There Is No Goddamned Frog In The Water.

Want to know if someone’s nuts? Well, I have an absolutely infallible test. It works every time. It is, I guarantee you, 100% accurate.

1. Engage test subject in conversation.
2. Bring up the topic of politics.
3. Listen carefully. If they ever, ever, ever use the words “slippery slope,” “frog in the water,” “thin end of the wedge,” “foot in the door,” or any other phrase describing the concept of gradual desensitization and infiltration by sinister forces, back away slowly and call 911. 

Because the person to whom you are speaking is completely, utterly, probably irredeemably and incurably bug-fucking, stark-raving bonkers. 

The whole concept of the “slippery slope” is one that I wish I could rip out of the collective American psyche, and I wouldn’t be gentle about it, either. I’d carve it out with a scalpel. Or, failing that, a chainsaw. I say “American,” because I genuinely do not believe that any other nationality out there—with the possible exception of the Germans in 1933—is as susceptible to such an asinine concept as we Americans. Frankly, I can’t understand why we are. We’re not stupid. If we were, we wouldn’t be as successful as we are. But for some reason, we’re suckers for the “Frog in the Water” idea. 

The concept, by the way, is utter bullshit. And let me tell you why. Because it implies the existence of a baleful and malevolent conspiracy.

Whenever anyone uses any of the phrases denoting the concept, it implies that there actually is a sinister group of people out there who have a Master Plan. And they’re working in concert to delude the public into quietly going along with this sinister Master Plan, not noticing anything, until BAM... it’s too late and we're all fucked. Gotcha. 

That’s Conspiracy Theory. Plain and simple. And Conspiracy Theory, regardless of who the purported conspirators are*, is insane. As is anyone who believes it. Conspiracy Theory is invariably wrong because it's based on two faulty premises: one, that human beings are smart enough to come up with a Grand Plan. And two, that they have the discipline to stick with it long enough to actually accomplish it.

You show me one successful conspiracy in the history of humankind. Just one. French Revolution? Don’t make me laugh. Russian Revolution? Nazi Revolution? Establishment of the State of Israel? Not one of those was a conspiracy. The conspirators, such as they were, were pretty damn open about what they planned to do. Adolf Hitler published a book detailing precisely what it was he had in mind. So did Theodor Herzl. The Bolsheviks published newspapers. Not just one, a whole bunch of them. So did the Jacobins.

I’d also point out that every one of those undertakings was riven with dissent. Far from being pulled off by a tightly unified band of conspirators, most revolutionary undertakings lurch wildly back and forth, tugged hither and yon by those who hold one opinion and those who hold others, and when the event DOES actually take place, it’s usually by accident.

And when it does happen, it shocks the living shit out of the people who were trying to get it to happen. We’ll never know now, but I bet you dollars to doughnuts that after the Twin Towers were hit, no one was more surprised than Osama. 

Americans, however, buy conspiracy theory hook, line and sinker. I’m truly not sure why this is. I suspect it’s because that, with all the flaws in its execution since 1776 and our tendency toward oligarchy, we were the first actual working democracy since Athens. And deep down, we actually want someone to be running our lives for us.

Whatever the reason, Americans on both sides of the political divide are equally susceptible to the Froggie in the Water Fallacy. And cynical operators on both sides of the political divide shamelessly, and disgustingly, exploit the gullibility of their fellow Americans. Here are three examples.

Boiled Toad One: Gun Control Will Land You in ObamAuschwitz.

The boiled toad here is a pretty simple one. If we let those Comm’nist Faggot Lib’rals exercise one, even jest oooooooooone lil’ ol’ lim’tation on our God-given, Sec’nd ‘Mendment guar’nteed rights to defend ourselves, they’ll take our guns away and force us into FEMA-run concentration camps!

Okay, this is just horseshit that flies directly in the face of common sense. Anyone who’s ever watched “Swamp People” knows how deeply ingrained guns are in American culture. And, at the risk of horrifying my fellow Liberals (and go fuck yourselves anyhow. I’m not a Liberal. I’m a goddamned fire-breathing dyed-in-the-wool full-fledged fire-breathing Radical. I spit on your pansy-assed Liberalism), that’s probably not a bad thing.

