[This month, I'm serializing my 2003 Harvard Law Review article, The Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope.]
Libertarians often tell the parable of the frog. If a frog is dropped into hot water, it supposedly jumps out. But if a frog is put into cold water that is then heated, the frog doesn't notice the gradual temperature change, and eventually dies. Likewise, the theory goes, with liberty: people resist attempts to take rights away outright, but not if the rights are eroded slowly.
