Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 v7 ucbtopaz-1.8; site ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!ucbtopaz!mwm From: mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (Mike (I'll be mellow when I'm dead) Meyer) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Slippery slope nightmares Message-ID: <1019@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> Date: Wed, 17-Jul-85 18:34:12 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbtopaz.1019 Posted: Wed Jul 17 18:34:12 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 18-Jul-85 20:22:19 EDT References: <991@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> <245@ubvax.UUCP> Reply-To: mwm@ucbtopaz.UUCP (Mike (I'll be mellow when I'm dead) Meyer) Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Lines: 39 In article <245@ubvax.UUCP> tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) writes: >Oh sure there's a slippery slope for anyone who wants to pass prescriptive >laws. Maybe their lust for more prescriptive laws (politicians as >capitalists, I guess) will lead to a tightening noose which would >someday equal dictatorship. > >It's never happened (maybe in Switzerland? :-)). Dictatorships are >established not by politicians following slippery slopes, but rather >by coups in times of extreme crisis. Dictators come as saviors, >not as well-meaning limited liberal politicians. The kind of >dictatorship that mike fears has never happened (although again, >Switzerland ... [remember the movie "Bread and Chocolate"?] :-)) Coups at times of extreme crisis? You mean like the election that Hitler won? It isn't the liberal politicians that scare me; it isn't even the socialist in general. It's the kind of power they want to give to the state; even if they hide it in the guise of "will of the majority." >This slippery slope of one law leading to a cascade leading to >dictatorship is a silly nightmare. We should reassure people who >have these nightmares that the world is not so gloomy. It isn't the laws per se. *It's the power.* Once that kind of power is given over to the government, it can be used by anyone who can gain control of the government. >Pragmatic people live on slippery slopes all the time. They just >carve out horizontal niches for themselves and maybe put up some >barriers against avalanches. Maybe you would like to tackle my as yet unanswered challenge, then. Can you describe a system where the government can't pass nearly arbitrary laws, given enough time? [Don't jump at the US constitution; it has been amended three times to pass laws that would have been "unconstitutional" before the amendment.]