I’m not saying that we need guns. But we have them, and, properly taught, used, and regulated, I don’t see why we shouldn’t. We have cars. They kill more people than guns do every year, by a very wide margin. And if, God forbid, someone ever pulls the Giant Plug at the North Pole and we lose electricity forever (as I firmly believe will happen), we might very well need to shoot our own food and defend ourselves. Or if the Zombie Apocalypse ever happens (as I firmly believe will happen), we’ll need something besides a baseball bat to kill those undead sons of bitches.

Exhibit A for why we shouldn't (completely) outlaw guns. Besides, you  don't need Teflon-coated cop-killer bullets to kill a zombie. That's just overkill. 

Fact is, no matter how you feel about them, we’re just never, ever going to get rid of them, and I for one don’t think we should.

However.

My brother is a self-described gun nut. He has a Glock 9, a sawed-off shotgun, and an AK-47. He likes to buy produce—watermelons, cantaloupes, muskmelons, anything big enough to draw a bead on, really—and go out in the desert (he lives in Vegas) and shoot them. And he’ll be the first one to tell you that he shouldn’t have them. “I don’t need an assault rifle, JP,” he tells me. “And I definitely shouldn’t be able to waltz right into a gun shop in Vegas, and five minutes later, walk out with one of these things.”

Outlawing Teflon-coated, armor-piercing cop-killer bullets, 50-round magazines, and assault rifles will not, regardless of what those black-hearted fuckers at the NRA tell you, result in Uncle Buddy’s hunting rifle being taken away by the jackbooted Gestapo-thugs of our Kenyan-born president. Nor will having to wait for two weeks while A) you’re sobering up, cooling down, or being forced to actually think for a minute before you do something stupid, and B) a nice thorough background check to determine whether you’re the kind of person who can responsibly handle a gun is conducted.

The Brady Bill wasn’t about taking your guns away. It was about making you wait a bit before you actually got your hands on one. It wasn’t part of a sinister conspiracy, it was common sense. But you’d never guess that judging by the fuss the NRA jackoffs kicked up. And they convinced us that this was, cue the ominous music and the deep, sinister voice, “Just the beginning, muah-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah!”

And instead of the cooling off period, we got Gabrielle Giffords, her staffer, and a nine year old girl. Dead. Because some fucking conspiracy-crazed nutjob who shouldn’t have been able to buy a screwdriver got his hands on an assault rifle with a magazine big enough to wipe out a small town. 

Boiled Frog Two. Abortion.

I just happen to be pro-life. I’ll explain why, with all the nuances and subtleties of my thoughts on the subject, in a subsequent blog post, God willing and the creek don’t rise. But in spite of the fact that I do consider a fetus to be a person—kind of, sort of—I don’t think that ought to seriously compromise my contention that late-term partial birth abortion is a completely fucking barbaric and disgusting process that ought to be outlawed.

But just try mentioning this in the circles in which I generally move, and you’d think I’d suggested that black people ought to be rounded up and sent back south to pick cotton.

“How dare you!” my fellow Progressives gasp in horror, their glasses of shiraz trembling in their hands. “Why... how DARE you! Take away a woman’s right to choose? Why, you... you Christian!”

Well, I’m not a Christian. Nor am I suggesting that Roe v. Wade be overturned. Nor do I think abortions ought to be outlawed—not for the first trimester, anyhow. I’m all about a woman’s right to choose. But Jesus... come on. Partial-birth abortion is, plain and simple, monstrous. And outlawing it is not, once more for emphasis, NOT, going to result in Roe v. Wade being overturned. Nor is it going to result in women being stripped of their rights to higher education, the vote, and to screw whomever, whenever, and however, they want. Outlawing the messy slaughter of a viable human being by sawing its head off and sucking its brains out—and yes, I’m sorry, that’s precisely what the procedure entails. Call a spade a damned spade—will not result in the end of reproductive freedom. It just isn’t.

And yet, once again, the alarmniks exploit Americans’ tendency toward conspiracy theory by boiling toads and summoning up the bogeyman of the Patriarchy and its gruesome attendants from Al Qaeda country—Honor Killings, Clitorectomies, and Forced Child Marriage.

Again, can we take off the tinfoil hat, exercise a little common sense, and admit that there’s no slippery slope in the offing?

Boiled Toad Three: The Sticky Icky Icky Will Reduce Your Life to a Bit Part in “Spun.”

