2010-01-02
Original: 2010-01-02 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Title banner: DEBATE TIPS: SLIPPERY SLOPE ARGUMENTS USUALLY SLIP BOTH WAYS
Panel 1:
A younger man with reddish-brown hair (anguished expression, speaking): "We can't! If we illegalize gay marriage, all marriage is in danger! Next thing, we'll have to illegalize straight marriage, and then marriage to Jesus!"
An older balding man with gray hair sits across from him, listening with a flat expression.
Votey:
The same younger man (speaking): "If we put the 10 commandments up in public spaces, then we'll have to put up 11, 12, 13! Pretty soon, all building material on earth is used up!"
Panel 1:
A younger man with reddish-brown hair (anguished expression, speaking): "We can't! If we illegalize gay marriage, all marriage is in danger! Next thing, we'll have to illegalize straight marriage, and then marriage to Jesus!"
An older balding man with gray hair sits across from him, listening with a flat expression.
Votey:
The same younger man (speaking): "If we put the 10 commandments up in public spaces, then we'll have to put up 11, 12, 13! Pretty soon, all building material on earth is used up!"
Alt text
A two-panel SMBC comic. A red banner across the top reads: "DEBATE TIPS: SLIPPERY SLOPE ARGUMENTS USUALLY SLIP BOTH WAYS." In the main panel, a distressed younger man with reddish-brown hair talks earnestly to an older balding, gray-haired man who watches with a deadpan expression. The young man says: "We can't! If we illegalize gay marriage, all marriage is in danger! Next thing, we'll have to illegalize straight marriage, and then marriage to Jesus!" The joke is that he is using a slippery-slope argument that absurdly slides in the opposite direction from how such arguments are usually deployed. In the votey (a small follow-up panel drawn in loose black-and-white sketch style), the same young man continues with another inverted slippery slope: "If we put the 10 commandments up in public spaces, then we'll have to put up 11, 12, 13! Pretty soon, all building material on earth is used up!"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.