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From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Censorship in Canada (The Myth of the "Slippery Slope")
Message-ID: <653@kontron.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Mar-86 12:48:20 EST
Article-I.D.: kontron.653
Posted: Wed Mar 26 12:48:20 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Mar-86 09:41:37 EST
References: <1725@decwrl.DEC.COM> <858@alberta.UUCP>
Organization: Kontron Electronics, Mt. View, CA
Lines: 224

>    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.
> 

Countries which are in between the two categories of totalitarian and
democratic: Mexico (one political party controls almost all governmental
bodies, but is otherwise relatively free); South Africa (very oppressive
of political dissent, press censorship, but relatively tolerant of differing
opinions PROVIDED YOU DON'T EXPRESS THOSE BELIEFS TOO LOUDLY).  Actually,
many of the world's countries are intermediate.

>   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?
> 

Democracy and freedom aren't necessarily identical.  A democratic state can
be quite hostile to individual freedom -- consider the antebellum South.

>      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).
> 

Only if the change is rapid; slow liberalization or repressive change is
tolerated because the number of people who remember the old system is small.

>      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 :-).
> 

Unless, of course, all the political choices are in agreement and in opposition
to the will of the people.  (55 mph in the United States).

>   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.
> 

Examples, please, rather than just vague generalities.

>   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.
> 

Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Peron's Argentina?

>   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.
> 

Examples, please.

>   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.
> 

But external causes ARE significant, because democratic states are subject
to external pressures.  Your argument is equivalent to saying, "Water can
never freeze.  (Let's ignore temperature changes.)"

>   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. 
> 

My instincts must be damaged.  I don't consider external threats reason to
become oppressive of my countrymen.

>   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*
> 

Thank for providing so many examples of why "slippery slope" is a real
world problem.

>   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.
>  

A non sequitur.  You say that the erosion of democratic values won't push
a society down the slope.  Then you say a stress situation is required for
the transition.  The two are unconnected.  The law may be an affirmation of
democracy -- that's not anywhere near the same as freedom.

>   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.
> 

That's what revolutions are all about -- the collapse of traditions.

>   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

You've done a more persuasive job than I can of demonstrating that "slippery
slope" is the more realistic model.

Clayton E. Cramer