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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watcgl!jchapman
From: jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Canadian participation in Star Wars.
Message-ID: <1991@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Jun-85 10:34:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.1991
Posted: Fri Jun  7 10:34:32 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Jun-85 01:58:07 EDT
References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <5642@utzoo.UUCP> <896@mnetor.UUCP> <5669@utzoo.UUCP>, <945@mnetor.UUCP> <5677@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 53

> > 	Furthermore, even if lost, how long do nations last on this earth,
> > anyway? A few centuries? In the larger scheme of things, it is not
> > worth risking the death of the human,(and many other), species
> > for a temporary political victory.
> 
> Clearly, then, we should not risk the planet over our current disagreements
> with the Soviets, and we should surrender to them right now...  It should be
> obvious that I don't agree with this philosophy.  There are things that
> are worth risks; freedom is one of them.  How *big* a risk... now that's
> a hard question.
> -- 
> 				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
> 				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry

 I'm glad someone finally brought this up.  Do the majority of people
 in, say, North America really have a "better dead than red" attitude?
 Personally I think most people would rather risk soviet domination
 (which, as the original message points out, would necessarily be of
  a temporary nature) than risk seeing/having their children and
 grandchildren (friends, lovers, etc. etc) roasted alive, dying of
 radiation poisoning, starving to death in the aftermath, or simply
 left alive and wandering in the aftermath.  I also think there would
 be few people in the soviet union who would be willing to make this
 trade.   
 
 Even if the people on both sides did sincerely have this "better dead..."
 attitude they certainly don't have the right to take the rest of
 world with them, which a nuclear exchange would certainly do.

 Two problems I have with the arms race and immediate participants:
 
 1. the people in charge are old and personally I think this makes
    them a lot more likely to die.  ronnie reagan probably doesn't
     have nearly as much desire to keep living as I do; he's going
     to go soon anyhow.
 
 2. the people who on both sides who would be the ones to start an exchange
     will be the ones most likely to survive it.  It is the civilians who
     will suffer the big losses.  Politicians & generals will have a
     *much* better chance of surviving.  I read an interview with
     the director/head (can't remember the exact title) of emergency
     planning (canada) once.  He had just described how the leaders
     of government, industry and the military would be in deep
     underground bunkers and would come out after an exchange to
     help restore society.  When asked how this would be done since
     everyone not in a shelter would be dead the answer was along
     the lines of "well we think lots of people will survive in
     remote areas so we'll just send the army out to put them into
     (forced) labour camps until things get straightened out".
     So the very people who will destroy society will come out
     on top (relatively) again.