Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site alberta.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!alberta!ken
From: ken@alberta.UUCP (Ken Hruday)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Censorship in Canada (The Myth of the "Slippery Slope")
Message-ID: <858@alberta.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Mar-86 17:04:18 EST
Article-I.D.: alberta.858
Posted: Fri Mar 21 17:04:18 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Mar-86 08:08:26 EST
References: <1725@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Reply-To: ken@pembina.UUCP (Ken Hruday)
Organization: U. of Alberta, Edmonton, AB
Lines: 189
Summary: *WARNING* this article could change preconcieved beliefs :-)

In article <1725@decwrl.DEC.COM> mahoney@bartok.DEC writes:
>...  I am still against the idea of the law but I am not as hardened
>as I was before.
>
>   Brian Mahoney

   Ok. Brian, you're a born sceptic :-), but I'm going to try one last 
time to convert you.

>   This is what I was trying to show [the danger of censorship] and 
> my point is that to even start allowing the government this power 
> is starting on the road to trouble.

   This comment is indicative of a "model" held by most posters to the
net. I think that underlying your thinking is a conceptual model of how 
democratic governments turn totalitarian. I'm not sure if you formally 
recognize the model that you've based your arguements on but I think it 
exists and I have a coarse understanding of it.
	Pardon me if I take the liberty of dubbing it the "slippery slope" 
model (sorry Clayton :-). See figure 1 below:
___________________________________________________________________________

                                  |             _____________
  \ <---- social anarchy          |             |//////////// <-- democratic
   \                              |             |                   range
    \ <---- "democracy"           |             |
     \                            |             |
      \                           |             |
       \ <---- "totalitarianism"  |  ///////////| <-- totalitarian range
                                  |
  figure 1: "The Slippery slope"  |    figure 2: "The Bistable Model"
___________________________________________________________________________

  In the "slippery slope" model democracy must keep a constant fight to 
keep from slipping down this slope to the pit below. This model would 
predict that *ANY* erosion of rights is a movement to the bottom.

  All through out the discussion that we've been having I have also had
a "model" of this process, although I have never "formalized" it until now. 
I'll call this the "Bistable Model" and it features two essentially stable 
states. This is a rough approximation of what I believe - a more accurate 
model looks something like electron transitions to various energy states in 
an atom. I have not included anarchy in this abbreviated version of my model 
since it is a transitory state and is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

  I shall now try to justify why I believe my model is correct. Not having
a strong background in history my evidence will be somewhat scant (more room
for you to flame :-).

  1) If it were possible to define an absolute scale of democracy, I 
  believe that most countries would cluster about two poles of freedoms. 
  My own "naive" impressions are that this is indeed the case. There are
  no countries that I can think of that have a mixture of totalitarian and
  democratic laws. This constitutes some weak empirical evidence.

  2) A strong arguement can be made for the mutual exclusion of various
  types of laws and systems. Totalitarian laws are incompatible with
  democracy, and democratic freedoms are incompatible with a totalitarian 
  regime. Consider if you will, total freedom of the press in any totalitarian
  country - not too likely is it?

     The gap indicated in diagram 2 could also be considered the point where
  the government ceases to represent the people in favor of some other cause
  or, usually, its own self interest. Thus in a totalitarian system
  the government makes laws which protects the government, in a democratic
  system, laws are made which protect the people. In between the lower
  range and the upper range lies a great gap because these laws are 
  incompatible. Any movement into this range will result in a quick 
  polarization to one end or the other; and under normal circumstances the
  movement is back to the closest pole. The polarizing force is usually
  either public outcry, or government crack down (consider Poland and
  Solidarity for the latter).

  3) Not only are these two states mutually exclusive, they each have their
  own inherent stabilities. These stabilities arise from self interest 
  on behalf of either of the two parties. In a totalitarian state the 
  government serves and protects itself. Any movement towards freedom 
  results in a government "crack down" (again consider Solidarity in 
  Poland). This is done because any and all freedom can threaten a 
  totalitarian government.

     In a democratic system politicians are at the whims of their voters and
  are unlikely to antagonize them unduly. Any extreme measures are usually
  met with public outcry and the politicians standing in the unemployment
  line :-).

  Now, after hypothesizing this I still haven't discussed a mechanism for
the transition between the two states. I don't believe that a society can 
drift too near the edge and drop like a barrel over Niagra Falls. 
I firmly believe that the stability arising from self interest and democratic 
values serves as an "anchor". How then do democracies make the transition? 
  This topic can't adequately be covered by this or any article but I can
make some crucial observations.

