Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!seismo!lll-crg!lll-lcc!csustan!smdev From: smdev@csustan.UUCP (Scott Hazen Mueller) Newsgroups: net.politics,net.sci Subject: Re: Population control Message-ID: <153@csustan.UUCP> Date: Tue, 2-Sep-86 15:19:09 EDT Article-I.D.: csustan.153 Posted: Tue Sep 2 15:19:09 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 3-Sep-86 05:36:36 EDT References: <7802159@inmet> <555@gargoyle.UUCP> <144@csustan.UUCP> <765@mtung.UUCP> Reply-To: smdev@csustan.UUCP (Scott Hazen Mueller) Organization: City of Turlock Lines: 68 Xref: watmath net.politics:18877 net.sci:1570 In article <765@mtung.UUCP> slj@mtung.UUCP (S. Luke Jones) writes: % % would rather live under (and fight) a Soviet tyranny than be a cloud of vapor % or some other sort of wartime casualty. >We can infer from the Soviet Agrarian Reform Program in Afghanistan that you >might well end up dead anyway, courtesy a Hind gunship, if you persisted in >resisting the benefits of socialism. From WWII, we can infer that if you >lived to be captured by the Russians you might be killed outright as at Katyn >Forest in Poland or marched across a field to clear it of mines. War is no >Sunday School Picnic. Casualties DO happen. There is a minor difference between Afghanistan or Poland and the U.S. In both cases, the Soviet are/were able to direct military force from within their own borders into an immediate neighbor. A 3000-mile supply line (Okay, 2 miles or so to Alaska :-) and a two-front war against another superpower will mean that the Soviets cannot simply roll over us. I'm not saying that I would survive in this sort of fight, but I would like to at least survive long enough _to_ fight. % I don't like either idea, but I % would rather that we all tightened our belts, even at the cost of some civil % liberties, than that we should loose the Four Horsemen yet again. Liberty % is very important, indeed worth fighting for, but life is more precious yet. >"Some civil liberties"? Do you think the Russians are going to stop after >imposing a curfew and prohibiting free assembly? Ask someone who lived in >Berlin in May, 1945 where the Russians drew the line. For that matter, ask >a "refusenik" in Moscow today. Maybe things aren't quite as obvious today, >because they're done retail now rather than wholesale, but in a society >where you could arbitrarily be denounced for the high crime of monitoring >Helsinki Convention violations and sentenced to 10 years labor in a camp >with a mean life expectancy of six months, life without "some civil >liberties" could be quite short indeed. Agreed. The original point that I was making regarded population control (and social/governmental pressure) with the Soviet question as an analogy. I'm attempting to explain a personal ethical position, and apparently not doing too well. More comments below. % If the human race is to survive, we must not destroy our home; if there are % people who cannot see this, we may have to use coercion. If it comes down % to my life or your liberty, and it very well may do so ... or, if it is your % life or my liberty ... it is not possible to always preserve both, and life % must come first. As long as there is life, there is always the possibility % of liberty. >You seem to be saying, "A burglar is coming over here tonight. If you >don't leave it unlocked, he may damage the door when he kicks it in." >[...] If they'd stay away from my house, they wouldn't have a problem! % Scott Hazen Mueller >Luke Jones No, I'm saying that we are fouling our homeworld. If we wish to have _our_ home remain livable, we are going to have to come up with some sort of com- promise between my desire to have a habitable world and someone else's desire to have children without limit (see the original discussion). As far as your burglar analogy goes, my response is "Get a gun and kill the SOB." If he wants to have _his_ life and _his_ civil liberties, he had better not try to infringe upon _mine_. \scott -- Scott Hazen Mueller lll-crg.arpa!csustan!smdev City of Turlock work: (209) 668-5590 -or- 5628 901 South Walnut Avenue home: (209) 527-1203 Turlock, CA 95380