For Christ’s sake, let’s legalize dope already. Go Green. Free Mary Jane. Smoke Up. Embrace Buddah-ism. Admit the Need for Weed. Pack the pipe, fire up the bong, spark the bowl, flame on fattie, anoint the joint, admit Cheech and Chong Ain’t Wrong, and let’s... just... legalize... dope.

And to any nitwits—and yes, that’s what you are—on the other side who oppose it, the facts are in.

1. Marijuana has not been linked to any health hazards. It’s not a neurotoxin, like alcohol (which is legal). It doesn’t contain carcinogens, like tobacco (which is legal).
2. No one has ever overdosed on marijuana. Because it’s not possible.
3. There is no evidence—none whatsoever—that marijuana is, in any way, a gateway drug.
4. Marijuana is really, really good for you if you have cancer. Or glaucoma. Or any of a number of other horrific diseases.

Face facts, folks. MJ is good stuff. It’s a hell of a lot better for you than liquor, for example. It’s better for society. When’s the last time you ever heard of anyone getting elevated and going home to beat their wife and kids? When’s the last time you heard of a broken-bottle fight breaking out at a Phil Lesh and Friends concert? When’s the last time you heard of a carful of teenagers wrapping itself around a telephone pole because the driver’d been toking?

It simply doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t.

Our asinine drug policy is what keeps our prisons full, putting zillions of your tax dollars into the hands of private corporations (who hire lobbyists to keep MJ illegal so that they can KEEP the prisons full, and thus charge your elected representatives more of your money. Sorry if that sounded conspiracy-theoryish. But it’s true).

It’s what finances the drug lords who sell the actual bad stuff, like heroin, crack, and crystal meth.

It drains our local, state, and federal governments of much-needed money that’s used to fight a “drug war,” and deprives them of a potential fuckload of tax revenue.

It actually makes it easier for kids to get it, not harder. I’m serious about that. Every high school kid in America knows a dealer. Hell, at the age of 40, I know three of them. Every kid in America, regardless of whatever school he or she attends, can get his or her hands on a dimebag in a New York minute. Alcohol, on the other hand, is a hell of a lot tougher to get. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have such timeless comedies as “Superbad” and “Teen Wolf.” Alcohol is tougher to get for one simple reason: it’s legal. And, thus, regulated. Which means that, instead of visiting my Uncle Louie of blessed memory, olov hasholem, him being the guy who knew how to brew his own beer, make his own wine, and triple-distill his own slivovitz, Michael J. Fox and McLovin had to go to a liquor store. Where they got carded. And cinematic hilarity and hi-jinks ensued.

But just let any elected official except Ron Paul say, “Oh, fuck it, let’s just legalize it already,” and here come the Toad Boilers in full force, shrieking that said elected official is probably Pablo Escobar’s bitch, and that legalizing dope is the First Step toward Hooking Our Kids On Hard Drugs and the Dissolution of Traditional Society and Probably The End of Civilization, and that From Legalizing Dope, It’s Only About Three Inches Down the Slippery Slope Toward Armageddon!

God Almighty. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if we could shake off our collective psychosis, take off our collective tinfoil hat, and say, “You know what, there really isn’t a Slippery Slope behind Door #3. We have common sense. We have the ability to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and lunatics without hacking the Second Amendment out of the Bill of Rights. We have the ability to legalize, regulate, and control a completely non-toxic substance without putting a crack pipe in the mouth of every toddler in America. And we have the ability to stop a truly horrifying process without chaining every woman to a stove while her husband beats the shit out of her, don’t we? Really? Don’t we?”

But that would entail actually using that common sense. And really, it’s just so much easier—and let’s admit it, more fun and profitable—to believe that the Bad Guys are secretly in control, pulling the puppet strings. Just ask that certifiable nutcase and conspiracy theorist Mel Gibson. He actually got a pretty good movie out of believing in Conspiracy Theory.

    

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* Some of the more popular include the Jews, the Freemasons, the Jesuits, the Rosicrucians, the Liberals, the atheists, Bolsheviks, Evangelicals, homosexuals, the Gnomes of Zurich, Al Qaeda, Zionists, the CIA, the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, the Bavarian Illuminati, aliens... there are simply too many to count. And they’re all baloney. Except for the Oil Lobby. Now that’s a REAL conspiracy.