  1)  Nearly all the governments that have shifted to a totalitarian state
  have done so violently. There are few if any that simply legislated 
  themselves into existence.

  2)  Very few democratic governments shift into a totalitarian state.
  Nearly all governments that have adopted some form of totalitarianism
  have merely changed their form of dictatorship.

  3)  Of the few democratic governments that have shifted, nearly all the 
  transitions have been imposed externally - few had done so on the basis
  of internal politics and pressures alone.

  4)  Of the very few governments that had changed "spontaneously" there
  was a set of "exceptional" circumstances involved. The only case of this
  spontaneous transition that comes to mind is NAZI Germany. But I have a
  tidy explanation for this below. Evidently, self interest and democratic
  values have a very strong anchoring effect! 

  Now, I have have managed to dichotomize the causes into two classes - 
internal and external. There is no need to consider external causes since 
they are beyond the bounds of the current discussion. So, we now consider 
internal causes but first I must make a mandatory digression.

  There seems to be a strong societal instinct in almost every human being.
This manifests itself most clearly in times of great threat to a society.
In times of war the people "pull together", hardships like rationing are
taken with patriotic pride, laws get very restrictive and civil liberties are
interpreted in light of the current threat to society. This is all done for 
the benefit of the society. I believe that this is instinctual and was 
evolved since it has great survival value for those people who shared a 
common gene pool. 

  This "societal threat response" has been abused, and is continually 
being abused. Recent cases of abuse in Canada include the internment camps
for Japanese Canadians during the second world war. Here, normal civil
liberties were restricted because a threat was perceived from this group, so
their freedom of movement was restricted for the duration of the war. I'm
not sure, but I think that the same thing happened in California. 

  Another example is the McCarthy era. People were whipped up into a frenzy 
about the "Communist threat", the political climate was very chilling and 
the Soviets were doing some pretty nasty things in Europe. The society at 
the time was responding to a perceived threat and the result was effectively 
a suspension of some civil rights without even a question that the government 
was "doing the right thing". (EOD) *end of digression*

  I believe that this was the mechanism by which Hitler was able to secure
a totalitarian grip on his government. First he instilled a strong sense of
group identity (patriotism) - this makes the threat response much greater.
Next he introduced the threat. By accusation and some real economic suffering
(Germany was the hardest hit by the world recession and had many reparations
to make from WWI), a threat was perceived by the society. This enabled Hitler
to centralize the control of power. By starting a war, that threat was given
a basis in reality thus the civil austerity measures were able to be sustained.

  We'll never know if Hilter could have maintained a totalitarian government
in the absence of the threat response, but even during the war some of the 
people in his own government began to realize that the real threat was within
and not external. Today this threat response is used quite handily by many
totalitarian governments. This was the force that helped hold the Iranian
government together shortly after the fall of the Shah. By blaming all their
troubles on the American government, the people banded together even under
the repressive government of the Ayatolah (sp?). Current if it weren't for 
the war with Iraq it is questionable whether they could hold together as a 
society. Numerous other examples could be made but I've belabored the point 
already.

  So, how do I relate this to censorship in Canada? I'm glad you asked 
that :-). It seems to me that the major objections held by most "netters"
is not the intent of the law but the fear that it could open the door to
government abuse and eventual totalitarianism. As you can see from my model,
I don't believe that this could happen. This law is within the normal range
of variation for a democratic society.

  "Isn't this law an erosion of democratic values", you might ask, "won't this
weaken the stability of democracy". A certain amount of deviation within the 
democratic range is harmless and even when this range is pushed to its 
limits, a stress situation is required for the transition. In addition, 
this law is not an erosion of democratic values in the sense that it's 
based on the belief that no minority in the society should be victimized 
by government or by other groups. In this light, the law is an affirmation 
of democratic beliefs *NOT* their erosion.
 
  As an aside, I would like to point out that there are numerous other 
forces that stabilize a political system. These are things like, long 
standing traditions and neighboring countries, economic ties, etc. 
These also help to stabilize the two different types of political systems.

  I would welcome any comments about the above model. As it stands it's
only an approximation, but I believe that we have enough evidence to 
either prove or disprove the predictive value of the bistable model.
I think that it's time we put the "Myth of the Slippery slope" to rest.

                                       Ken Hruday
                                  University of Alberta