A little bit late for this weeks Statist celebration, but the Declaration of Independence notes that:

“…[A]ll experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

A long time ago, probably in my highschool freshman year biology class, I heard a story that’s stuck with me for the these last dozen-odd years. It goes something like this:

A frog (maybe it was toad, I dunno), when placed in a pan of water, being then placed upon a hotplate, will ultimately die from being cooked to death. The slow, measured increase in the temperature of the water, although ever increasing, is not enough to cause the frog any worry – and he’ll eventually boil to death, basically without knowing any better.

I’m always reminded of it whenever I’m thinking about slippery slopes, or the nature of change as a long, slow, barely noticeable process over time – and this particular story has always carried a vaguely Hayekian “Serfdom” idea, in my mind. Truth be told, the frog theory is not scientifically accurate:

“As the temperature of the water is gradually increased, the frog will eventually become more and more active in attempts to escape the heated water. If the container size and opening allow the frog to jump out, it will do so…”

Despite its scientific shortcomings, I think it’s a nice little urban legend to illustrate a very important consideration. Even the scientist warns that “The metaphor lies in the frog’s ability to escape from the container: if there’s no way out, then the frog’s fate is a foregone conclusion.”

As libertarians, have we got a way out of the container?