recognizing that people can use Islamic law just as they can Jewish law or Catholic law or just plain contract law to settle their civil disputes, so long as both parties agree to it. I see no evidence that Islamic law is being given any more credence or special treatment compared to religious law of any other religion in the USA.
So I just don't agree that there is a slippery slope here. Show me a court in the USA that agrees to put someone in jail for taking the name of Allah in vain or throwing away a business card with the name of Mohammad on it, and I'll go along with you. But I just don't see it here.
We have seen religious law applied in civil law for a long time in the USA. The application of Islamic law is new only because the influx of Islamic citizens and residents is new. Jewish and Catholic and other religious law have been considered acceptable ways of resolving civil differences between parties that agreed to be bound by it for a long time. There literally is nothing new here in the application of the law. No new law is being made, no new legal precedents being set, no new ground being broken.
In order for it to be a slippery slope effect, we'd have to see the application of Sharia Law in more intrusive ways, including applying it to people who did not agree to be bound by it, or to people who were not even Muslim, or in cases of criminal law. We've seen no agreement by the US legal system, nor is there any precedent, for stoning of adulterers, for example.
If and when Sharia Law creeps into the criminal law system, then I would definitely agree, and that would be a very bad thing indeed. However, several centuries we have had the same principles applied to civil disputes only with other religion's laws involved and THEY have not crept into criminal law.
In fact, the USA stands quite apart from most of Europe on this - and has since the beginning. We do not support, for example, laws against 'blasphemy'. Not only do many Christian nations have such laws (they don't put people to death for it, but they have such laws or had them), but in England, it wasn't that long ago when the Ecclesiastical Court could imprison people for up to six months! Yeah, Christians! Funny.
In any case, I don't see us going that way. We're recognizing that people can use Islamic law just as they can Jewish law or Catholic law or just plain contract law to settle their civil disputes, so long as both parties agree to it. I see no evidence that Islamic law is being given any more credence or special treatment compared to religious law of any other religion in the USA.
So I just don't agree that there is a slippery slope here. Show me a court in the USA that agrees to put someone in jail for taking the name of Allah in vain or throwing away a business card with the name of Mohammad on it, and I'll go along with you. But I just don't see it here.
Hey everybody... Let's stay on topic, and not attack each other.
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