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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Canadian participation in Star Wars.
Message-ID: <5685@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 8-Jun-85 21:21:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5685
Posted: Sat Jun  8 21:21:38 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Jun-85 21:21:38 EDT
References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <5642@utzoo.UUCP> <896@mnetor.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 32

> ...  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 [the nasty consequences of nuclear war.]
>  ...  I also think there would
>  be few people in the soviet union who would be willing to make this
>  trade.   

It all depends on the size of the risk; not all risks are equivalent.
As witness the lack of popular revolt against the current situation (the
anti-nuclear marchers are numerically insignificant against the population
of the nations involved), most people are willing to take a (perceived)
small risk of nuclear war to avoid a (perceived) large risk of Soviet
domination.  This is a reasonable approach, since life inside the Soviet
Union and its satellites is not a lot of fun.  Even people who have never
known anything else sometimes find Soviet life intolerable to the point of
risking the near certainty of harsh punishment for rebellion, as witness
the Novocherkassk [sp?] incident and others.  Avoiding this is worthwhile.

On the other hand, "better dead than red" is a political slogan rather than
something most people really agree with all the way.  Most people, most
of the time, would rather be live cowards than dead heroes -- if those
are *really* the only choices.  Most people don't really think that the
current situation is that simple; they would prefer to face *neither*
Soviet rule nor nuclear war.

As for the temporary nature of Soviet domination, when "temporary" is
defined as centuries, it's permanent as far as most folks are concerned.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry