The Empty Soda Can

In 1991, Coca-Cola offered a series of eight New Music Sampler s, each in a different genre (although there were two volumes of Pop), each one free with (IIRC) four proofs of purchase. I got five of them and actually wound up buying a single CD—and later, two others by the same group—based on a couple of songs I really liked. Twenty-two years later, I’m several years into the process of upgrading all my cassettes and can’t bring myself to just completely ditch a single one. If I own a song, I want to continue to own it. To this end, I’ve now bought almost 20 CDs for $1 or less on used music sites. I don’t think that’s quite what the record companies intended, but I guess it’s something!

Earlier today, I responded to a question by a Facebook acquaintance. As others have thought my response to be of worth, I have decided to place it here as well. The acquaintance in question—who, for what it’s worth, is the one who began the conversation—stated that my arguments regarding marriage vs. garriage boil down to a question of semantics. He further stated that arguments regarding the results of redefining the word “marriage” amount to a  slippery slope  argument, an informal logical fallacy. In response to both of these assertions, my response—which has remained unchallenged for eight hours (or in Internet debate time, approximately 562 years)—is as follows. Hopefully it will help someone in need. Enjoy! Daniel, you’re right that marriage vs. garriage is a question of semantics, and you’re right that it’s a slippery slope—which, while technically an informal fallacy (as you rightly pointed out), is also well precedented in reality. Whenever a law...