on a slippery slope

on a slippery slope

In a situation in which some behavior or action will eventually lead to a worse form of the same behavior or action. We've been on a slippery slope of borrowing more money to pay off the debts we already owe. Activists fear that this latest legislation will put us on a slippery slope to stifling free speech.
See also: on, slippery, slope
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • a slippery slope
  • slippery slope
  • slippery slope, a
  • the slippery slope
  • while you are at it
  • take action
  • damned if I do, damned if I don't
  • damned if you do, damned if you don't
  • I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't
  • when in doubt, do nothing
References in periodicals archive
The ABI's Mark Shepherd says: "Without the right cover, consumers could be on a slippery slope to a major financial headache."
"Living on a Slippery Slope." Journal of Ethics 9 (3/4): 475-499.
IT looks very much like Amy Winehouse is on a slippery slope to oblivion, to judge by all the latest photographs of her.
"Firstly, it might revive the 'slippery slope' argument, according to which if you give the Assembly greater powers, you are inevitably on a slippery slope to independence.
"I can understand how you would miss a test but having missed one then you are already on a slippery slope."
At the time, opponents of the technology argued that in vitro fertilization (IVF) would take us on a slippery slope to more dangerous manipulations of human beings, with ever-graver moral implications.
Yet the company was on a slippery slope, with growth in bedliners slowing and competition strengthening.
With the economy on a slippery slope, and many industry workers concerned about their economic future, the fair offered a ray of hope in otherwise uncertain times.
"Barthez's errors may have put him on a slippery slope with Sir Alex Ferguson but he may have handed himself an additional contract."
Watch out, warns George Will: You just might "put us on a slippery slope to the abolition of humanity." What's at stake, Dinesh D'Souza adds in The Virtue of Prosperity, is "the viability of the human race." Will and D'Souza didn't arrive at the same stance by accident.
It is in the area of specificity that we find some advocates of FT dancing on a slippery slope. Allow us to explain.
"Once it becomes socially acceptable to evade taxes, we're on a slippery slope," he said.
If this were to be the case then in my view this would be the first step on a slippery slope for the elderly.