Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!lll-crg!lll-lcc!csustan!smdev From: smdev@csustan.UUCP (Scott Hazen Mueller) Newsgroups: net.sci Subject: Re: Population Control, Nazi Style Message-ID: <159@csustan.UUCP> Date: Mon, 8-Sep-86 14:01:52 EDT Article-I.D.: csustan.159 Posted: Mon Sep 8 14:01:52 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 9-Sep-86 19:26:05 EDT References: <26500056@inmet> <26500064@inmet> Reply-To: smdev@csustan.UUCP (Scott Hazen Mueller) Organization: City of Turlock Lines: 89 [I'm in brackets, Jan Wasilewsky is at the margin, with no >'s] >[smdev@csustan.UUCP ] >In article <> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >>[Jan Wasilewsky] >>>(4) If (1), (2) and (3) were wrong, it would be better to have >>>famine, disease and war reduce population, than to submit to >>>government tyranny. Losing freedom is losing everything, and a >>>government that does not stop at one's skin, will stop nowhere. >> >>I doubt that Sakharov, Jefferson, Spinoza, Epictetus, or Socrates >>would agree that losing political freedom is losing everything, the >>*summum malum*. Nor do I think that most people living today in >>countries you consider unfree would agree. Would you assert that a >>nuclear war that wiped out the human race is preferable to tyranny? >>In my opinion that would be a monstrous assertion. >>[ janw: my answer was: of course not] >I find Wasilewsky's assertion so very ridiculous that I must insert my own >two cents here. To take a case that has been debated in American politics >for the past few decades, would you rather be dead, or "Red"? For myself, I What has that to do with anything? [The relevance is that you originally stated that "losing freedom is losing everything." Life under any tyranny is by definition without freedom.] >would rather live under (and fight) a Soviet tyranny than be a cloud of vapor >or some other sort of wartime casualty. You cannot mean it. If you would not fight - with far greater odds - *before* you come under the Soviet tyranny, you will cer- tainly not fight *after*. In the first situation, becoming a casualty is a risk, and willingness to take that risk makes it small (by deterring the enemy); in the second, becomimg a casual- ty is a certainty, while your will to fight has been sapped by all kinds of brainwashing, conditioning, and gradual accomoda- tion. [Agreed. MAD makes it impossible for me to agree to fight _now_.] In any case, this has nothing to do with the issue. My point was that by accepting tyranny of an absolute state you forfeit your ability to reject *other* evils it inflicts on you - including famine, war and pestilence - so that the choice is spurious: you get what you bargained for plus what you tried to avoid. If you sell yourself into slavery, who'll collect? >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 pre- >cious yet. 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. Who offered to destroy your home? Who the hell are you raving against? I saw attacks against strawmen on the net, but seldom so excited attacks against such fuzzy strawmen. I cannot even dis- cern through your fumes the position of your imaginary op- ponent... [Apparently you lost track of the original point of this discussion. Sorry. When I came in, we were discussing whether it was "right" (I don't like that word) to allow the/a government to use force to impose limitations on population growth. From the data that I have seen, I can draw no conclusion but that the earth ("my home") is in danger of being stifled in humanity. The resource base that is currently available (yes, it may grow; I certainly hope that it does, but the track record to date (since 20 July 1969) is that it has not) to the human race is limited. The human population is the denominator of an equation whose numerator is fixed; the resulting ratio, the resource quota per person, can only get smaller. I'm selfish; I don't want to share...however, I suppose the position that I'm more comfortable taking is the cautionary one: if we don't expand our resource base, we'll have to stabilize our population.] Unindented: Jan Wasilewsky [\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